[Mark Earls]

THIS WEEKS UPDATE – Just dropped the camera off at the retailer. They wanted to shoot a side by side comparison with their demo unit. At first, they didn’t understand what noise I was talking about. They understand NOW! Their demo was actually WORSE than my camera. They’ll be calling Panasonic today.

[Mark Earls]

Update – I did a run & gun shoot yesterday. The footage was ok – not great (still some noise) but ok. Talked to my local reseller today. They want that camera back in their shop. They’ll re-set it and take a close look. They are confident that they’ll be able to spot a problem if it exists and fix it. Important to note also – they said that Panasonic HQ is keeping a very close eye on the service records and warranty repairs of these units.

So, updates on this issue to follow next week. Stay tuned.

[Mark Earls]

Thanks Ronald.

Yes – I run at -3 gain. Have been for years on my other camera. I tried several scene files, stock set-up, plus my own variations, etc – all with the same result. I even recorded a black clip with iris closed and it was still there. I could see the noise in the waveform. Totally unacceptable.

Anyway – an UPDATE ! I didn’t give up, and I think I may have solved the problem. Trial and error method of recording clips of a well lit shot and manipulated all aspects of the various menu options contained in the scene file menu.

When I turned the 3 detail options (level, V level and coring) to OFF – that is -7 all the noise disappeared – all of it. If I turn any of those 3 settings above -7 I get noise. WOW – camera looks great. Even has some nice depth of field. I then explored all the various gamma and matrix settings – nice – all of them. Picked the one I like and away we go.

Side note, although this may be related to my problem or just a symptom of this camera – the Master Ped adjustment is useless. This camera crushes blacks. I set it to +15 and just barely moved the black above zero. Set my gamma to HD norm to move it up a bit. The high gamma setting looked nice too.

So, I’d like to get some better detail control out of the rig but just as soon as I add detail – it’s a mess.

Just my .02 and worth about as much.

Thoughts?