Category Archives: Cameras

Cameras, Techniques

How to disable video gain on the Canon PowerShot SX1 camera

The Powershot SX1 is an amazing camera. I bought mine factory re-furbished, at a tremendous discount.

But it has a two frustrating gotchas. Both are its poor low light capability due to its small image sensor and lack of good signal processing to clean up the noise.

  • For stills, avoid shooting images above ISO 200 unless you have to; and then, only go to ISO 400. Anything above that is unusable. You can use third party software like Noise Ninja or NeatImage to really clean up camera noise, but would be nice to avoid that step. Never use the “Auto” mode in low light – it tries to turn dark into daylight. Instead, use P, Tv, Av or M modes. Set your ISO manually and/or set your own exposure settings.
  • Similarly, its low light video capability is positively awful and there is no way to override the camera’s automatic video exposure settings.

Or so we thought. Today I discovered a trick to affect the video gain setting.

For those of you who are still photographers, the ISO setting of your digital camera is equivalent to a video camera’s video gain. The higher the ISO number, the more amplification is added to the signal to try and pull an image out of darker scenes. Amplification occurs to both the useful signal – and the noise on the image sensor – such that increasing the amplification results in worse noise.

Professional video cameras and higher end consumer video cameras have a video gain setting to select, typically, video gain of 0 db to +18 db (some go as high as +36 db gain). The greater the number, the more gain or amplification you are adding to the signal and the noisier the image. But this means on real video cameras, you can disable gain (and the ugly noise) if you don’t want to have that.

Now for the trick. I have CHDK installed on my SX1 so the screen might show something different if you do not have CHDK running.

I pointed the camera out the window to where the sun was shining. I pressed the video record button. I then pressed the photo exposure button half way until the white focusing rectangle turns green (or yellow if you pressed the +/- exposure compensation button first). Continue to hold the exposure button half way down. This shows the ISO setting the camera has selected – for video.

Pan the camera into the interior of the room while continuing to hold the exposure button half way depressed. The room will remain dark and the ISO setting stays at 160 (or whatever it was for you).

Now, with the video still running, let go of the exposure button. The auto exposure feature kicks in and the ISO jumps to 400 and the room brightens up.

Therefore, the trick is to start your video clip at a bright area or light. Press video record. Then half depress the photo exposure button until the green rectangle appears. This locks the exposure and ISO setting (gain). Now, pan the camera into the area you want to video without so much awful noise caused by jumping to a high ISO (gain) setting.

Pretty cool, huh?

For interior shots, the SX1’s auto-only exposure mode tries to go to ISO 400 for everything. The total ISO video range is from ISO 80 up to a displayed 400. The ISO 400 setting is what shows in the display but I think its pushing out to about ISO 3200 when it goes full open. It is way too noisy and way to bright for ISO 400.

I found the best images occur with the ISO set to anything below 250. ISO 80 to ISO 125 is best, but its okay to 250. The next setting level is 320 and that starts getting pretty noisy at that point.

I ran across this by accident.  But it is a modified version of the exposure lock trick discovered on Canon’s HV20/HV30/HV40 camcorders. Same idea – point the camera at a brighter light and then invoke the exposure lock feature on the HV camera and you are good to go with video gain completely disabled. (On those cameras, you can also use the “Spotlight” mode, which disables video gain.)

Another trick that helps a little, and only a little, is the exposure compensation button in video mode. Start you video. Press the +/- button and it displays an exposure compensation setting bar (left to right) at lower left of viewer. Use the control wheel to reduce the exposure or increase the exposure. This affects the ISO but only a little.

Why didn’t Canon enable manual override of ISO, aperture and shutter speed? Certainly would have been possible. And might even be possible with CHDK if we can figure out what memory ports to poke with what values.

Cameras, Techniques, Videos

“Aliasing” and “Moire”

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The new “HDSLRs” do a fine job of shooting very nice HD video. But almost all are plagued by several problems that can ruin a good shot.

These problems are “rolling shutter” (previously written about on this blog), and “aliasing” and “moire”. Aliasing tends to introduce fake detail into an image, fooling people in to thinking its a sharper image than it really is – because its fake. Moire produces bizarre color patterns wherever there are narrowly spaced, using horizontal lines in the image.

This Barry Green article is the best explanation I’ve seen for explaining and illustrating the aliasing and moire problems with DSLRs shooting video:  DVXuser.com – Articles.

A great visual example of a moire pattern showing up in a real life situation is this video clip – about 30 seconds long. Just look at the roof of the hotel and watch all the false color shimmering going on. This example was shot on a Canon DSLR.

Here’s another example – look at the sofa cushions:

canon eos 60d video “moiré” problem at 1280×720 50 from emre karabakan on Vimeo.

Cameras

2011 Camera Predictions by Thom Hogan

2011 Predictions by Thom Hogan.

Having just returned from the 2011 CES, I find myself in general agreement with his predictions. I also see he has a Spokane, Wa connection; didn’t realize that.

Worth reading what Thom has to say – whether you agree or disagree. My sense from CES is that Sony and Panasonic are mostly heading in the right direction in the future, except for Panasonic closing off the hacking door on the GH-1. Very, very dumb move. I wish the camera makers would have their DSLR staff talk more with their video staff. They make great new DSLRs but leave out things like on screen zebras, audio level controls, or auto focus lenses – or if they have them, the focusing mechanism is noisy, which doesn’t work in audio/video!

And no one seems to have a DSLR with video that also includes a simple headphone audio output – monitoring your audio is usually pretty critical!

Canon, Nikon and the traditional camera makers seem bent on ever more pixel resolutions – although most camera makers are now acknowledging the need for better low light performance. Low light and super high resolution imagers are generally at odds with one another.

Cameras

Canon introduces new “low light” camcorders

Canon today introduced a new high end consumer camcorder line that features 1/3 sq in CMOS sensors – but having only 1920×1080 resolution. Rather than the typical gigapixel sensors being put into many consumer camcorders or still cameras, they have opted to go with a larger sensor having fewer pixels. This means each pixel’s surface area is larger and can capture more light. That in turn means the new cameras will work much better in low light and have greater dynamic range.

Looks like the new cameras also shoot 24p, in addition to 30p (wrapped inside a 60i stream) and 60i.

More information here – watch the Canon video explanation.

Cameras, Videos

CMOS versus CCD video imaging and the “Rolling Shutter” problem

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Older video cameras used CCD-based image sensors. For various reasons, that I will explain in a moment, camera makers have largely switched to using CMOS-based image sensors on low end and even some low end semi-pro video cameras (like the Panasonic HMC-40). All of the new digital SLRs (DSLR) still cameras that also shoot video using high resolution CMOS sensors too.

But there’s a nasty problem with CMOS-based sensors that can cause the video image to resemble a shaky bowl of jello, as illustrated in this video comparison between the Canon HV20 (CMOS-based) and the Panasonic SD5 (CCD-based):

The problem is that the CMOS image sensor is read “line by line” from top to bottom.  If the image changes during the read out, then one line may be slightly offset or shifted from the previous line.  This is known as a “rolling shutter” and creates the peculiar “jello effect” since not all lines (or rows) in the image are lined up with all the others.

Old movie film cameras used a physical shutter that open and shut exposing an entire frame all at once. (Although, there are some issues with that too which we can ignore for now.)

CMOS reads the image row by row while CCDs read the entire image all at once and do not use a “rolling shutter” – hence, no jello on CCD cameras.

So why use CMOS instead of CCD? The basic reason is that CMOS uses less power and produces less heat and is less expensive. As image resolutions have increased, the size (and cost and power) of the CCD imager has gone up.

Camera makers, especially in the consumer market, are in an arms race to each have cameras featuring ever more pixels. This means most have switched to CMOS because, apparently, most consumers do not care about the jello or do not encounter it often enough.

In the DSLR world, most any camera with 10 or more megapixel resolution is CMOS. CMOS works great for most still photography. But when these DSLRs are used for video, they too suffer from awful “jello”.

There are other things to consider too – CCDs may show vertical streaks in photos when there are very bright lights (sun reflected on water, stage lights, etc) in the image.  For higher resolutions, CCDs need to be physically larger – and more expensive.

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