Little Frog Mountain...blue sky advice

Lyk2fly · May 4, 2020

Shot some scenes in log 4k@30fps. Camera sharpness was -2 and contrast was-2. Does anyone know what causes the blue sky to have "banding" like this? The other scenes seem fine.

Jagerbomb52 · May 4, 2020

Did you have filters on by any chance? Nice video by the way and nice spot.

Lyk2fly · May 4, 2020

Agustine said:
Did you have filters on by any chance? Nice video by the way and nice spot.

Yes...Polar Pro ND 16. But I had done a previous video (Buck Bald) without a filter and the sky was banded as well. Seems to be a blue sky problem.

Jagerbomb52 · May 4, 2020

Lyk2fly said:
Yes...Polar Pro ND 16. But I had done a previous video (Buck Bald) without a filter and the sky was banded as well. Seems to be a blue sky problem.

I have seen it in some of my videos. Not sure why but could be just the angle the camera was at in respect to the sun. I believe the filters make it more noticeable.

Jagerbomb52 · May 4, 2020

A google search brought this up.

Banding is when the transition between colors is not smooth, what can create patterns of vertical lines. This can be very visible when shooting clear blue sky or sunsets, as well as when shooting on a color backdrop in the studio.

Colour banding, or color banding (American English), is a problem of inaccurate colour presentation in computer graphics. In 24-bit colour modes, 8 bits per channel is usually considered sufficient to render images in Rec.

Lyk2fly · May 4, 2020

Agustine said:
A google search brought this up.

Banding is when the transition between colors is not smooth, what can create patterns of vertical lines. This can be very visible when shooting clear blue sky or sunsets, as well as when shooting on a color backdrop in the studio.

Colour banding, or color banding (American English), is a problem of inaccurate colour presentation in computer graphics. In 24-bit colour modes, 8 bits per channel is usually considered sufficient to render images in Rec.

Thanks Agustine...I was just watching some YouTube videos about the subject. Apparently it is a common issue, I just hadn't noticed it until recently. I was afraid something was happening to the Evo's camera.

HiloHawaiian · May 4, 2020

Agustine said:
A google search brought this up.

Banding is when the transition between colors is not smooth, what can create patterns of vertical lines. This can be very visible when shooting clear blue sky or sunsets, as well as when shooting on a color backdrop in the studio.

Colour banding, or color banding (American English), is a problem of inaccurate colour presentation in computer graphics. In 24-bit colour modes, 8 bits per channel is usually considered sufficient to render images in Rec.

I've been shooting a lot of sunsets lately, it's an issue with the XSP too... I can ruin footage

HiloHawaiian · May 4, 2020

Lyk2fly said:
Shot some scenes in log 4k@30fps. Camera sharpness was -2 and contrast was-2. Does anyone know what causes the blue sky to have "banding" like this? The other scenes seem fine.

I have to ask...Are there any little frogs up there?

Lyk2fly · May 4, 2020

HiloHawaiian said:
I have to ask...Are there any little frogs up there?

According to Cherokee legend there were massive frog creatures there ?

Actually there are 2 Frog/Cohutta mountains here....Little Frog and Big Frog. Big Frog is about 1000ft higher than Little Frog but is mostly wilderness so no driving up there. I'm too old and fat to hike that far. So I thought Little Frog was a better subject ?

You had to ask.

DanielC · May 4, 2020

8 bit in log mode exacerbates the banding effect. You wouldn't think it would, but I have experienced this on pro-sumer video cameras also when using Log in 8 bit. Bad banding. Part of the reason for this is that Log mode bypasses some of the in-camera technology that handle these problems for you. I'm not sure that this is true of the Evo, but it is true of some other cameras I have used in video production work.

Lyk2fly · May 4, 2020

DanielC said:
8 bit in log mode exacerbates the banding effect. You wouldn't think it would, but I have experienced this on pro-sumer video cameras also when using Log in 8 bit. Bad banding.

Thanks DanielC, so it is caused by the Evo's camera? Can you minimize it by shooting a certain way (don't use log)or can it be corrected in post?

DanielC · May 4, 2020

Make sure you are recording in H265 mode. There is not a lot you can do in post. Short of heavy blur or sky replacement, both are processor heavy and take a relatively high skill to do well.

Lyk2fly · May 4, 2020

DanielC said:
Make sure you are recording in H265 mode. There is not a lot you can do in post. Short of heavy blur or sky replacement, both are processor heavy and take a relatively high skill to do well.

I was in 264 because I understood that 265 is hard on the processor. I guess I'll try H265 or not shoot in log.

Jagerbomb52 · May 4, 2020

DanielC said:
Make sure you are recording in H265 mode. There is not a lot you can do in post. Short of heavy blur or sky replacement, both are processor heavy and take a relatively high skill to do well.

I have to ask how to you do a sky replacement with a video that keeps changing locations? I often wondered if it was possible.

HiloHawaiian · May 4, 2020

Agustine said:
I have to ask how to you do a sky replacement with a video that keeps changing locations? I often wondered if it was possible.

Took the letters off my keyboard. Ive read that it is, but were talking Industrial Light and Magic territory...

Lyk2fly · May 4, 2020

DanielC said:
Make sure you are recording in H265 mode. There is not a lot you can do in post. Short of heavy blur or sky replacement, both are processor heavy and take a relatively high skill to do well.

DanielC...is it best to render the movie in H265 as well? I just shot some test clips with the Evo at H265 and my PC edits them ok.

DanielC · May 4, 2020

It appears to be all 8 bit, but the H265 is going to give you more for your bit than the H264. It is a 100mbps file so it's just about all that can be done with a single fast hard drive. And depending on your processor the hard drive may not be the bottleneck anyway. One way to work is to render as you go, another is to use a proxy file, but that takes a lot of processing too. you may have a quality switch in your editor that just lets you play a lower quality display version of your file until you are ready to output. FCPX and DaVinci Resolve both have this feature. Editing at a lower resolution (720p) and then conforming to a higher resolution (1080p or 4K UHD) is also an option to help with playback while editing.

Because long GOP files like these look ahead to process, playing them forward is less taxing on the processors than playing them backwards. So if you are having trouble already. try not to play in reverse.

Lyk2fly · May 4, 2020

DanielC, I'm producing my test in H264 codec because I read where YouTube doesn't accept H265 and almost everthing I do winds up on YouTube.

But the test footage is H265 out of the Evo and it just looked better to me.

I use Cyberlink and it does the proxy route so my computer was fine. It is still rendering the test movie so we'll see.

You've been a great help. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me.

Ansia · May 4, 2020

You can record at H265. Youtube will simply convert it to H264.

Lyk2fly · May 16, 2020

I have shot some h265 log video with more blue sky and the results are disappointing. I did follow the advice of "experts" and overexpose by 2 stops. I still have ugly sky color banding.

At this point I think the Evo 1 is best used with normal color profiles. The bit depth is apparently not deep enough to handle a clear sky in log.

Or it may be possible that my Evo's camera has a problem.