Unhappy with the quality of RAW on BMCC

I've noticed this a few times now on my filming in RAW whether Indoors under artificial lighting or outside in natural lighting. The issue being variations in perceived exposure between frames, I first noticed this when increasing shadow detail to nearly full black in RAW footage I shot a while ago but I'm seeing it more often in footage I'm shooting now, especially when adding vignettes and other darker detail. This gives the effect of exposure flickering almost like vintage film. This happens only in RAW though and not ProRes where the image is solid and clean in that Codec. I'm getting to the stage now where I can't find many plus's in using the RAW feature now on my BMCC other than the fact that I can shoot at 2.5K as the exposure flicker is causing issues with heavy graded work I do. One of my top decisions to use the BMCC was to be able to push my film grading further than any of my AVCHD cams. I wonder if a Blackmagic engineer could look into this as I know they sometimes read these post's on the forum?

How are you processing your raw footage?

Through which software?

Can you post some examples?

I've never experienced this. What do you mean by "increasing shadow detail to nearly full black"? It sounds like you may be underexposed and whatever process you're using to compensate is introducing this flicker maybe?

Without the example Tom asked for it's impossible to even guess correctly.

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Hi Tom I'm using Adobe Camera RAW and Adobe After effects. The photos are consecutive frames, if you flick between the two you notice the exposure in the shadows are not the same, looks subtle until played back as a 20 second sequence

I'll do some test footage over the weekend and post on youtube with the links posted here, with ProRes footage as well as the RAW footage. I'm pushing the grades pretty far but at the moment because of this I push the ProRes further than the RAW lol

Yes, I see what you are talking about.

Sounds like the cause of the problem is Adobe camera raw not the camera. Many of the adjustments you can do with ACR such as highlights, shadows, clarity etc can cause flickering because they are frame dependant and not designed for motion.

I have seen the exact thing you describe in my own footage, but only when going via ACR with certain adjustments.

Try the exact same dng sequence in resolve.

Yes definitely not getting this on the ProRes, I did some footage on my original BMCC (I'm on my second one due to other issues) of a landscape shoot I did on a Moor where I live, I gave the scene a dramatic look with grading and that was the first time I noticed it, It checked the frames in photoshop with a flat look and noticed that the exposure flicker was apparent in the DNG files

Thanks Tom, if that is the case then I will have to re-think my workflow as I use AE as my main tool. I must admit I haven't really looked at resolve as my clips are stock footage creations with 20 seconds being the longest clip length and they the workflow is pretty fast with Adobe

I'd suggest a one-light grade in Resolve and output as full range 16 bit DPX sequences a better workflow than in via ACR. I haven't experienced any flicker issues with BMCC and I only shoot RAW.

Resolve allows tweaking the exposure, white balance, sharpness etc while it's still RAW in the media pool.

Thanks Traction, I'll give Resolve a go

As Tom said there are some controls in ACR that are not motion friendly. It's best to do just your basic processing (exposure, white balance, etc) in ACR and then do your "look" inside AE with tools that are designed for motion.

ACR was my first thought when reading this.
I played around with Magic Lantern RAW on a 50D for a few weeks, and was getting the same thing; I think ACR just isn't coded correctly for video, meant to be for still images.
Which sucks, since resolve won't work on my year-and-a-half old MacBook Pro.

Thanks Guys, I'm going to have a look at Cineform and see if I can implement that into my workflow first, I need to get to grips with Resolve but over 15 years in After Effects is a hard habit to break as my work involves a lot of compositing. I still like to have the ability to get into the RAW file and alter the RAW information as needed as I work and in AE that ability is only a Ctrl+E away, unless there is a quicker way to do this in resolve with After effects I don't know?

I noticed flickering with raw using Adobe's Camera Raw when importing to After Effects, no problem in Resolve with the same footage. I think it's because of a Quicktime bug, because I have noticed the same in preview's video playback (Mac).

Why not do a first light in Resolve and convert everything to ProRes 4444?

Seems to be a better workflow for AE.

I'm on a Windows only platform so no conversion to ProRes is possible

I had the flicker issue in ACR when using "clarity" if you dont touch clarity it should be fine besides the nasty handling of sequences and slow render.
Cineform is great too, its very fast and they have a great support, jake is also busy on this forum, but it has not as good debayer algorithms as ACR and Davinci as a downside.
Davinci will give you great results, i really started to like it.

Thomas

Thank you Thomas

I noticed this as soon as I first started working with BMCC RAW footage in Adobe Lightroom (same as ACR). It's mostly the Highlight/Shadow and Clarity sliders that introduce this flicker, as others have already mentioned. I then decided to ditch that method and teach myself DaVinci Resolve. After all, it comes with the camera and it's being used to grade high budget productions for a reason. It's worth taking the time to learn it.

It's worth taking the time to learn it.

THIS!


It does take some time getting used to it, and it does seem like ACR can be much more user friendly, but in the long term - the more I learn about Resolve and figure bits out, the more I love it!

I also support learning Resolve. If you're proficient in the logic behind layers in AE, learning nodes in Resolve will be a relatively painless transition. A very intuitive design to Resolve and you'll love it.

FYI:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14407&p=90758#p90735

Resolve is great. After all it's been developed over years and years in a pro environment. The more you learn it, the more you learn tricks and techniques to make your grading really pro.

Jules

Thanks Guys

Ok after spending the whole weekend testing my footage in After Effects and Resolve I have come to the conclusion that this exposure flicker in in the DNG files, any fast motion such as leaves blowing in the wind or fern plants blowing in the wind (which is my test footage) is causing this is issue, any scene with with wide degrees of contrast range appears to send the BMCC loopy when shooting in RAW but not in ProRes, I have seen a similar issue before when shooting footage like this on my DLSR

Here is the footage with bracketed levels

And here is the footage with crushed blacks to highlight the flickering better

This footage was set in Resolve as I was told this issue cold be to do with ACR but now I'm not convinced!
It only happens on shooting similar footage as above where contrast levels are wide

Ok after spending the whole weekend testing my footage in After Effects and Resolve I have come to the conclusion that this exposure flicker in in the DNG files, any fast motion such as leaves blowing in the wind or fern plants blowing in the wind (which is my test footage) is causing this is issue, any scene with with wide degrees of contrast range appears to send the BMCC loopy when shooting in RAW but not in ProRes, I have seen a similar issue before when shooting footage like this on my DLSR

Here is the footage with bracketed levels

And here is the footage with crushed blacks to highlight the flickering better

This footage was set in Resolve as I was told this issue cold be to do with ACR but now I'm not convinced!
It only happens on shooting similar footage as above where contrast levels are wide

I *THINK* I can see what you are referring to....it looks almost like banding - as if the two shades are so close that it switches between them as the ambient light changes slightly.

I know its logistically difficult, but if you could share just a few seconds of DNG's with the problem - then I bet this could be concluded very quickly as to whether you have a faulty camera or not.

Hi Tom, I'll prepare some, how many frames do you need?

Hi Tom, I'll prepare some, how many frames do you need?

At least 2 seconds worth? Ones where you can see the problem.

Hi Tom, thanks for taking an interest and trying to sort my problem out, Iv'e decided to send the camera back to CVP for them to check it out as I'm spending way to much time trying to sort this problem out, it just doesn't feel right and I'm reluctant to rely on it for production work at the moment, I'll let you know here how I get on, again many thanks

Maybe a wrong framerate for your region was selected LOL
Or a semioptimal light: http://www.davidsatz.com/aboutflicker_en.html

Hi Tom, thanks for taking an interest and trying to sort my problem out, Iv'e decided to send the camera back to CVP for them to check it out as I'm spending way to much time trying to sort this problem out, it just doesn't feel right and I'm reluctant to rely on it for production work at the moment, I'll let you know here how I get on, again many thanks

No problem Christian - I hope you get it all sorted as quickly as possible!