Low light and low noise, an opportunity for postprocessing? at DVinfo.net

Ignacio Rodriguez · September 12th, 2003, 05:52 PM

I suppose that thanks to the oversampling CCDs and the hi-bit digital processing, this camera is not very noisy. Surely I find the visible noise very low, of course I'm comparing with my old PC3 which is about as bad as MiniDV can get. My guess is that turning up the luma, adding slight video echo, interpolative deinterlacing and other tricks in post with a camera like the PDX10 might yield a much cleaner picture than with cameras with native resolution and 12 or 8 bit processing. Just guessing though.

Has anybody tried this kind of thing? If low light performance is bad but noise is low perhaps post processing can leverage the camera's low noise and you can end up with a comparable image to the GL2 or similar cams.

Boyd Ostroff · September 12th, 2003, 06:50 PM

I posted about this to another thread the other day, unfortunately it was in the PD-150 forum so you may have missed it. I guess you have to define your expectations when you say "low light". Shooting outside with a bright moon the images have an interesting look, but there's a lot of noise in the dark areas when you boost them. Using FCP's color correction filter can make this even worse. I've found that applying some softening with "Joe's diffusion filter" helps blend the noise a bit.

Here's the other posting which includes links to example stills.

September 12th, 2003, 05:52 PM	#1
Ignacio Rodriguez Contributor Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Santiago, Chile Posts: 932	Low light and low noise, an opportunity for postprocessing? I suppose that thanks to the oversampling CCDs and the hi-bit digital processing, this camera is not very noisy. Surely I find the visible noise very low, of course I'm comparing with my old PC3 which is about as bad as MiniDV can get. My guess is that turning up the luma, adding slight video echo, interpolative deinterlacing and other tricks in post with a camera like the PDX10 might yield a much cleaner picture than with cameras with native resolution and 12 or 8 bit processing. Just guessing though. Has anybody tried this kind of thing? If low light performance is bad but noise is low perhaps post processing can leverage the camera's low noise and you can end up with a comparable image to the GL2 or similar cams. __________________ Ignacio Rodríguez in the third world. @micronauta on Twitter. Main hardware: brain, eyes, hands.

September 12th, 2003, 06:50 PM	#2
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	I posted about this to another thread the other day, unfortunately it was in the PD-150 forum so you may have missed it. I guess you have to define your expectations when you say "low light". Shooting outside with a bright moon the images have an interesting look, but there's a lot of noise in the dark areas when you boost them. Using FCP's color correction filter can make this even worse. I've found that applying some softening with "Joe's diffusion filter" helps blend the noise a bit. Here's the other posting which includes links to example stills.