I put an inexpensive Maxell tape in my brand new GL2 and shot a little video of my brother in laws band as they performed at a BBQ lunch last Saturday. Just playing around, my very first footage. I shot some on program and some on the little green square. Turned on the ND when the camera asked me to and nothing else.

When I played it back there is a lot of posterization in the shadow areas on faces in cloth and all shadow areas. The blue jeans look very bad. I was distressed and disappointed. Today I shot my assistant (I'm a commercial still photog) in jeans and full sun with some Panasonic Linear Plus tape. The posterization is not as bad but still very much there. It is not subtle.

I then shot her with an old Sony Hi8 TRV103. While the overall color and sharpness of the Sony was inferior there was no apparent posterization or weirdness at all in the shadows. The tones and all gradations were perfectly smooth. Is this as good as it gets with the GL2 or is there a problem with my camera? I live 100 miles from Atlanta and so I am probably 100 miles from another GL2 to compare mine with. I know the best solution in to show the tape to someone who “knows” but in the mean time what do ya’ll think.

Very Best,

Ken

It's difficult to provide anything other than a guess without seeing the footage in question. It is important to remember that tape will not affect image quality in a digital format. Basically a 1 is a 1 and a 0 is a 0 no matter what brand of tape. The posterization could be caused by extremes in contrast beyond what video can handle. Film has a much greater contrast range than video. Mini Dv is also a compressed format. The extreme contrast range may cause posterization in the shadows when compressed. If you can post some screen shots, maybe I can provide a little more information and possible ways to minimize the posterization (or at least a better guess).

Jeff

Ken

I've been working with the Gl2 for awhile now, and have seen nothing even remotely like posterization in any image (in any lighting situation). Before we all suggest you take it back to the dealer, one possibility: Do you somehow have the ART digital effect turned on? This will give you a very posterized look as you described. To check, Make sure your displays are turned on (button inside the LCD compartment), if its on, you would see ART in the lower left side of the screen. If not...try scrolling through the digital effects to see if you can get it to change.

Also try scrolling through the white balance options by pushing the select button on the left side of the camera...I've seen some digital still camera's produce posterization when they aren't white balancing properly.

Barry

Jeff/Barry,

Thanks for your help. I've got to shoot a Doctor for an ad and a antique store for a magazine in the morning. After that I'll grab a few frames, throw up a web page and post the url here in this thread. I'll check out everythig one more time and do a fresh shoot to go along along with the BBQ shots. I really appreciate your help. I have two clients ready to roll on small projects and I need to get this sorted out.

BEST!

Ken

I would read everything on this site about exposure and follow the links to Beale's and Adam Wilt's sites.

First off, tape is not likely to be your problem as long as you are not confusing posterization with mosiacing. The latter can be a tape problem.

Almost the worse thing you can do is shoot in "green box" auto. I have never had anything look great in that mode on my XL-1, though it did look better than most camcorders!

On interior shots some of your problems may be related to the color temp of the lighting. As you know fluorescent lighting can play havoc on camera systems.

Another thing to learn to use are the gain settings. Sometimes a small adjustment here can make a big difference.

Hope this helps....

I took a look at the art effect. What I'm getting is exactly the same thing but at about 15-20% as strong. It’s not always apparent, seems to come and go. I haven't been able to reproduce it as bad as in the BBQ tape but I am spooked. It is not strong enough to see in the finder reliably and I'd hate to have it happen on a real job. I showed the footage to my dealer yesterday afternoon. He is going to talk to the rep today and I'll send Canon a couple of screen grabs. If they want to see the tape and the camera I'll have to send it off. I really want a new camera but I hope I can keep this one until another one arrives so I can continue to get acquainted with the operation. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Best!

Ken