NEW REC709 Picture Profile (Oct 2017)

[Paul Cronin]

Not sure what type of noise but it is pretty bad. I keep wondering if my camera is not right since the new firmware upgrade I did in the Fall.

I can post a couple of clips tomorrow, gone for the night now.

[Paul Anderegg]

I stopped playing with the COLOR DEPTH settings...you can get excessive and horrible noise if these are messed with...mine are all set to 0 now. By horrible, I mean looks like paint bubbled off color with a blowtorch.

Paul

[Paul Cronin]

Paul, I agree on the color depth, I have not changed those and rarely ever have on a camera.

I think it might be the detail setting. You have it at 0 and other profiles I use have it at -5 to -7. I will take a few clips with everything else the same and try to confirm this could be the problem.

When I take these clips they are handheld with some purposeful camera movement, stabilization off, on, active during the clip. To me this is brings out the problem in the Z150 in UHD 8-bit, 420. I guess I could also check it in HD since 10-bit 422 is so much better. But I have used UHD on the Z150 for a year with decent results, but most of it has been locked down which is so much easier on the codec.

Will give this a look now and see what I find and post a clip or two if you are interested?

[Paul Anderegg]

Yeah, not really specifically recommending the entire PP, but more the color correction settings, detail, knee, black gamma etc, are all settings that will not affect colors. I shoot 720p news, so my detail settings need to be a little more robust for broadcast.

Paul

[Paul Cronin]

OK, a few more tries all inside since it is whiteout outside.

Detail makes a small difference but not enough to be concerned. What I have found is the codec at 8-bit 420 is a problem. I am stressing it with these test and doing a 10-bit 422 1080 proved my point.

Since most of my shooting over the last few years has been F55, then FS7, I have been use to the 10-bit 422 with higher bit rates. No worry, the Z150 is a great little camera and I will keep matching it to the FS7 and now adding a GH5.

So Paul your PP is fine, sorry for the confusion, but nice to know.

Will post a clip to show todays few short test.

[Paul Cronin]

As suspected the compression removed most of the noise. But I still have four clips where two show the problem in UHD, one worse then the other, which I think is PP since everything else is the same.

I am only seeing the problem in UHD. This is not a scientific test, just me trying to reproduce real-world problem I had on the last job, where the Z150 was not locked down as usual, and a crew member used the camera handheld as I shot with a different cam.

Still very happy about this purchase 12 months ago, and will be bringing it on all jobs again this year. Now a Z150 cam with 10bit, 422, 400Mbps I am in.

Link to clips

Z150 stress test UHD & 1080 on Vimeo

[Paul Anderegg]

In UHD, detail level of 0 is still pretty sharpened up...anything over 0 and you will start seeing lots of artifacts on a UHD TV monitor. Don't forget there is a crispenning menu function which will control the luminance level that detail is applied to, so that you can avoid dark and grainy shadows and dark areas from having sharpening applied to video noise.

Paul

[Paul Cronin]

Thanks Paul,

I agree even with 1080 detail at 0 is still high. The clips with less problems has the detail at -7. And I think that is a bit soft so I am finding -4 is my best option.

[Paul Anderegg]

I think all the HLG and Slog option in my factory default Z90 PP's are set to -7 out of the box! Assuming they expect people to be shooting UHD with these.

Paul

[Paul Cronin]

Paul, that makes perfect sense to have it at -7 in SLOG. How is the SLOG at 8-bit? The 1" sensor on my drone with DLOG is not worth it.

[Paul Anderegg]

I shoot night ENG, so my Z90 will never see the illumination levels necessary to even be able to test Slog. I shot an HLG clip in 4K, but there is nothing I can do with that in FCPX, so I will continue to live in REC709 land.

Paul

[Paul Cronin]

Makes perfect sense for your work. Nice to have tools with options for each of us.

The Z150 works for me in UHD, since I need the option to adjust the frame since it is locked down and unattended. Although some handheld shots have been nice, with active making it so easy to be steady.

[Paul Anderegg]

Bump :-)

New additional recommendation. In Manual Detail settings, change Type 3 to Type 1. This reduces the thickness of black and white edging applied to the detail circuit, not to be confused with the master detail level, which adjusts the areas that the white and black edging is applied to.

Paul