green goo in luma transitions
 

Strange manifestation which you can see in the link to the jpg (for some reason it would not allow me to 'manage attachments' here, so it's on my ftp.) PLEASE notice the green goo in the upper left screen between the black pillar and the whitish ceiling. At 1st I thought this might be a manifestation of my lcd (Panasonic LH1700WS) monitor, but it's definitely there.

http://www.rocketscientism.com/XDCAM/

It's the only file in there.

What I'd 1st like to determine is if this is a camera or lens manifestation -- thanks in advance for your insights.

Shot on a F350 w/ Fujinon HSs18x55BRD pretty much full wide at 0dB gain / f2.8 / cine3 / black stretch 18 / sharpness -20. For kicks, I placed a Sony Z1U next to the F350 - and it's completely clean. It was pretty low lightish, but I also saw green edging on the the top of the floor lamp when it was NOT in focus

there's red goo too!
 

Just had a few minutes to do a little more investigation. If completely zoomed in on a relatively horizontal subject w/ white-to-black transition (eg. as the black pillar intersects the whitish ceiling per the jpg in 1st post), there is quite a show as you focus; as focus moves from in front of subject to focus on subject, there is the green glow rim as evident in the jpg that disappears when completely focussed. As focus travels beyond subject, this glow rim starts again, in red.

Is this the dreaded chroma aberration manifesting its ugly red/green rimming? It's really quite bad, if indeed it's the lens! Appreciate your feedback on this.

Keith

looks like CA to me, although it dosn't look like it's in focus which won't be helping. Almost all lenses will show some CA, even top end $30k lenses will exhibit some CA. Changes in focus will make it more obvious as the light paths for the 3 CCDs are all slightly different lengths, this is normal.

more detail
 

Thanks for the response, Alister. Sorry if the 2nd clarifying post was not clear -- when in focus, the red/green rimming dissappears. When subject is out of focus w/ focus closer to camera, there is a green rim, diminishing as focus sharpens. When out of focus further beyond intended subject, the rimming is red, increasing as focus moves further way from subject.

I would still greatly appreciate hearing from others to help determine if this is a lens or camera issue.

Keith

White shading the lens supposedly takes care of this, yes Greg?

That's exactly right, Nate. I had the very same issue that Keith is describing when I got my replacement lens.

I had to do a thorough white shading adjustment and it's very clean now. Only certain lens setting/key light position conditions will bring out the nasty blue CA and even then only in the outer parts of the image. The center is razor sharp.

-gb-

Cool, Greg - what does a thorough white shading adjustment entail? There is nothing about this in the Fujinon manual, or the XDCAM HD manual for that matter. Can I do that? Thanks again.

Keith

It requires an advanced level of skill and that's why it's not covered in the owner's manuals. What lens do you have and have you done the camera firmware update?

We may be able to get it resolved without advanced procedures.

-gb-

Thanks, Greg. The lens is the HSs18x5.5BRD (all the specs are listed in my initial posting above). And yes, I've done the upgrade -- after seeing this manifestation, w/ the wild hope it might've helped.

Keith

White shading won't get rid of this as it changes with focus. It is an effect caused by the way the the paths different wavelengths of light shift as the as the focal point changes. Shading compensates for variations in the amount of light at different frequencies thru the lens, not shifts in position.

Still do not know what white shading is, but as you observed, Alister, it is completely dependent on focus. Just rec'd a call from Eddy Lee/Fujinon, who mentioned someone in TX (Greg?) who had the same problem. Mr. Lee thinks this is something caused by the camera, although he began by stating that this is normal for a 1/2" lens. Believe me, this is NOT normal. If the green/red luminance area was NOT the center of focus, but elsewhere, one would still clearly see this in frame, and it is totally unacceptable.

Appreciate your continued insights.

Keith

The focal change is causing the condition to invert as focal length is changed. The fact that it manifests as magenta/green is indicative of white shading.

Before I did my correction mentioned above, I could focus on a metal trim strip on the bottom of my microwave oven door and depending on where I moved the focal point, the green was on top/magenta on bottom or just the opposite on the other side of the critical focus point. At critical focus, the effect was minimized but becomes readily apparent when aiming at a properly lit white target.

I promise you I saw the same thing as Keith, made my corrections in the service menu, and eliminated the effect. I did my correction at the middle of the zoom range because as you know, a zoom lens is all about compromise. If you make things too optimal at one end, they can be really whacked at the other end. This is the same approach I used when I would tune my ham radio antennas for a given band of frequencies. The antenna has a single resonant frequency based on it's physical properties. By resonating it in the center of the band, you accept that it will be less than optimal at the far ends, but not so far out as to be unusable.

-gb-

You seem to recognize the problem, Greg, and from the sound of it, it's the camera? More importantly, how can I fix this?!? I'd gladly call you if that's a possibility -- you can contact me off-list if you wish at keith 'at' sector550'dot' com.

TIA,

Keith

Geeez...no one can actually help me? I did a search for 'white shading', and found Greg's brief description from a couple of weeks ago, indicating calibrating the VMOD and R/G/B/ flare settings. Great! Or so I thought...my two waveform/vectorscopes are both TEK WFM300As, which allow for composite/component waveform display -- but only component analog SD vectorscope. I have no HD-SDI to YUV SD converter, so stuck again (unable to tweak here in house as per Greg's suggestions.)

If someone who has actually seen the problem (as described in the 1st two postings to this topic) could indicate of they approached SONY or FUJINON for help, this would at least help me take a course of action to get this fixed. As I wrote above, the Fujinon lens tech feels this is a Sony issue. Thanks again.

Sorry Keith, I somehow missed your earlier post where you answered my question. Ok, make sure you enable the serial communcation on the lens as explained on another thread in this forum. Go into the Lens File menu and turn on Lens Auto Recall. When you power up the camera, the camera will recall the offsets that match that lens file id. I was informed that there are manufacturer supplied lens corrections for popular lenses implemented in the firmware. Try this first and see if the situation improves. Beyond that, there is a procedure that can be done but it's not a user level function.

-gb-

From previous post from Keith:

"Thanks, Greg. The lens is the HSs18x5.5BRD (all the specs are listed in my initial posting above). And yes, I've done the upgrade -- after seeing this manifestation, w/ the wild hope it might've helped.

Keith"

Matthew, you were too fast. I was looking back at the thread after I wrote that and amended my posting. ;-)

-gb-

Greg -- I posted my 'geeez' post before seeing your reply which also landed earlier in the postings about your microwave metal experience and confirming use of VMOD etc. on the VScope. Thaks for this -- I will see to borrow a composite vectorscope next week and perform this if needed after a 'successful' Lens Auto Recall [read on...]

After reading your next post, I tried the 'lens auto recall'. Makes sense for such a smart lens! But somehow I missed running across the need for this to date, so definitely worth a shot. Unfortunately -- if I performed correctly [just turned Lens Auto Recall to On and power cycled the camera), it did not help the green/red, but did something weird -- knocked out the ability to use menu dial for iris add/subtract, and DCC went bye-bye. I am going to reinstall the firmware, start afresh and see what happens. Appreciate any insights here too! And thanks everyone, especially Greg for what might ultimately remedy this.

Keith

That's because I just this week was informed that there are lens file parameters in the firmware. It had appeared before now that by enabling serial comm, you only gained the ability to make your own lens file and store it with a name identical to your identified lens. Then turn auto recall on to have the camera reload YOUR file at power up.

If you have one of the Cinegamma modes turned on in the new firmware, all KNEE functions are disabled which, by extension will also disable DCC. Not sure about the loss of IRIS OVERRIDE. Go back and turn Lens Auto Recall OFF for now. Make sure the lens serial comm is properly working. If it's on, you should be able to go into the Display menu and turn on FOCUS which will then display your zoom and focus readouts on the upper right side. Once you establish that this is working, then go back and turn Lens Auto Recall ON.

-gb-

I'm just very curious about this...I'm getting strange resolution loss, curved focal plane and color aberations on the edges of the frame on my Fuji. The Fuji people said it was the camera.

Got the serial comm to work -- thanks for the link to the .pdf instructions, Greg, I enjoy the extra VF info. All other functions have returned (after reloading firmware.) Of course this didn't (couldn't) help the CA green/red, but I look forward to the VMOD & RGB Flare adjustments sometime early next week when I can get hold of a composite vectorscope, and will report back.

Will also try to sort out the Fujinon v. Sony responsibility issues on this (this lens is MADE for this camera, after all!...so why should you have to tweak for the lens in-camera), and hopefully resolve this problem. Also like that w/ the serial comm handshake you can save these tweaks under this specific lens file.

Thanks again for all the help & info.


Keith

Monday's update
 

The drama continues...called Sony tech support this am, who confirmed that, IF there was an issue w/ the camera that could be resolved in the field, it would be by performing the VMOD and R/G/B/ flare adjustments as posted earlier by Greg. I was able to go out to local Sony vendor and perform said adjustments. The VMOD was pretty whack -- +26 is where it wanted to reside -- but the R/G/B/ flare was almost spot on -- R+G remained 0, and B was between 0 and +1. Cool...not! It helped a slight bit, but very little. Fortunately, said dealer had another Fujinon in house (their cameras were sold last week) -- the XS17x5.5RD -- which I stuck on front, and...and...the problem was worse.

So now I'm getting somewhere -- it would appear that the problem is in the camera head itself. So tomorrow down she goes to Sony LA for repair. I will absolutely report back when she returns, and let you know what the problem was. Thanks again, everyone, (especially Greg!) and stay tuned.

Keith

Don't worry Keith, there are additional adjustments in the service level menus that should bring your camera/lens combo in line. Definitely let us know what Sony repair finds out.

-gb-

Update: Sony Round 1
 

Heard back from Sony today (eight days after arriving there.) Since one does not actually get to speak to a tech, the message relayed by the very junior admin was that the F350 was at factory specs (I've dealt w/ this observation from Sony before on a deck, and ultimately got the problem fixed), and they could find nothing wrong w/ it. Ha! As mentioned, I had an opportunity to go to a local Sony vendor, test my lens and another Fujinon 1/2" lens on my camera, which manifested this problem as well, leading us all to conclude there's something wrong w/ the camera.

So I am protesting, and am having my vendor huff & puff at Sony tech. Again, this problem makes the camera unusable in many situations, and there is definitely something wrong. Will keep you posted.

Keith

Just hang tight and don't give up. I think they'll take care of you. I've had good luck in my dealings with them on a warranty issue last summer.

-gb-