New to this, want to make nature videos with my GH4

[Vesku]

My biggest issue with my GH4 nature videos is not sharpness, aliasing, moire or noise. It is the the sky banding caused by limited color palette and video processing/compression. I dont know if the banding is there even before codec. I want to know if there is less banding when using 10bit recording. I think there is less banding in fullhd than in 4k when recording 100Mbs internally. No sense though use internal fullhd.

Fortunately I can enjoy my GH4 4k videos without any banding, noise and macroblocks when using a debanding filter in player.

I have not tried in camera codecs yet for that, but I haven't noticed it with the Ninja 2 yet. What I did notice still was a little bit of macro blocking in the sky though, especially in brighter skies like blue skies.

How can you have macro blocks at super high bitrates with external recorder?

 

[DNature]

My biggest issue with my GH4 nature videos is not sharpness, aliasing, moire or noise. It is the the sky banding caused by limited color palette and video processing/compression. I dont know if the banding is there even before codec. I want to know if there is less banding when using 10bit recording. I think there is less banding in fullhd than in 4k when recording 100Mbs internally. No sense though use internal fullhd.

Fortunately I can enjoy my GH4 4k videos without any banding, noise and macroblocks when using a debanding filter in player.

I have not tried in camera codecs yet for that, but I haven't noticed it with the Ninja 2 yet. What I did notice still was a little bit of macro blocking in the sky though, especially in brighter skies like blue skies.

How can you have macro blocks at super high bitrates with external recorder?

Looking at my recorded videos, it may not have been macro blocking, it could have just been slightly over exposed or over saturated skies that might have looked liked macro blocking, however not on the GH4 but I noticed on the Canon HF G30 with the Ninja 2 (It outputs 8-bit 4:2:2 uncompressed), it still suffers noticeable macro blocking even with a DNxHD 4:2:2 185mbps video, so it can happen on the recorder, but that could have been because of its tiny 1/2.8 inch sensor and 8-bit only output.

 

[justgo99]

My biggest issue with my GH4 nature videos is not sharpness, aliasing, moire or noise. It is the the sky banding caused by limited color palette and video processing/compression. I dont know if the banding is there even before codec. I want to know if there is less banding when using 10bit recording. I think there is less banding in fullhd than in 4k when recording 100Mbs internally. No sense though use internal fullhd.

Fortunately I can enjoy my GH4 4k videos without any banding, noise and macroblocks when using a debanding filter in player.

I have not tried in camera codecs yet for that, but I haven't noticed it with the Ninja 2 yet. What I did notice still was a little bit of macro blocking in the sky though, especially in brighter skies like blue skies.

How can you have macro blocks at super high bitrates with external recorder?

Macro blocking and banding are all to do with the bit depth, not the bitrate. The bitrate may contribute to compression artefacts, but both macro blocking and banding are due to a lack of colour information. So yes 10 bit recording should greatly reduce those effects.

 

[Vesku]

How can you have macro blocks at super high bitrates with external recorder?

Macro blocking and banding are all to do with the bit depth, not the bitrate. The bitrate may contribute to compression artefacts, but both macro blocking and banding are due to a lack of colour information. So yes 10 bit recording should greatly reduce those effects

Macro blocking comes only from compression, banding comes from bad processing, compression and finally from limited 8 bit color palette.

There is usually much less banding in 8 bit JPG photos than in videos. Have you seen macro blocking in 8 bit photos?

Fortunately I can remove completely macro blocks and banding with a de-banding filter. It restores the original quality like the video is uncompressed.

 

[DNature]

How can you have macro blocks at super high bitrates with external recorder?

Macro blocking and banding are all to do with the bit depth, not the bitrate. The bitrate may contribute to compression artefacts, but both macro blocking and banding are due to a lack of colour information. So yes 10 bit recording should greatly reduce those effects

Macro blocking comes only from compression, banding comes from bad processing, compression and finally from limited 8 bit color palette.

There is usually much less banding in 8 bit JPG photos than in videos. Have you seen macro blocking in 8 bit photos?

Fortunately I can remove completely macro blocks and banding with a de-banding filter. It restores the original quality like the video is uncompressed.

Maybe what I was seeing wasn't macroblocking or maybe it was, but what I did see was that on skies on my Canon HF G30 videos from the Ninja 2, there noise blocks moving around the top part of the image, such as where there was a blue sky, there would be moving blocks of bluish purple and when I applied a deblocking filter when I rendered the videos after editing, these blocks would go away and it was 8-bit only. I did think only AVC codecs were prone to this though, but didn't seem to be the case. I did get a lot of banding as well on my recorded videos which were because of the 8-bit color, but the moving blocks wasn't banding. I'd show the blocks in a screenshot, but I no longer have that camera as I sold it.

Also I think I figured out why I was noticing rough edges on my recorded 4K videos. My monitor is only a QHD monitor (1440p), and unless you view videos from the GH4 at their native resolution, I noticed down sampling can cause the rough edges, and since my monitor can't display a UHD or 4K resolution, this was most likely the cause as I noticed if I didn't playback my recorded 1080p videos at 1080p resolution, I noticed the rough edges.

I did wonder why I didn't notice the rough edges in 4K videos from the GH4 I watched on YouTube, but did in my recorded videos as on YouTube when you select a certain resolution, it plays back the video at that resolution, regardless of your monitor resolution.

--
If find that the best way to live life, is not in the pursuit of material possessions, but its to live in the pursuit of making positive differences to both other people and to the planet as a whole and if you can get others to do similar or the same, so much the better.

 

[justgo99]

How can you have macro blocks at super high bitrates with external recorder?

Macro blocking and banding are all to do with the bit depth, not the bitrate. The bitrate may contribute to compression artefacts, but both macro blocking and banding are due to a lack of colour information. So yes 10 bit recording should greatly reduce those effects

Macro blocking comes only from compression, banding comes from bad processing, compression and finally from limited 8 bit color palette.

There is usually much less banding in 8 bit JPG photos than in videos. Have you seen macro blocking in 8 bit photos?

Fortunately I can remove completely macro blocks and banding with a de-banding filter. It restores the original quality like the video is uncompressed.

May I ask which debanding filter you use? Sounds interesting, I'll try it out if it's free.

 

[Vesku]

Macro blocking comes only from compression, banding comes from bad processing, compression and finally from limited 8 bit color palette.

There is usually much less banding in 8 bit JPG photos than in videos. Have you seen macro blocking in 8 bit photos?

Fortunately I can remove completely macro blocks and banding with a de-banding filter. It restores the original quality like the video is uncompressed.

May I ask which debanding filter you use? Sounds interesting, I'll try it out if it's free.

Try these. Free.

Loading…

www.dpreview.com

Loading…

www.dpreview.com

 

[justgo99]

Macro blocking comes only from compression, banding comes from bad processing, compression and finally from limited 8 bit color palette.

There is usually much less banding in 8 bit JPG photos than in videos. Have you seen macro blocking in 8 bit photos?

Fortunately I can remove completely macro blocks and banding with a de-banding filter. It restores the original quality like the video is uncompressed.

May I ask which debanding filter you use? Sounds interesting, I'll try it out if it's free.

Try these. Free.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57501591

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57489279

Thanks a lot for that! I tried the Potplayer and it works well, although is there a way of exporting that as actual footage instead of only seeing it from that particular program? Cheers.

 

[Vesku]

Macro blocking comes only from compression, banding comes from bad processing, compression and finally from limited 8 bit color palette.

There is usually much less banding in 8 bit JPG photos than in videos. Have you seen macro blocking in 8 bit photos?

Fortunately I can remove completely macro blocks and banding with a de-banding filter. It restores the original quality like the video is uncompressed.

May I ask which debanding filter you use? Sounds interesting, I'll try it out if it's free.

Try these. Free.

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57501591

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57489279

Thanks a lot for that! I tried the Potplayer and it works well, although is there a way of exporting that as actual footage instead of only seeing it from that particular program? Cheers.

I think it is just a player. No export option. The filter is best in real time because the re-compression will make banding visible again if not using very high bitrate.

 

[DNature]

I am still getting the hang of this, so I am not yet an expert at what I am doing so my results may not be perfect to what the camera can do yet.

I am not an expert of editing either but I would just use internal 4k files straight in editor and render whatever I want and need. I would use an external recorder if it would have 4k 10 bit.

It has been a while and I now more or less know how to use the GH4 well, so just wanted to post an update with sample images so you can see for yourself the result I am getting. I once again tested 4K internal vs the Ninja 2 recorder. I have seen many 4K videos from the GH4 now and quite like them, so wanted to see if I could just use this instead, so I did one test before my GH4 battery died (forgot to charge it first).

My test settings (all manual focus with everything in focus using Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 ASPH lens at 14mm on a tripod with IS ON):

4K Internal: 4K 100 M, Natural everything at 0, f/8.0 daylight WB, 25fps

Ninja 2: 4K 100 M, Natural everything at 0, f/8.0 daylight WB, 10-it 4:2:2 downconvert to 1080p via HDMI, DNxHD 10-bit 4:2:2 185mbps 25fps

I took each video and edited it in Sony Vegas Pro 13 at 1080p resolution with a slight unsharp mask, saturation adjust to increase the color saturation and that was it.

Here are screenshots of the edited and unedited videos (4K was downscaled to 1080p): http://www.megafileupload.com/rvTT/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip the images are in PDN (Paint.net RAW files) since I don't have Photoshop and non RAW image formats washout the colors. The image file names tell you which image is which.

I won't give my opinion on the video screenshots and let you make your own decisions and will give my opinion afterwards to not influence anyone.

 

[Vesku]

Here are screenshots of the edited and unedited videos (4K was downscaled to 1080p): http://www.megafileupload.com/rvTT/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip the images are in PDN (Paint.net RAW files) since I don't have Photoshop and non RAW image formats washout the colors. The image file names tell you which image is which.

You can show JPG frames. No need to use exotic RAW photos. JPG is not changing colors.

My antivirus program blocked your megafileupload page. I think no one will want to see PDN files ( actually never heard PDN).

 

[DNature]

Here are screenshots of the edited and unedited videos (4K was downscaled to 1080p): http://www.megafileupload.com/rvTT/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip the images are in PDN (Paint.net RAW files) since I don't have Photoshop and non RAW image formats washout the colors. The image file names tell you which image is which.

You can show JPG frames. No need to use exotic RAW photos. JPG is not changing colors.

My antivirus program blocked your megafileupload page. I think no one will want to see PDN files ( actually never heard PDN).

Every time I saved a JPG, TIFF or PNG, the colors got washed out compared to how it actually looked so I couldn't do that as you won't see the difference with a duller looking image compared to how it actually looks, only raw files seemed to keep the colors as they were. PDN I is Paint.net (free program, see: http://www.getpaint.net/index.html) raw file format and as I don't have Photoshop, this was the only way I could do this unfortunately. Here is a different link to the files: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2g5ihhxbx7vj24q/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip?dl=0

 

[Vesku]

Here are screenshots of the edited and unedited videos (4K was downscaled to 1080p): http://www.megafileupload.com/rvTT/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip the images are in PDN (Paint.net RAW files) since I don't have Photoshop and non RAW image formats washout the colors. The image file names tell you which image is which.

You can show JPG frames. No need to use exotic RAW photos. JPG is not changing colors.

My antivirus program blocked your megafileupload page. I think no one will want to see PDN files ( actually never heard PDN).

Every time I saved a JPG, TIFF or PNG, the colors got washed out compared to how it actually looked so I couldn't do that as you won't see the difference with a duller looking image compared to how it actually looks, only raw files seemed to keep the colors as they were. PDN I is Paint.net (free program, see: http://www.getpaint.net/index.html) raw file format and as I don't have Photoshop, this was the only way I could do this unfortunately. Here is a different link to the files: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2g5ihhxbx7vj24q/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip?dl=0

 

[DNature]

Here are screenshots of the edited and unedited videos (4K was downscaled to 1080p): http://www.megafileupload.com/rvTT/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip the images are in PDN (Paint.net RAW files) since I don't have Photoshop and non RAW image formats washout the colors. The image file names tell you which image is which.

You can show JPG frames. No need to use exotic RAW photos. JPG is not changing colors.

My antivirus program blocked your megafileupload page. I think no one will want to see PDN files ( actually never heard PDN).

Every time I saved a JPG, TIFF or PNG, the colors got washed out compared to how it actually looked so I couldn't do that as you won't see the difference with a duller looking image compared to how it actually looks, only raw files seemed to keep the colors as they were. PDN I is Paint.net (free program, see: http://www.getpaint.net/index.html) raw file format and as I don't have Photoshop, this was the only way I could do this unfortunately. Here is a different link to the files: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2g5ihhxbx7vj24q/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip?dl=0

--
If find that the best way to live life, is not in the pursuit of material possessions, but its to live in the pursuit of making positive differences to both other people and to the planet as a whole and if you can get others to do similar or the same, so much the better.

I cant open PDN files. How did you do your frame samples? Did you use some editor?

You have some issues in your workflow if you cant see JPGs properly. Maybe wrong profile somewhere (AdobeRGB vs sRGB).

Cant you just save a frame via player.

That is why I put a link to Paint.net. I took a print screen screenshot of Sony Vegas preview window before and after editing and pasted it into Paint.net (which looked fine) as you can only save screenshots in Sony Vegas as JPG or PNG which probably is sRGB and could explain the washed out look. There are no settings in Paint.net for color spaces (or in Sony Vegas either) so its always sRGB and could explain the washed out colours.

--
If find that the best way to live life, is not in the pursuit of material possessions, but its to live in the pursuit of making positive differences to both other people and to the planet as a whole and if you can get others to do similar or the same, so much the better.

 

[Vesku]

Here are screenshots of the edited and unedited videos (4K was downscaled to 1080p): http://www.megafileupload.com/rvTT/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip the images are in PDN (Paint.net RAW files) since I don't have Photoshop and non RAW image formats washout the colors. The image file names tell you which image is which.

You can show JPG frames. No need to use exotic RAW photos. JPG is not changing colors.

My antivirus program blocked your megafileupload page. I think no one will want to see PDN files ( actually never heard PDN).

Every time I saved a JPG, TIFF or PNG, the colors got washed out compared to how it actually looked so I couldn't do that as you won't see the difference with a duller looking image compared to how it actually looks, only raw files seemed to keep the colors as they were. PDN I is Paint.net (free program, see: http://www.getpaint.net/index.html) raw file format and as I don't have Photoshop, this was the only way I could do this unfortunately. Here is a different link to the files: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2g5ihhxbx7vj24q/SideGarden_4K_Edited.zip?dl=0