HPX500 Image Glitch?
 

I have had the hpx500 for about two months now and on a few occasions I have had some strange things show up on the clips. Here is an example:

Untitled Document

Please take a look and tell me what you think it is. Is it an in-camera flaw or is it something else. I have ruled out that it is an reflection.

William

At first I thought it was just a white-fly or bug flying around but clearly it's too localized.

I've not seen anything like this that wasn't external to the camera. If you have more footage of this occuring I'd take it and the camera to a Panny service center and get some answers.

F350 With same issue
 

Hi William - This is very similar to something that happened with our Sony F350 (clip will have been removed by now).

We had just purchased the camera and were doing tests in the studio, when what looked like a little "Orb" of light danced around the picture and then shot off into the left hand corner - this was recorded to XDCAM HD disc.

I contacted Sony (Silver Support) and they told me that they had just had a camera in for repair that showed this same issue. However, under laboratory testing conditions they could find nothing wrong with that camera.

As our F350 was new they offered to replace it. I decided to do some further lengthy tests and could not get it do this again, so I kept a hold of the camera. Interestingly, just recently I noticed it did it again, although it is hardly noticeable on the particular clip.

There have been plenty suggestions about flair, chromatic aberrations, dust in the air and other such suggestions, but it is certainly not that simple. At that point in time, (end of last year) our Sony tech support can't really say what it is.

I would definitely flag this up to Panasonic and If you are finding it is happening on a relatively regular basis I would ask for another camera. Nothing worse than having gone to all the time/expense of that set up on your clip, to then have an "orb" of light dance all over it.

Hope you get it sorted, and I would be interested to see what Panasonic tech's make of this phenomenon.

Kind regards, Stu
www.studioscotland.com

Looks like light reflecting off a hair or something.

Now that seems like the most logical possibility yet.

William, have you looked closely at the inside of the lens mount on the camera to make sure you don't have any foreign objects floating around the mount and the protective glass?

Get a flashlight - and a film-loupe or other magnifying glass - and even look *behind* that square-ish protective glass on the lens mount. Although unlikely it's quite possible that something got inside behind this protector during manufacturing and is moving around.

If you don't find anything visible in our outside the mount definitely take it in for service and let us know the result.

Hi William:

That is one of the strangest distortions I have ever seen. It is especially strange since in the second shot, the camera is locked off. There looked to be no wind and the camera looks pretty steady. It almost looks like someone behind the camera had a laser pointer and was randomly waving it around but the aberration is white, not orange or red like a laser pointer would be.

We need some deductive reasoning to figure this out...

1. Have you ever noticed this effect on an interior shot?

2. Have you ever changed out the lens on your HPX and noticed this effect with a lens other than your own?

3. How often have you noticed this distortion?

4. Is your camera under warranty?

5. Does the HPX have any kind of OIS system like the HVX does? If so, was it on or off?

I would send this clip to the HPX-500 product manager and see what they say. Not sure if the manager for the HPX is Jan Crtittenden or someone else but you could ask Jan and she could either take a look or send you to the correct party.

Let us know the answers to the above questions, we can narrow it down to what ISN'T causing it and that will put you far ahead in thinking of what is causing it.

Best,

Dan Brockett

HPX500 Glitch??
 

Thanks to everyone who contributed their comments. Sorry it has taken me this long to respond. We are doing some additional tests to repeat this anomaly. We were able to repeat it to a degree, but I can’t tell if our test is conclusive.

What I can say is that there seems to be a lens flare that ricochets between the front element of the lens (Fujinon XA17x7.6BERM 17x 2/3 HD Lens) and the standard UV filter we use to protect the front lens element. We removed the UV filter and it seems to solve the problem even thought the flare didn’t really look like the one from our previous clip. Also, the flare that we were able to create didn’t have the motion (dancing in the frame) that our anomaly had. Bear in mind our re-creation test was on a tripod and our anomaly occurred while the camera was on a locked off 30’ jib. When to sun hits the UV filter “just right” coupled with these elements:

Shooting at full wide angle
Shooting 1080/30p
Fujinon Lens is a really sharp lens
Shooting is bright sunlight (no French flag) at 45 degrees from the sun

To respond to the previous posts:

~At first thought we thought it was a spider web or hair. My experience with this Fujinon lens is that is shows everything-even smudges on the UV Lens. I have several digital stills (3456x2304) of the camera with a good angle on the front lens element. We blew the pictures up in Photo Shop but could not see hair or a spider web on or around the lens. These pictures were taken before and after the takes that we posted on my website. I think the spider web is a plausible theory. There were a little wind that day. So a web catching the sun light is my best guess.

Robert Lane- I did visually check to see if there was anything floating around between the protective glass and the lens. Nothing is there. I will have to check to see if anything got behind the mount. I was very careful to check that prior to mounting the lens in the first place.

Dan Brockett—I have never noticed the anomaly before in interior or exterior shots. I can exchange lens with a Cannon Lens from my Sony DSR300 camera. Have not got there yet.
Yes the camera is under warranty. It is only 2 months old and is under Panasonic 5 year warranty.
You wrote: . “Does the HPX have any kind of OIS system like the HVX does? If so, was it on or off?”

I am not sure what OIS stand for. Please enlighten.

I will post clips from our test soon so that you can see for yourself.

Thanks
William

This is quite a mystery!

It is moving too fast to be a lens element or reflection.

At one point, I noticed a second orb shoot horizontally across the frame.

I would guess it has to do with the electronics of the camera like the sensor ect...

But that is really a guess.

I hope you can find out the problem and I am interested in knowing as well.

If you change the lens and still see it, you have eliminated a variable (the lens). Then you know that its the body that has the issue. If you change the lens and you don't see it, you may have found that at least you know that your lens and not the camera body may be causing it.

OIS=Optical Image Stabilization. The fact that you don't know what this stands for means that the HPX probably doesn't have this feature like the HVX-200 does. I didn't think that a camera with a removable lens would have it but I wasn't sure.

I would definitely contact someone at Pansonic to take a look at this.

D

Here is the side by side comparison of the anomaly (left) and the re-created test (right). Notice when I remove the UV filter, the “reflective” spot disappears. Also notice, even though I have cleaned the filter prior to this test, you still can see that the filter wasn’t entirely spot free. As the test progresses, notice I tried to shake the filter (as though it may have been lose and vibrating like the orb on the left) trying to get the dancing image. I am not really sold that this is the problem. I will forward this to Panasonic to get their take on it.

This is the first time I have had this happen as of yet. It is in the first 5 takes but not in the other takes or setups from the rest of the shoot.

Tim Polster- The second “ord” shooting across the frame horizontally about 5-10 second in is actually a butterfly.

Dan Brocket—Thanks for the enlightening me on the OIS. And no, this came doesn’t use Optical Image Stabilization.

I will keep everyone posted. Thanks for your feedback.

William

This is a reflection
 

It is a reflection. It may be a filter reflection, but it is a reflection. In the video where it disappears when the filter is unscrewed confirms it for me. A matte box with well placed french flag or eyebrows could totally resolve this.

Best,

Jan

Just for conversation, how could a reflection move that fast and so erratically with such little lens or camera movement?

Tim, in the first video, the camera is mounted on a 30' moving jib. Just the slightest vibration of the camera will cause the dancing reflection you saw. In fact, when it was on the child's neck, I was guessing there was something shiny on the jib being reflected into the shot.

The second video reveals that there is reflection with the filter in place, and gone without it. Also, when they shade the lens by hand in the second video, the object disappears.

I would advise putting the lens in macro and pointing it at a medium intensity solid color subject while rotating the macro. Any specs on the front lens element will show up clearly. I have seen stuff with this method that I couldn't see by looking at the front of the lens with the naked eye.

The main thing, as was mentioned, for the outdoor stuff is to use a French flag and/or remove the filter. The second clip shows the immediate benefit of doing so.

-gb-