picture noise in XL2
 

I've had my XL2 since March of this year. I bought it used and it had about 10 hours on it when I bought it.

Everything looks great with it, but I can *never* get rid of image noise.

My settings:
I shoot in manual mode almost 100% of the time and I try to keep the gain at -3dB all the time. With and without Custom Presets enabled (including noise reduction on high, crushed blacks, 'low light low noise' preset from here, etc). I always white balance. The iris is usually open almost fully, no ND filters, light meter reads fine in the viewfinder. Zebras at 100 show striping in the cases where I need to iris down a little bit, so there's plenty of light. I generally shoot in 30P or 24P and it's visible in both. It's more pronounced in 60i, and it's in 16:9 and 4:3 equally.

When shooting outdoors on sunny days to capture clouds for example, I need the higher ND setting, iris closed quite a bit, gain at -3, etc. The footage looks good except there's this little bit of hash in the dark and light areas equally. It's almost like an 8 bit audio recording. You can hear everything just fine, but there's a little bit of junk in everything. Or like tape hiss, same thing. The scopes show everything is fine in Premiere Pro 2 and Vegas 7 and the noise isn't terrible. But it's like a film grain in everything.

And no, I don't have the F. Grain button on my XL2. :)

I have the stock 20x lens and I usually shoot through a Tiffen Soft/FX 3 and then a UV filter on the end of that. The noise is completely randomized though, so it's not junk on the lens/filters.

Is this normal? I've seen lots of XL2 footage and it always looks either like a videocamera shot it, or rich and solid looking (depending on the shooter's settings), but I haven't noticed this noise problem in anyone else's footage.

Thanks!
Eric

Hi Eric,

Given the settings that you are using you should not be seeing any noise,
but you never know. Can you post a few screen shoots of the noise? It would
give anyone trying to help you a better idea of what you are seeing.

Terry

Hi Terry,

I've attached a clip from an interview DVD I recently completed. This was shot 16:9/30P. The wall was a light yellow color and I used a Lowel Omni light with a light green gel to change the wall color. The light meter in the LCD said I was right on the money. I blocked out the interviewee to keep the motion down and the noise is more noticeable in this area anyway.

There's a little bit of encoding noise in this clip, almost like it's under water. But when it's not doing that, you can see the constant noise going on.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Eric :)

Here's another clip. This time with an interviewee.

I used a Lowel Pro light as a hairlight and the omni again on the wall, though with the barn doors far less open. I had to adjust the brightness a bit because it was a little dark compared to the previous shot (I adjusted using the scopes and all in PPro, so it's within the gamut on both shots).

This noise is visible on a CRT screen non-brightened footage, and it's in skin tones and mid-range stuff, not just shadows.

For this shoot, I used a Rifa 44 (250 watt) as a key, a few feet away at a 45/45 degree angle, a gold reflector for fill on the left, Pro light (250 watt) for hair/rim and Omni (250 or 500 watt, I don't remember. The stock bulb) for background light. It was a small room, maybe 10-12 feet deep. I got back against one wall, put the chair near the center of the room, and that gave me a slightly shallower depth of field.

Thanks again,
Eric

Eric, when I got mine I had the same problem, I was shooting outdoors at dusk when I noticed it. I had made no adjustments and was shooting with it right out of the box. I then went back and adjusted the settings to get rid of the grain. I hooked it up to a monitor and adjusted it while shooting in low light to decrease the gain. I haven't had any issues since. I'll have to look up what I have it set at and get back to you for specifics.

Thanks Mark. This seems to happen with everything though. When I shoot at a studio as a 4th camera on tv productions (with at least 20kw of lights aimed at the set (just a desk with 3 chairs)), I still have noise problems. I've tried with custom presets from here as well as no preset at all. It would seem that using a 'low light low noise' preset in my apartment, with a 20 watt fluorescent light aimed at a wall 2 feet from it, I would have more than 'low light'. It's a 75 watt equivalent, I believe. The wall is off-white and textured. I have to iris down to get the light level right, and that's at -3dB gain. How is this not enough light to get rid of noise? :(

Eric

Have you seen it being fed directly out of the camera into a monitor? I'm just trying to eliminate the capture process in the chain.

Are you using any audio, video, or lighting accessories that might be generating interference?

-gb-

I can see it in the onboard LCD as just a sparkly little shimmery sort of thing, if that makes sense. I can see it view the firewire output. I can connect it to my tv and see if shows up there, but I'm 99% sure it does, since I can see it on the LCD onboard.

I don't know if this is related, but I've tried tracking down answers on here and haven't quite found what I need. I'm shooting at 24P (non advance) 16:9, and then capturing in Premiere (or Vegas, or MovieMaker ;) as 16:9 widescreen DV 48k. For some reason, I'm seeing a lot of interlacing in my footage. I haven't set up any 2:3:3:2 pulldown anywhere, just using the defaults. From what I understand, I have it correct, but my footage doesn't look 'like film' when it has visible interlacing in it :( I haven't viewed the current project on a CRT screen, just my laptop's lcd screen, so I realize there interlacing would be more apparent, but it's horrible looking in some places, like an actor walking at 50 feet, but then fine with an actor 3 feet in front of the lens throwing a rubber ball against a wall, no interlacing whatsoever. I'm using the same settings on all of these shots.

Is my camera broken? :(

Eric I think this might be a gain issue, the XL2 is very picky with light (low or high), low lights will give you noise at the background, so use the wedding preset but the pressed blacks, detail is compromised and dark skin individuals will give you horrible tone. Try not to use the gain and bounce the light on a ceiling to give you nice tone.

Thanks Akwasi,

My problem isn't lack of light though. I have other footage of shooting outdoors that I can post where the blue sky is full of noise too. The exposure level reads fine, and the clouds are one stop below zebra striping (zebras at 100). I don't understand how that could be a lack of light. Obviously there's no way to bounce light into the sky, but I don't think it should be needed either.

Should the gain be at -3 or 0? If 0dB is not boosted in any way, why should -3 be better? I would think 0 should be fine and shouldn't add any noise, but lots of people recommend using -3 for less noise. Is this control mislabeled? :)

Eric

Hi Eric,

I hate to say this, but I think your problem maybe with an amplifier in
the camera. I have been doing a lot of shooting in very low light this last
summer and I have nowhere near the amount of noise you are getting.
Don't giveup trying to track down the source of the noise, but it looks like
it's time to start thinking about sending the camera to Canon to have it
looked at.

Terry

Thanks for the reply, Terry.

I need to transfer the Mack warranty that came with the camera. I have the card and all, just need to mail it in I guess. Then I should be covered, right?

The noise isn't *bad*, and to the average person, I'm sure it's fine. To me, it's nearly fine. But I don't think it's normal and/or right. I'd rather get a complete run-through with Canon and have anything fixed that may need fixing on it, while it's still covered. I think there's about 2 1/2 years left on the warranty.

Is there a certain phone # I should call that gives better results than others with Canon? Or some dept I should ask for, etc? Maybe they have some over the phone troubleshooting/diagnosis thing I could do as well.

Thanks again,
Eric

Eric,

To fix your problem with the interlacing you should shoot 24p Advanced, this will take care of that horrid interlacing you get every 4th frame.

Andrew

Thanks Andrew,

Question though. I've been capturing my 24P footage with the 16:9 48k NTSC widescreen preset in Premiere Pro. It didn't occur to me to capture in 24 frame mode. Everything I've captured for this movie I've been shooting (like 5 tapes worth) has been captured at 30fps apparently. We haven't edited anything yet, other than a 3 min scene I threw together just to see how it played out (acting wise, and with some effects)..

Should I recapture this all using the 24P preset instead? And then if I shoot the new footage in 24Pa (and capture with that), will the combination of 24P and 24Pa be a problem? Reshooting isn't an option at this point, but recapturing is simple enough because nothing is really edited. Plus it would save disk space at 24fps.

Thoughts?

If you shot it in normal 24P (IE 3.2), then you should capture with a 24P preset. You'll still see a frame of two mixed fields every 5th frame or so.

If you shoot in 24Pa (IE 2:3:3:2), your NLE must be able to remove the advanced pulldown. However, if PP can do that, you'll be left editing true 24 frames in a 23.98 timeline. With 3:2, your timeline remains at 29:97.

Originally, it was 3:2 for material destined only for tv set playback and 2:3:3:2 for material destined to film out (because it can recover 24 complete frames without field mixing to create a pseudo frame every 5th frame). However, once it was learned that DVD players can apply their own pulldown, it became more advantageous to shoot 24Pa, edit in a 23.98 timeline, and author a DVD with 24P material. Fewer frames per second on the DVD allows for less compression and higher quality, or the same compression with longer run time.

As to your XL2 noise issue, I think it does need to go in for service. I can tell you that the one thing that originally sold me on the XL2 when it was released, was a night shot in Vienna at +18db. I couldn't believe how clean it was.

-gb-

Thanks for the info Greg.

So then would I be wise or unwise to switch my camera to 24Pa for the remainder of the movie? It's about half shot now, and the footage for each individual scene is wrapped, so there wouldn't be a mixture of footage types per scene, but it's being shot out of sequence, so the scenes would go 24P, 24P, 24Pa, 24P, 24Pa as an example. Would this be noticeable? I want the best image quality possible, but I don't want to mess up the look of the movie by switching formats from scene to scene.

I'll check with Canon, but I'm not sure where I should call. Do you have any suggestions for better results?

Thanks :)

A Snowy Christmas on Eric's XL-2?
 

Hi Eric,

Sounds as though you've got a fairly good handle on the XL-2, however you might want to tweak a few more Presets - crank down the SETUP LEVEL and MASTER PEDISTAL (in addition to BLACK = PRESS). You'll find this discussed midway through dvCreator's excellent Canon XL-2 Feature Tour:
http://dvcreators.net/media/demos/xl...aturetour.html


If this doesn't help, I'm also befuddled. Incidentally, each of these controls should visually make a significant visual change as you tweak them so if you don't see any differences, you know that's the problem to have Canon repair.



Good luck, Michael

A snowy Christmas indeed! :) I'll try adjusting those again today. The problem I'm seeing isn't *bad* snow, it's just a slight bit of constant noise.

I was playing with the camera last night and noticed a slight 'shake' to it when I moved it around (if I shook the camera a little by the handle). I was working on various ways to get a steady walking shot, including holding it by the carrying handle with the tripod hanging straight below it, folded up. Works alright, but I can't hold 16+ lbs with a bent elbow for more than a few mins before my shoulders start to burn! The shake seemed to be a *slight* wobble in the joint between the lens and camera. I don't know if there's normally a very slight wobble there on these cameras? It was one of those things that's just enough to feel it, not a visible difference in the movement between both halves.

I've tried adjusting them in the past. But I'll give it a shot again. I was thinking but haven't tested it yet, should there be *any* picture noise with the iris set to closed? I didn't know if using no presets, and a closed iris, if that would be a good way to compare results between cameras?

My only problem with sending it out is that suddenly, over the past 3 days or so, I've gotten all sorts of days booked to shoot things over the next week or so, and then the movie I'm working on shoots every Sunday if the people needed for the scenes are all available. But then if there's a problem, even a small one, I'd rather get it fixed than have it suddenly become a big problem in the middle of a shoot and look like an idiot. Not that I haven't looked like an idiot in the past, mind you, I'm just saying, if there's one such occasion I can avoid, I'd like to. ;)

And yup, I'm quite familiar with the DV Creators.net tour video. It's about 90% of what made me get the XL2 in March of this year. Even though Josh won't give me a real response on how they did the focus and zoom presets and activated them without shaking the camera, even while zoomed way in! :)

I cant tell much from the wmv's you posted. Blue, on any DV camera, will always have sharpness noise. Red, will always have chroma noise. What are your settings? The XL2 defaults to maximum detail across all ranges, this can make things a little milky and make it seem like there is more noise than there really is.

Crushing the blacks, keeping the white balance from being too warm, turning down the setup level and master ped, etc. can eliminate noise almost altogether. Turning the coring down can create noise, up can mask it. I can get super clean images with no detectable noise at +6dB gain pretty easy and even at +12dB gain it can look fairly clean.



ash =o)

Hi Ash,

Thanks for the info! :) I was hoping you might see my post, being the king of the custom preset and all.. ;)

I'll try your advice out tonight in some tests here.

Tomorrow night I have 2 shoots at a house party. One is for a new product and I'll be getting testimonials from the guests.. I'm hoping to light the shot with 2 tiki torches and fill in with some gelled light from my Omni and Pro lights. Maybe gel the Rifa 44 somehow if needed. The product is a margarita maker, so it's a backyard party by a pool and I just want a kind of hawaiian/island sort of look. Just by a grey wall stucco wall with some scenery and texture added. Dark but able to see the faces nicely, so definitely a 'lower light' situation.

If I close the iris and don't use a custom preset, what should i expect to see? Solid black with no noise, or something else? If a couple people here could try that very simple experiment, I think that might tell me if there's an electrical problem in my camera or not.

So am I better off using more gain than boosting various levels in the custom preset, if I'm still lacking light?

And a (possibly related) question.. I have a Soft/FX 3 and a UV filter. I put the UV on the outside and Soft/FX 3 on the inside. Could this combo be causing any ill/adverse/related effects/problems with my image quality? I just want to protect the Soft/FX so I keep the UV on there, but it was probably a $15 or $20 UV (it came with the camera when I got it used). It says 'Digital Concepts' 'Japan Optics' 'China' on it.

I would think shooting with no custom presets on and -3dB gain, white balancing and manual everything, light meter reading dead center, that I should have a fairly usable image without noise, but maybe I'm expecting too much for $3k? ;) The noise is more like a film grain than say a poorly tuned tv antenna noise would be. I just don't like it, because I never see that on TV programs, etc. :)

I didn't get any replies on the post above.. Anyway, the weekend shoots went pretty well. I lowered the setup and master, raised the coring, crushed the blacks, the color was on full saturation (I started with the Amelie preset). I set the colors back to center though. Still a bit noisy though.

This clip (not mine) has exactly the noise my camera has. Is this normal or what?
http://www.borisfx.com/images/optical_stabilizer.mov

Thanks :)
Eric

Neat Video ($49) can remove any form of noise. For best results, set the temporal filter to use the maximum number of frames (currently 5) and disable the spatial filter. The temporal filter is motion adaptive; it's almost perfect!

A smal amount of DV noise is normal; if you watch digital cable footage closely you'll notice a lot of that. But the noise is exaggerated on laptop monitors due to the dithering, so why not try viewing your footage on a CRT monitor or TV?

Thanks Seun, I may try that one.

I do see the noise from my videos on my 20" CRT tv. It's never really 'bad', but it's there whenever I look for it. I don't see it in television broadcasts, but some of that may be removed by the MPEG2 compression from our digital cable, I'm not sure.

I tried the coring and setup and black level settings, but I'm still getting the noisy image. It's like they didn't really have any change at all.

Did anyone see the link I posted from BorisFX? The noise is exactly like that one.

Thanks,
Eric

The Amelie preset is highly saturated, this will cause some chroma noise. On the Boris clip, you are seeing noise from the saturated blue channel, which on video is overly sharp. You can combat this by turning down the sharpness and turning up the coring. For what it is worth, this kind of noise is much worse on the DVX and even HVX.



ash =o)

Hmm, okay, I set my coring on max, sharpness I think on min, black on min, setup and master on max, and saturation on max. So I guess it's kinda self defeating in a way.

Should/would there be noise with the iris fully closed? I haven't checked that yet, but I think it would be a good way to see if there was a problem, if I have noise and no one else does. I'm still not sure my camera has a problem per se', I just want the best results I can get. It'd be nice not to need more than 3 presets to do so. Maybe that's asking too much? :)

Eric