EOSHD Pro Color for Panasonic cameras- Why have Noise Reduction set at "0" and not "-5"?

[John Matthews]

Hello everyone,

I've been playing around with LUTs in Lumafusion on the iPad and I've been applying @Andrew Reid's EOSHD Pro Color for Panasonic cameras (GX80) that I purchased quite some time ago and I've been liking it, but I have one question. In the PDF file, could someone tell me why @Andrew Reid says Noise Reduction should be at "0" and not "-5" in the Standard profile? When I looked at this some time ago, it was clear that "-5" in NR was the obvious choice... it seemed that "0", the default setting, was smudging the image... Anyone have experience with that or know why?

[thebrothersthre3]

I assume its his personal preference. Noise reduction wouldn't effect color so -5 should be fine. I certainly prefer -5 as the GX80 NR smoothing looks bad.

[Andrew Reid]

Finer noise grain!

If you turn it down too far you get a more plastic texture which isn't film-like.

The Panasonic codec is really good at a fine grain, so I wanted to keep hold of it.

[kye]

I definitely like the grain from the GH5 - very film-like.

[John Matthews]

8 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Finer noise grain!

If you turn it down too far you get a more plastic texture which isn't film-like.

The Panasonic codec is really good at a fine grain, so I wanted to keep hold of it.

So, I took a short video of stained pine furniture off in the distance at "-5" (NR off, ISO 200); then, at "0" in the same conditions. My conclusions are NR "-5" has more detail, but "0" has less noise. I tried the same at ISO 3200 and the results were more exagerated, drastically smudging the fine grain of the wood at NR "0". It might be a case specific to the GX80/85 and not other Panasonic cameras. Also, there may be a happy medium between the two settings.

4 hours ago, kye said:

I definitely like the grain from the GH5 - very film-like.

I cannot speak for the GH5, but the GX80 seems quite good. What setting of NR have you been using?

 

On a side note, when comparing the GX85's 1080p on DPReview.com to other camera's 1080p, the results are quite bad for the GX85. Personally, I've found the 1080p out of the camera quite good and makes me wonder if Panasonic readjusted their NR setting on other cameras. However, I'm not quite sure what setting DPReview used in their video comparisons. Here's a link:

 https://***URL removed***/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gx85-gx80/6

[kye]

2 hours ago, John Matthews said:

I cannot speak for the GH5, but the GX80 seems quite good. What setting of NR have you been using?

I bought the GHa LUT pack that @Sage developed and he recommended -5, the lowest available as that's what matched his Alexa.  I figured that whatever matches an Alexa is good enough for me!

I've just switched to the 5K Open Gate mode though, and I think that has less processing again, but I haven't shot anything real with it yet so I am yet to compare.

[thebrothersthre3]

I found the GH5 grain pleasing up to 3200 iso. 6400 iso was a mess. I never tried the GX85 at zero NR, at -5 it would like quite digital above 800 especially 3200. It wasn't that the noise was bad but the whole image looked kind of smudgy.

[Andrew Reid]

You are free to change it to -5 if that's what you prefer.

[canonlyme]

On 2/20/2019 at 8:58 AM, John Matthews said:

So, I took a short video of stained pine furniture off in the distance at "-5" (NR off, ISO 200); then, at "0" in the same conditions. My conclusions are NR "-5" has more detail, but "0" has less noise. I tried the same at ISO 3200 and the results were more exagerated, drastically smudging the fine grain of the wood at NR "0". It might be a case specific to the GX80/85 and not other Panasonic cameras. Also, there may be a happy medium between the two settings.

I cannot speak for the GH5, but the GX80 seems quite good. What setting of NR have you been using?

 

On a side note, when comparing the GX85's 1080p on DPReview.com to other camera's 1080p, the results are quite bad for the GX85. Personally, I've found the 1080p out of the camera quite good and makes me wonder if Panasonic readjusted their NR setting on other cameras. However, I'm not quite sure what setting DPReview used in their video comparisons. Here's a link:

 https://***URL removed***/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gx85-gx80/6

To be honest, I would be really careful with trusting someone else on a simple test like this. I do not trust them too much.