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X5R Standard Noise levels with Raw SSD footage

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I just wanted to ask everyone's take on this generally as a search has not really brought anything solid up for me.

I am starting to find that noise is just part of the course every time i use footage from the SSD and wondered if im the only one who stills finds this?

Am i simply missing a trick of the X5R or is it just normal? Im shooting normal mode too and keeping exposure within .3+ or -.

H264 sd files seem fine but im relatively new to Raw so wanted some more experienced input. I have to run pretty much most of my footage through neat even in light situations below 400 iso at present. It does always come out well in the end though.

Thanks
Mick
 
I'm shooting a little more than a year using the x5r and can say that I have needed to denoise only 3 day shots that actually where shot with some not big underexposure. You have to be very precise when setting up the exposure because it's very easy to go oposite and overexpose which is not fixable compared to underexposure.
Shooting at night using iso greater than 400 makes the footage unusable, and so far I had denoised only 2 night shots taken at iso 800, also it highly depends what are you shooting at night because if there is a pure darkness this will be pure fat noisy area in your picture even on iso 100.

Another story is the post processing, I'm using Davinci Resolve and after importing the raw footage I'm changing the color space to Davinci's dlog. The image then have less contrast and the noise gets invisible. Then I start adding "contrast" by setting up shadows, highlights, gain, contrast and finally saturation and sharpness keeping the noise invisible as much as possible. This technique is not working if you have to do exact color reproducing using xrite for example, then the amount of contrast gets so high that the whole image becomes noisy as ****, a bit dissapointing to discover that. But hopefully I don't need such color acuracy and so far I'm pretty happy from the results I'm getting with x5r.
 
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I'm shooting a little more than a year using the x5r and can say that I have needed to denoise only 3 day shots that actually where shot with some not big underexposure. You have to be very precise when setting up the exposure because it's very easy to go oposite and overexpose which is not fixable compared to underexposure.
Shooting at night using iso greater than 400 makes the footage unusable, and so far I had denoised only 2 night shots taken at iso 800, also it highly depends what are you shooting at night because if there is a pure darkness this will be pure fat noisy area in your picture even on iso 100.

Another story is the post processing, I'm using Davinci Resolve and after importing the raw footage I'm changing the color space to Davinci's dlog. The image then have less contrast and the noise gets invisible. Then I start adding "contrast" by setting up shadows, highlights, gain, contrast and finally saturation and sharpness keeping the noise invisible as much as possible. This technique is not working if you have to do exact color reproducing using xrite for example, then the amount of contrast gets so high that the whole image becomes noisy as ****, a bit dissapointing to discover that. But hopefully I don't need such color acuracy and so far I'm pretty happy from the results I'm getting with x5r.

So do you think i have had this issue because the shots at slightly under exposed then? The footage itself looks excellent but was taken at sunrise and shadows are full of tiny grain noise in places. Is it a general rule for Raw that i should never underexpose it in future then or do i have this backwards and i should never over exposure at all?

Im new to Raw but have made it my mission to get it right as there will come a day when a client wants it. The last paid video i did required some noise reduction but it was a overcast day in between ND filters so i put it down to that. Now on a perfectly sunny day some of the shots are looking the same but i just need to know why. Im been very picky as the noise isnt very bad but it shouldnt be there at all on a clear day.

Thanks
Mick
 
So do you think i have had this issue because the shots at slightly under exposed then? The footage itself looks excellent but was taken at sunrise and shadows are full of tiny grain noise in places. Is it a general rule for Raw that i should never underexpose it in future then or do i have this backwards and i should never over exposure at all?

Im new to Raw but have made it my mission to get it right as there will come a day when a client wants it. The last paid video i did required some noise reduction but it was a overcast day in between ND filters so i put it down to that. Now on a perfectly sunny day some of the shots are looking the same but i just need to know why. Im been very picky as the noise isnt very bad but it shouldnt be there at all on a clear day.

Thanks
Mick
Shooting on sunrise is another story, actually I love shooting at sunrise because of the unique lighting.

When I want to have the sun in frame (shooting the sunrise itself) I'm adjusting the exposure according the sun, looking for a nice and clean sun disc and a good halo gradient connecting the sun disk with the sky, unfortunately then the ground becomes pretty dark and when I try to raise the shadows in post I get unacceptable noise so in that case I just keep the ground darker because the denoiser doesn't improve the situation as well because the picture start looking too much out of focus (I'm using neat video plugin as well).
When shooting without the sun in frame (a little after the sunrise) then noiseless picture can be achieved without a problem. I was always shooting at iso 100 for day/morning and iso 400 for night streets/city shots. Some exceptions for a few day shots at iso 200 for less motion blur.

The daylight shots I've had to denoise was shot in clear sky too with strong summer sun above us but the ND was too much in that case and the image was underexposed by about 1-2 stops. After correcting the exposure in post the noise appeared and had to go for neat video to fix it all.

Generally I found it very difficult making a good exposure when shooting in Dlog even referring to the histogram, also found that it doesn't matter what color settings will be used if you're going to work with the RAW! So I'm shooting with "None" setting for color. Then the proxy files are comming out with embedded sRGB profile and very important the histogram is working correctly compared to the one with dlog! Using the histogram in that case produces very accurate exposure and no more guessing about over or underexposure. The RAW footage on itself can be switched to any color profile in post. I found that after a few months of shooting and after that I barely have exposure or noise issues.
 
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Shooting on sunrise is another story, actually I love shooting at sunrise because of the unique lighting.

When I want to have the sun in frame (shooting the sunrise itself) I'm adjusting the exposure according the sun, looking for a nice and clean sun disc and a good halo gradient connecting the sun disk with the sky, unfortunately then the ground becomes pretty dark and when I try to raise the shadows in post I get unacceptable noise so in that case I just keep the ground darker because the denoiser doesn't improve the situation as well because the picture start looking too much out of focus (I'm using neat video plugin as well).
When shooting without the sun in frame (a little after the sunrise) then noiseless picture can be achieved without a problem. I was always shooting at iso 100 for day/morning and iso 400 for night streets/city shots. Some exceptions for a few day shots at iso 200 for less motion blur.

The daylight shots I've had to denoise was shot in clear sky too with strong summer sun above us but the ND was too much in that case and the image was underexposed by about 1-2 stops. After correcting the exposure in post the noise appeared and had to go for neat video to fix it all.

Generally I found it very difficult making a good exposure when shooting in Dlog even referring to the histogram, also found that it doesn't matter what color settings will be used if you're going to work with the RAW! So I'm shooting with "None" setting for color. Then the proxy files are comming out with embedded sRGB profile and very important the histogram is working correctly compared to the one with dlog! Using the histogram in that case produces very accurate exposure and no more guessing about over or underexposure. The RAW footage on itself can be switched to any color profile in post. I found that after a few months of shooting and after that I barely have exposure or noise issues.

It sounds to be fair that it was just the conditions that has caused the issues and i will just have to keep the shadows down as ive tried to raise them and include more detail with noise following. The sun was not directly in the shots i have as it was just after rise but i had similar conditions on the ground to you and a sea reflecting in shot horizon.

The challenge for me is bringing back the bridge thats a little dark due to shadows without introducing noise.

What range of NDs do you have for the x5 then bud if you dont mind me asking? Im wondering if i need a nd6 at this rate if they exist to go in between certain lights.

Can i ask as well then. How ffar can you safely go underexposed on the x5r then in points before you encounter noise as i have never went lower than -.3 so thought id be safe.

Thanks Again
 
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It sounds to be fair that it was just the conditions that has caused the issues and i will just have to keep the shadows down as ive tried to raise them and include more detail with noise following. The sun was not directly in the shots i have as it was just after rise but i had similar conditions on the ground to you and a sea reflecting in shot horizon.

The challenge for me is bringing back the bridge thats a little dark due to shadows without introducing noise.

What range of NDs do you have for the x5 then bud if you dont mind me asking? Im wondering if i need a nd6 at this rate if they exist to go in between certain lights.

Can i ask as well then. How ffar can you safely go underexposed on the x5r then in points before you encounter noise as i have never went lower than -.3 so thought id be safe.

Thanks Again

I think keeping it around -0.3 is safe but going to more than -0.7 will produce some noise.
You can check the next videos where I have shots at sunrise and no denoiser was used in any of them.

This is my first shooting with the X5R, I have shot in DLog without ND filter (just don't had any at the time) and the exposure was adjusted by eye rather than using the histogram. Used Davinci Resolve for color and editing.

In this one I already had Heliopan variable ND filter, I found it very good and easy to use, once the lens is balanced with it the filter never goes off the lens (there is almost less than 0.1 ND filter at it's lowest setting so I'm using it even on night shooting). The cons are that I can't use lens hood or use a lens cap over it also at the stronger dialed ND value there is visible diagonal which is normal for all variable ND filters but so far I haven't needed it to be set at such dark level even on a bright sunny day shooting at 1/50 for 24fps. The exposure again was made by eye and I was still shooting with DLog setting for color, not all shots happened with good exposure but in the cut are only the good ones :) Then I've had some headaches in post but managed to make it without using denoiser. There is only one shot here (nearly at the end where a brutal noise can be noticed but I've decided that it's not so bad and included it in the cut.

Best,
Niki
 
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Thank for the help, ive been playing with post and test renders all morning and think i have a nice mellow x5 preset for Raw. The noise is non existent now and ive used very little on the sliders to get it where i want. I think its easy to become over critical of noise and make it into a witch hunt once you start looking too hard haha.

That filter is a little beauty as well and i never even knew they existed. How far do they filter before causing issues? And how well do they balance up on the x5?
 
I'm glad you have sorted a way to pull out good looking picture from the x5r.

I'm already used with a certain shooting settings for certain light conditions and just dial them, adjust the ND by hand while watching the histogram and if needed fine tune by using aperture or shutter and shoot... and I'm sure that everything with the picture and exposure is well and then I can focus my attention to the shot itself.

The Heliopan filter is a good and pricey glass filter! There are other good variable filters out there, if you search "heliopan 46mm vs ..." you will see the other options. Those type of filters are a bit heavy compared to a fixed one but it is still within the gimbal possibilities.
My x5r is custom balanced on all 3 axes by using 3M dual lock tape and interchangeable lead peaces. I'm using the filter on dji 15mm as well on oly 25mm, the same gimbal balance works for both lenses only difference is that the 15mm need the balancing ring (that comes with it) while the 25mm is working well without it.

How far you can go with this filter? If you want to shoot in a sunny day at f1.7 and 1/25 exposure then this filter could not be enough and you will still have some overexposed areas (sometime shooting moving water, river or waterfalls you may need such an exposure settings). But I'm rarely shooting at f1.7 because of the shallow depth of field also at 1/25 the motion blur is abit too much for my taste and I'm using it only for night shooting just to help for less noise. In all other conditions I'm using 1/50 or 1/60 exposure value and in overcast or sunrise I'm using f1.7-f2.8 and the ND is dialed at 0% strength. In a sunny conditions I'm using aperture between f3-f7, which works well with the ND dialed at about 60%-80% strength.
 
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