Cleaning up Image Noise in Post

[Marc S. Brown]

Hi! Using the HVR100U, and encountering the low-light issues, what are the best methods of cleaning up the visual noise in post?

[John Joyner]

Try neatvideo
Neat Video :: download

[Kren Barnes]

Adjust the contrast and saturation to hide those ugly low light pixels...

[Marc S. Brown]

Thanks for the reply - I've been playing in Color with doing just that but the grain seems to be multi-colored. Also noticed that in a wedding footage, while the bride & groom were well lit, (they were under can-lights, actually kinda over lit) the camera made the background (far wall of the church) all grainy...

Ever tried taking the front sun shade off? Does that let in more light?

[Marc S. Brown]

I have turned on the Data option in the menu, and I've been watching what the camera is doing. I generally use manual settings.

For my grainiest footage, I have found out that my F-stop was at a 2, my shutter speed was at 60, and the auto gain was at 15-18.

Ready for the best part?

At the absolute grainiest, when the gain hit 15 - 18, the subjects were STANDING DIRECTLY UNDERNEATH CAN LIGHTS. Folks, the Lord Himself couldn't have illuminated them brighter.

During the b-roll the gain stayed between 3 and 6, then throughout the ceremony it camped out at 15. Here are some stills - the wide shot from behind was my wife's can Elura 85.

[Marc S. Brown]

Sorry for the mess-up.

Remember, he is standing underneath the lights...

[Don Bloom]

while the HD1000 will never compete with the PD series, DSR series, EX series or Z series, for a 1 chip camera that freeze you posted really doesn't look all that bad.

Unfortunately grain is very hard to get rid of with hurting the remainder of the image but I think Neatvideo might be the way to go.

Color, levels, gain (in post) isn't going to help. Again though it really doesn't look all that bad at least based on the freeze you posted.

[Marc S. Brown]

Wow. That's all I can say. Amazing. Thanks for the tip!

[Kren Barnes]

Hi Marc,


it doesn't look that bad, ...if you want, you can get the Magic Bullet Looks plug in to give you more options..

[Andrew Smith]

Double-thanks for the tip. I've just been looking at the filtration examples and the difference is absolutely stunning.

It this sort of discovery that adds to the value of coming here. Thanks again.

Andrew

[Bryan Daugherty]

Grain without bad lighting. This is one issue that really gets your heart racing. I had a similar experience on a recent wedding. The sanctuary had 8ft tall windows spaced about every 4 ft, florescents overhead, and incandescent cans over the alter area. Lots of light and lots of color grain. I think the mix of light temperatures throws off the sensor as it tries to make the best of the varied lighting. I will try to find a screengrab to share.

In my experience, this camera does best in outdoor sunlight or professional stage lighting. Everything else can really get unexpected results. Glad that neat video helped out. I have it saved in my links for the next time I run into this issue...

[Ben Longden]

With the "remove the lens hood" idea: leave the thing ON the camera. You will suffer more stray light problems than you can imagine that will degrade the image.

Not only that, it protects the most important part of the camera; The first thing the light passes through on its way to the tape..the front element of the lens.

Stuff that up, and you have a very expensive paperweight.

Ben

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Marc,

Since grain is hard to "fix", it is of course best to avoid in the first place. Luisa Winters, the Adobe trainer, taught me this - turn DOWN the gain, then brighten the footage in post. Much easier to clean up an image that is not grainy, and HDV allows more room for correction than DV.

I shoot with the Sony FX7, and have found that anything above 6 GAIN on that camera is unacceptable to me (where I would go 9 or even 12 with a VX-2000). In the camera menu, I set the AUTO GAIN LIMIT to +6, so it won't go above that (unless I manually override).

Another trick is to set the shutter speed to 30 when in a dark church. Fast pans will stutter at 30, but most ceremony shots are pretty static, and 30 shutter will definitely add some brightness when shooting "in a cave", as some churches seem. A very fair trade.

I never had much luck brightening DV footage, as it would fall apart pretty quickly, but HDV clips are much more forgiving and I can push the color correction farther with good results. Just throttle back on that gain when shooting, 15-18 will be nasty on any prosumer camera.

I don't know what software you edit with, but don't just use the "Brightness" slider, this brightens the entire image, meaning blacks will wash out. Use a 3-way corrector, where you can change the Highlights, MidTones and Shadows (white, gray, black) individually. This allows you to tweak the image, usually pushing up midtones and maybe bringing the blacks down a bit to make them blacker, maybe a little Highlights, you'll figure it out

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Andrew Smith]

Oh wow, seeing Jeff Pulera here really makes my day. Hey Jeff, welcome to the forum and thanks for joining.

Everybody, ignore that "new boot" status he currently has. Jeff is an absolute guru, especially with the Matrox X.2 real time hardware etc. Oh, and he's also a really good bloke too.

Andrew

[Bryan Daugherty]

Hey Jeff, welcome to the forum. That is some very sound advice but unfortunately with this particular model, there is no manual gain control. The gain is linked to the exposure control so you have to go manual on exposure and either assign it to the ring or keep it close by on the touchscreen menu. I like to keep mine on page one of the quick access menu and often ride the exposure on the ring. I find this gain control to be the biggest drawback to the 1000u and hope that if Sony ever releases an updated version that they will separate the gain control from the exposure.