Andy Schroeder
Forum Replies Created
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I never found a fix to this outside of raising the black level a couple percent when editing and removing that before export. I didn’t really want to do that, but at the end of the day “remove all attributes” command is easier than dropping lots of cash on a monitor when I just wanted a larger screen to view
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I only had it happen to me once. This was an issue that a recent firmware update supposedly fixed. I’ve used this camera extensively during the last year and a half, you can search here for other issues I’ve gone through with it to see if it’ll help you.
If it’s a new purchase and you still have the opportunity Id recommend exchanging the D3200 for the D5200, it’s not much more expensive and it seems like all the issues I ran into with this camera are fixed on that model. Nikon customer service isn’t interested in helping customers who can’t afford their higher-end products. -
Thanks for replying
I’m in a 10 bit sequence, ProRes422HQ files. What I’m seeing isn’t banding. It’s not exactly solarization either, but Im not sure how else to really describe it. Its as if when the overall light level in the video drops below a certain point, the shadows/shadow saturation gets pumped up very high, and the midtones and highlights drop down to the low-mid range. It’s not a negative image, its not solarization… maybe similar to a bad embossing effect in photoshop.
It doesn’t happen in quicktime full screen, but I’m wondering if thats due to quicktime’s gamma shift, because a very small adjustment to the light level in 3 way color corrector fixes it, but I don’t want to do any light/color changes since it’s just a computer output and not a proper monitor.
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You answered your own question. You need an I/O device to properly see the correct image. If you have a trained eye, you can calibrate your 42″ monitor to see a more accurate picture of your output. Keep in mind, Computer output from a graphics card and a Video output from an I/O device are different.
No, I didn’t answer my own question. You didn’t either, but perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in asking it: Has anybody else experienced their TV freaking out and giving a solarized-like look when using digital cinema desktop preview?
I’m not asking for people to tell me to buy a video monitor, I’m not expecting to get video monitor accurate colors, I just wanted to see the image in 1080p while I edited it and not shrunk down in a tiny corner of my laptop screen.
It seems like outputting video from FCP over the DVI output to my TV’s HDMI input is causing my TV to have display problems if the overall percentage of light isn’t high enough. I made sure to turn off all automatic adjustments TV’s are prone to coming with these days and it still happens.
If I take the same clip with no changes made, make a bluray disc out of it, plug the bluray into the same TV input with no changes, I don’t have this issue. If I use the TV as a second computer monitor and play the clip as a full screen quicktime file on it, I don’t have this issue. Just in FCP.
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Yes, even in full manual the problem persists. Even at ISO200 on a sunny day you’ll get flicker in the 0-10% range on the waveform. I find it funny that Nikon still never came back with any fix, yet they’re trying to push their Nikon Cinema websites like they’re all filmmaker friendly now. I stopped trying to get an answer out of them after their phone representative called me “bro” and said it was “my problem.” I never expected a $700 camera to be perfect, but at base ISO there shouldn’t be glaring flickering problems.
Anyone who preordered the D3200 should get a free trade-up for the D5200 which I understand is miles ahead in performance. -
I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for Nikon. I’ve been in contact with them for over a month and they aren’t very interested in solving anyones problems. They asked me to send footage straight from the camera unedited and then failed to give me an upload link or email that could accept more than 2 seconds worth of 24p/1080p footage. I’m not sure that you could even identify the problem easily with such a small test amount. I’ve had phone operators calling me “bro” telling me that “it’s your problem” and been hung up on. Just sayin…
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Andy thanks for taking the time to illustrate the issue.
It’s all good. I’d hate to have someone else go as crazy as I felt over the issue. When I first got the camera I was shooting in such generally bright, or high contrast situations where the problem didn’t show and was really in love with the camera. After I started shooting at certain light levels it appeared and I went through troubleshooting almost everything in my setups.
This is good info no matter what for anyone with the post D90 Nikon series cameras.
The strange thing for me is, I never had this problem with the D3100 (which I sold as part of upgrading.) Using grey cards and AE-Lock to trick the sensor into the exposures I wanted I used that camera to do a 21 minute short and it always looked fantastic, including dark situations and chroma-key work. which was why I thought upgrading to real manual controls in the D3200 was a no brainer at the price I got (with trading in the D3100.)
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Just in case anyone else out there is using a D3200 and having problems I thought I’d post an update on my issue:
The problem is ISO noise, not light pumping. I did an ISO test with the lens cap on to see what the noise pattern looked like, and while you can only barely see the noise problem at ISO200 in the test (which only shows 0% IRE), when you take the cap off, the pattern appears in dark greys about 2-5% IRE on the red and blue channels, it’s just such fine grained noise that it looked more like the camera having a problem recording the light level.
I found a semi-solution as well, which also works on higher ISO’s and makes them somewhat useable. If you add the “channel mixer” plug in in FCP, and shift Blue-blue from 1 to .5, then Blue-green to .5, and Red-red from 1 to .3, then Red-green to .8 it removes all the color noise. At higher ISO’s shifting a little more gets rid of more extreme noise.
Then your just left with what looks like luma noise, which came out fine with Neat Video. I know Neat video could do the whole thing as well once I realized it was just noise, but I didn’t want to use too much NR.
Of course your colors look a little different after the shift as well, looks a bit like older color film to me, but not so weird that its bothersome. Pumping up the saturation after the color shift seems to help it get back to normal without bringing back the noise also.
Nikon of course was no help with my service ticket, gave me a hassle on the phone, and didn’t even want to look at test footage to see if it was a problem with my specific camera, and not the D3200 model in general.
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Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately it didn’t seem to fix the issue. I use the 3200 on full manual, including setting custom white balance myself with an expodisc. Even still I tried using AE-Lock (set to lock and hold) and had the flicker/pumping. The HDMI menu on the 3200 did have the device control like you said, but it was already set to “on.”
In an email with another user experiencing this problem I found out that turning up the contrast can help reduce the flicker somewhat, but it still happens. But then your also stuck with an ultra-contrasty look (which I’m not a fan of.)
I put in a support ticket with Nikon over it, hopefully they get back to me in a reasonable amount of time with either a fix, or are able to tell me that my specific camera is malfunctioning and I should just exchange it for another.
I would hate to think they’d be okay with releasing a camera that has such a glaring problem at base ISO where you should have a clean picture. Higher up the ISO noise could be expected, but not at ISO 200 -
It has full manual controls including apeture, you just cant change them once you’re in live view. I’ll look into the IR filter, thanks for the tip.