Tom wrote:Here are the two histograms from those DNG's
When opening those frames in photoshop, until I have to boost the exposure by more than +1, I cannot see any visible artefact.
First off, Tom, I want thank you for responding and helping me out with this situation. I know I'm harping over a small aspect of this camera but after waiting as long as we have I wasn't expecting to run into an issue like this and it's really been disparaging.
The shift in the raw file is quite visible to me and everyone else I've shown the raw file to (on multiple screens) including BMD support. Download the clip on vimeo (
) and you can see the shift better in motion. My complaint is not based on trying to boost this image, it's just in getting a clean image from the start. Just to specify, clean, in this situation, just means no "signature" split.
Tom wrote:Looking at those histograms, It is clear that there is not enough light in the shot.
Hence you are able to bring out the "signature" of the sensor.
With the options available to me, this is the best exposure I could get out of the camera. I want to be able to have the option to have establishing shots at night or scenes where characters are lit well and there's darkness behind them. Do you have any suggestions with the camera on how I could avoid getting the line to show up when Im shooting with available light? Again, I'm not trying to boost the image in post- I'm seeing this "signature" shift in the viewfinder (when I'm filming) and in the raw.
Tom wrote: I dont normally like to crush my blacks, but when using other cameras (and when playing with this dng) I find that for shots such as the night sky, where noise and artefacts can usually pop up from most cameras, just crushing the blacks a little bit helps to help to clean the image a bit.
I have no problem crushing the blacks a little. However, I had the editor on my show take a crack at this sequence and his final look (with crushed blacks) still exposed the "signature" horizontal shift. I'd be happy to claim ignorance on this matter, but having a professional editor, photographer, and motion graphics artist all take a look at the raw (and corrected) and all say something to effect of, "damn," I can't help but feel disappointed in the product. I've tried added an adjustment layer and masked it over the top half of the split to balance out this issue, but this seems like a hacky work around for something that should just deliver pre color correction.
Tom wrote: You said that this line appeared in every shot, care to share a dng or video of a shot where the image has been exposed more towards the middle of the histogram, or even to the right?
Apologies, I meant every shot that involved darkness. In Daylight and well lit scenarios, I am very pleased with the look but I don't want to be restricted to only those conditions.
Tom wrote: Can you see the artefacts in this shot where I have crushed the blacks slightly?
ScreenHunter_06 Jan. 21 12.17.jpg
I will say it looks better, but it's still visible to me. If I were to apply that color correction to that entire scene, you'd still see it clearly as movement exposes this issue. Again, please download the video-
you'll see that the raw footage + color corrected samples all show this problem and it's magnified when the camera is moved around as the split exposes the sky differently.
Tom (and anyone else reading/responding) thanks again for your time I really appreciate it.
Edmond