Epic-W producing epic noise!

[Andy Lake]

Hello All!

I've been shooting with the Epic-W since it came out and have really enjoyed it overall! Since upgrading the firmware to IPP2, I have noticed way more noise than usual, even on heavily lit scenes.

I've had to de-noise at a much higher rate lately. The image ends up looking good in the end after processing, but it seems like I should be getting a cleaner source image - as I did prior to upgrade.

Attached is an example from a low light frame before and after de-noise, but I am getting more noise than usual across all lighting setups. Also included is the master clip info.

Anyone else experiencing this? Any thoughts or suggestions on how to remedy?

Thanks,

Andy

 

[Giles Harvey]

Be good to see an R3D. That does look noisy. Hard to say without checking the camera set up. I was unhappy with the noise floor at 1000 iso on a scene in a commercial on Helium a while back but wasn't as bad as this...

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Be good to see an R3D. That does look noisy. Hard to say without checking the camera set up. I was unhappy with the noise floor at 1000 iso on a scene in a commercial on Helium a while back but wasn't as bad as this...

R3D is the /only/ way to inform any constructive feedback.

 

[Aaron Lochert]

Firmware with IPP2 is uses ISO Calibration Version 2 by default, which essentially has bumped the brightness level of all ISO's one stop, which means shooting 800 today is identical to shooting 1600 yesterday - It's brighter than before, but so is the noise. The camera isn't "worse" than it was before, it's just the number representing a certain image brightness on screen changed. It's kinda like how going 60mph and 100 km/h are the same thing - two different numbers representing the same actual speed.

Either bring the ISO down one stop or if you can't get used to the idea, go into the menus (Menu > Image > ISO) and uncheck a box that says "Use updated ISO calibration."

Using the updated ISO calibration should closer match other cameras and light meters on the market, so I personally would leave the box checked. Also, all RED cameras moving forward are using this calibration so I'd stick with it.

Also, do a manual black shade calibration at like 42-44 degrees, you should see better results than auto calibration.

And lastly, I'll just state what everyone already has, supply us with a single R3D frame if you ever have other issues -- it's far easier for us to evaluate the issue.

EDIT: I could just barely make out that your ISO was 1280. Yeah, that'll definitely reveal noise since it's it's equivalent to shooting ISO 2500 on the old ISO calibration.

 

[Kemalettin Sert]

Hello All!

I've been shooting with the Epic-W since it came out and have really enjoyed it overall! Since upgrading the firmware to IPP2, I have noticed way more noise than usual, even on heavily lit scenes.

I've had to de-noise at a much higher rate lately. The image ends up looking good in the end after processing, but it seems like I should be getting a cleaner source image - as I did prior to upgrade.

Attached is an example from a low light frame before and after de-noise, but I am getting more noise than usual across all lighting setups. Also included is the master clip info.

Anyone else experiencing this? Any thoughts or suggestions on how to remedy?

Thanks,

Andy

just share one frame of r3d. thats all we need.If you can grab few seconds of r3d. trim that would be perfect.

 

[rand thompson]

Andy,


It looks like you only had some light at the top of the stairs for his "hair" light and some natural "blue tinted" or "cool white balanced" light from the room. I'm guessing you probably shot anywhere from about f2.8 or f4 and just chose to underexpose the scene for the "dark" look. Why not just shot for a "Day for Night" look. Properly Expose the scene and then "dial it down".

And Turn This

Into This

For better low-light noise characteristics in your image.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

Rand, good suggestions above. The first video tutorial makes a really great point about getting the saturation dialed down. After seeing what D4N looks like that way, it'c clear that the 2nd tutorial really misses that trick (thought it hits some other ones). Both tutorials miss the idea of setting LumMix to zero, which is a good thing to do if you are doing heavy changes to colors and/or brightness.

 

[rand thompson]

Michael,

Yeah, I basically posted the first video to give an example of a possible " Day for night" apprroach for an interior scene. The second video from Casey was more for an exterior "Day for Night " approach. And, I completely agree with using a "0" value in the " luminance Mix" tab to get the separate RGB values that they needed. I used the zero Luminance Mix method in a node to correct Andy's original "Bedtime " clip above to use as the example of what a " resonably" exposed initial image would have looked like for a Day for night approach.