[Pete Burger]

If you’re working on a windows machine you could try the free Recuva by Piriform (https://www.recuva.com). We had some luck with it.

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

[Pete Burger]

Thanks, Joseph!

Didn’t know that video! Much appreciated!

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

[Pete Burger]

[Kadshah Nagibe] “Once you notice the banding you can never get it out of your mind.”

Yeah, that’s right… Banding occurs with gradients, so it’s very hard to avoid… What I learned while working with HDV (that also uses heavy compression) is to keep the camera in slight constant motion, so compression doesn’t “kick in” too heavy in plain (or almost plain) areas.

With my T2i and Magic Lantern I also can increase the bitrate. Unfortunately Magic Lantern is not available for the 7D…

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

[Pete Burger]

Sorry, for the late answer, had no internet the last couple of days. Shooting neutral might help a bit (I use neutral, faithful or the Technicolor Cinestyle most of the time) but what’s even more important IMHO is to reduce sharpening (set it to zero and do sharpening in post) and contrast (also recommended to set it to zero), this is what introduces all kinds of artifacts to your footage and the very heavy H.264 compression boosts them.

hth

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

[Pete Burger]

Yes, it’s a mixture of “banding” (the lack of 8-Bit video to create smooth transitions) and the very heavy H.264 compression.

This problem was discussed in a recent thread, that you might want to check out:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/280/6755

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

[Pete Burger]

Happy to read it worked!

This feature is indeed the only way to manually clean the sensor, since the mirror snaps back and you have access to it. The “mapping-out-dead-pixels”-feature is a “by-product” 😉

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

[Pete Burger]

You’re welcome!

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

[Pete Burger]

I’m with Steve. Footage seems to be o.K. I had to key worse 😉

If you’re using After Effects for keying you could put an adjustment layer with the median filter (value between 2 and 4) applied to it above the footage. Set the transfer mode of the adjustment layer to color and precomp the two layers and then try keying.

The median filter in color transfer mode reduces color-compression artifacts. Most useful with 4:2:0 material like yours.

HTH

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

[Pete Burger]

Could be a dead pixel. Had that problem a couple of months ago with tmy T2i. Mapping dead pixels out is quite easy:

Switch off the camera, remove the lens, put the body cap on the camera and switch it on.
In the menu go to “sensor cleaning” –> “clean manually”. After a few seconds switch the camera off. Now the pixel should be gone.

hth

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton

[Pete Burger]

Hi, Joseph!

What do you think are the advantages of shooting neutral over using the Technicolor Cinestyle?
I was using neutral most of the time and avoided whenever possible the so-called “flat styles”.
I was stunned, when first trying the Technicolor Cinestyle. Especially in low-light situations this style is awesome. Gives you a very clean picture and is – even without using the LUT – quite easy to grade.

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“Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.” – Buster Keaton