C100 very noisy

[Andy Solaini]

Originally Posted by Ben Giles

Hi Andy.

What advantages do you see the C300 bringing?

Ben.

Do you mean compared to the XF300 Ben? I would say better low light images, slightly better over all picture quality (but I'm not 100% sure on this one), creative DOF possibilities. My hesitation is that nearly £11K is a lot to spend for the extra it gives over the XF300. Diminishing returns I guess.

[Jeffrey Butler]

Here's a clip from a night after a rain at ISO 80k and I think Wide DG. I was trying to film the fireflies...that really didn't work out, but I was stuck on f4. I'll try this later w/ a 50mm 1.2 and see if it's better. Rain, lightning and sound added. I am impressed with where there's actually a light source, though overall this is kinda crappy. Of course I spit it out h.264 and then vimeo had it's way with it.

The Departure on Vimeo

[Jeff Baker]

The codec on the c100 might be playing a part in your noise issue. You could try renting a Ninja Blade or similar and output uncompressed for comparison. I do record to AVCHD codec, but I have been adjusting the Wide DR and (believe it or not) the Standard EOS profiles so they will need less grading in post. For the wide DR, I increased the darks a bit and did set NR to 1.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Jeff Baker

The codec on the c100 might be playing a part in your noise issue. You could try renting a Ninja Blade or similar and output uncompressed for comparison.

That is not good advice. The NR feature in the picture profile does work for the HDMI out, but it's not nearly as aggressive as it is for AVCHD, mostly because, at 24Mbps, the codec isn't suited or compressing noise. Adding a Ninja Blade will increase the perceptible level of noise over AVCHD, because it will be uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2. and thus doesn't need to make sure the codec isn't wasting time trying to encode noise.

I am in the middle of a project combining Canon H.264 from their first gen DSLRs, GH2-4, Red Epic, and C100/300 footage, and the last is, by far, the cleanest out of the box.

[Jeff Baker]

I have not tried recording to a Ninja on our c100 yet, but I have read that If you shoot with the Ninja2 recorder, you can use canon-log gamma with NR2 or NR4 for that profile at least. Other processing will not get sent uncompressed over HDMI, but I would be interested to see some high ISO comparisons.
At any rate, I only see rave reviews about the c100's low light performance, so the first thing I would try is upping the NR from 0 or increasing the black levels of the profile a bit... Current is always running through every pixel on a sensor, so there is no such thing as no noise I suppose...

[Jeffrey Butler]

BTW, I re-shot with a 50mm 1.2 and am blown away. Here's a quick shot with the moon in it - and it's not really even the reason I'm still stunned at how clean this is, but wanted to follow up and say that shooting in the dark is shooting in the dark. I probably should have used the moonlight for a shot. Maybe I'll shoot something tonight using just moonlight.

Moon Fireflies C100 on Vimeo

With one light in my living room, I shot the best picture I've ever had from a "video" camera...(not the most amazing shot, just in terms of clean, low light imaging!)

Low light goodness on Vimeo

Pretty excited, going forward!

[Nigel Barker]

I started a thread here when I got my C300 a couple of years ago as I was shocked at how much chroma noise there was when I shot at high ISO especially as everyone had been saying how awesome low light performance was with the C300. http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-ci...-expected.html

The conclusion I came to after more experience of using the camera was that there was a requirement for lots of tweaking of picture style to optimise for low light but crucially as with the 5D2/3 & I imagine with the C100 too that it doesn't matter too much within reason how high you crank up the ISO provided that the image is well exposed as if you underexpose then push it in post it will look like crap & you would be far better using a higher ISO in the first place.

BTW I previously owned an XF105 & an XF305. The image out if the C300 was easily better than either XF. The resolution & dynamic range was streets ahead. In fact the C300 image was so good that eventually I sold it as I found if impossible to match with the 5D2/3s that I was also using to shoot weddings. I carried on using an XF105 as while the low light performance wasn't as good the lesser resolution & DR meant that it was easier to match with DSLR footage. The C100 image is every bit as good as that of the C300.

[Bob Drummond]

I remember the thread, Nigel. Can you suggest some picture profile settings that you now use in low light? There seems to be blue chroma noise all over the place on the Wide DR-based profiles at high ISO's.

[Nigel Barker]

Sorry Bob but as I said I sold the C300 some time ago & can't recall the settings that I used. I suggest downloading & trying out some of the profiles that other users have come up with then tweak to your taste.

[Jeff Baker]

I really liked this DP's take on noise and color profiles for the C100.
Exploring Canon C100 Color Profiles

I've been trying his natural Wide DR profile and it looks good, outdoor footage did not need grading unless you need a "look"...

I took some footage with this custom profile at the worst time of day - 2pm hazy summer light on our college campus, stark shadows and sunlight glare... you name it. The C100 is a great job handling these conditions I think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E9u...ature=youtu.be


Summary:

At close examination, the picture is noisy unless you apply some Noise Reduction to it, even at its native 850 ISO. I’ve found anything less than level 5 to be acceptable without sacrificing any noticeable detail. If you’re at a higher ISO like 3200 you might want to set Noise Reduction to 7.

C-Log/Cinema mode seems to generally be a bad idea. It looks awesome in camera because you see a lot more latitude, however when adding contrast in post you’ll see that the digital artifacting caused by the low bit rate is very pronounced. If you want it to look all flat and low contrast as it is, then it’s awesome, but if you’re planning on adding contrast back, don’t use it.

[Jeffrey Butler]

Originally Posted by Jeff Baker

I really liked this DP's take on noise and color profiles for the C100.
Exploring Canon C100 Color Profiles

I've been trying his natural Wide DR profile and it looks good, outdoor footage did not need grading unless you need a "look"...

I'm game; I'm going to try this setting out. I really like the color chip chart for Smooth...

[Barry Goyette]

Originally Posted by Gary Huff

That is not good advice. The NR feature in the picture profile does work for the HDMI out, but it's not nearly as aggressive as it is for AVCHD, mostly because, at 24Mbps, the codec isn't suited or compressing noise. Adding a Ninja Blade will increase the perceptible level of noise over AVCHD, because it will be uncompressed 8-bit 4:2:2. and thus doesn't need to make sure the codec isn't wasting time trying to encode noise.

While is some ways Gary is correct here, I'm going to generally disagree that using the ninja to moderate the noise off the C100 is a bad idea. My experience with the c300 and the samurai is that the noise profile of the camera to the recorder versus the internal codec is substantially "finer", more random, and much more grain like. The compression in the C300 50 mBit codec causes jpeg like artifacts (and macroblocking in low contrast shadow areas). The c100, depending on the noise reduction setting, either amplifies these artifacts or smears the detail. I'd highly recommend going to a recorder, and then using noise reduction like neat video in post when you need it. The Canon Cinema cameras retain a remarkable amount of detail and dynamic range when handled this way.

Here's a film I shot a few years ago, sections at beginning and end where model is lit only by the moon. Iso 10k-20k. Shot to internal codec on the c300.

By the Light of the Moon on Vimeo

and then with a denoise pass.

Canon C300 by Moonlight De-Noise Pass on Vimeo

To minimize the noise on the c100, simply turn the sharpening as low as possible. If that's still too noisy for you, you've probably fallen in love with noise reduction in other cameras, and you can't be helped :-).

Increasing noise reduction on the C100 will probably make you happier, but will result in an image with less detail, and in my opinion, less integrity. Most professional colorists add noise to the final "print" for theatrical distribution.

Canon's c-camera's have an extraordinary noise profile. To be able to get this look out of a camera costing $5k is remarkable. There isn't a frame of Kodak or Fuji Film stock in existence that has lower "noise" than these cameras.

[Bob Drummond]

Very nice, Barry. Do you remember what picture profile you were using?

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Barry Goyette

The c100, depending on the noise reduction setting, either amplifies these artifacts or smears the detail. I'd highly recommend going to a recorder, and then using noise reduction like neat video in post when you need it.

And this is the issue with that solution:

Originally Posted by Andy Solaini

Matt Neat Video is a great tool and it certainly helps quite a bit with the noise. The issue I have with it is it takes ages and ages to render on my (reasonably powerful) computer and on my macbook forget it.

So clearly the solution that is being looked for does not involve a post-production denoising, which is legitimate. Having dealt with underexposed footage in post, sometimes it is not cost-effective to spend days (yes, days) removing noise.

[Barry Goyette]

Gary--- let me put it this way then. Shooting to the ninja/samurai produces a cleaner, less noticeable noise profile regardless of the camera NR setting than shooting to the internal codec. Relying on the compression algorithm to smooth noise is not something I'd ever recommend, as it produces artifacts and eliminates detail.

Bob -- I don't remember exactly what I did... Other than I sat in a dark room, and cycled throu the presets until I found the one I liked(I think it was cinema 1), then I lowered sharpening all the way and turned up the coring a tad... Other than that it was a pretty straight preset profile.