This post was last modified: 2014-12-20, 06:20 by Manuel Diaz.

So I shot with Holy Grail method with help of DSLR Dashboard and my exposure 2 and 3 key frames matching are great. The only problem is the matching on shadows/exposure in the vignetting area on those same key frames. I have tried to decreasing and increasing vignetting on both key frames without any good result.
Any advice?
And, how can I get rid of that ugly banding? I have tried the 6k Tif intermediate images, Pro res and very high quality. This is a H.264 premiere render based on an AVI render directly from RAW with After Efects, since I got better results compared to the LRT pro res codec. I passed through Premiere because a cutting and stabilization issue. By the way, the AVI render has NO banding. So which is the best codec to render from Premiere? thinking after adding music, for example.

I shot with a Rokinon 14mm f2.8 at f.4

Here is the footage.

http://youtu.be/HHGybibgzLQ

Best regards from Tequila and Mariachi land, Guadalajara, México! http://forum.lrtimelapse.com/images/icons/wink.gif

Regarding the vignette - did you try activating Lens correction on the whole sequence?

Sequences like those are really hard to compress (regardless which compressor) without any banding. Normally the ProRes render from LRTimelapse is very good - certainly you might see differences compared to uncompressed footage, especially with gradients like that.

I've found that LRT-Motion-Blur-Plus helps a lot as well, you might try that.

But in the end: uncompressed footage doesn't help you since in the end, any footage will be compressed before the viewer gets to see it. So you should try to get the banding down by carefully checking that there is no clipping in any channel, reducing the amount of post processing etc... There is no recipe I fear...

Great sequence btw ;-)

Gunther, Thanks for your answer!
I had not tried the lens correction. I'm on it!

For the banding issue, I am decreasing the amount of post and trying the Motion Blur in a ProRes as well. After adding music to the sequence, what codec or settings are your favorites in premiere? looking for closest to lose less.

Is there any way to add a stabilizer in your software? It would be great! (just a thought).

For consumer upload (youtube vimeo) you will have to use MP4. For professional work I use ProRes, DnxHD or Cineform.
Stabilizing is currently not possible in LRTimelapse, I've investigated a couple of solutions already but unfortunately I couldn't find a standalone stabilizer that I could integrate, that works well enough. But I will investigate more, maybe how to improve the workflow when using Warp Stabilizer.

I am getting banding too. All of my holy grail sequences. I capture in raw, I render in tif. Has anything changed or any new tips regarding banding problems since this post? thanks, Malcolm

Banding will happen, when there are more details changing inbetween images then the encoder can compress into the given bandwidth. So either you can decrease the details (ND-Filter, Noise reduction, Motion blur plus) or you can increase the encoder bandwidth (Prores). Decreasing the details is the recommended way, since eventually every video will end up somewhere on youtube with limited bandwidth only.

This post was last modified: 2017-05-03, 02:55 by malcolmp.

thank you Gunther, further to your reply...I am processing in 1080p only because I use it as a preview. My main project is to come up with 8k video which I know will not be posted on youtube. Am I correct to assume ( and unfortunately I can only assume because I can't properly view an 8k video) that the D810a full frame sequence is uncompressed when viewed in 8k and therefore what I see as banding in 1080p likely doesnt show up in the 8k format? I apologize if this is oversimplifying. The transitions are in 100% clear sky, the only motion is the changing colours. PS... noise reduction? or noise increase? I read something about how increasing noise helps remove banding. I only see this banding in my holy grail sequences. Its during the transition from day/night. My night shots and day shots are all fine.
Should I expect LRT to perform in this situation? Or should I look at other rendering solutions? Or is this a problem for all of them?

This post was last modified: 2017-05-03, 11:31 by Gunther.

Banding is an effect that will occurr with any program that renders in MP4. Basically this effect is based on compression artifacts. LRTimelapse uses ffmpeg for rendering, basically there is no better MP4 encoder available. Ffmpeg even outperforms the Adobe encoder.

If you do professional work, you should use ProRes - this will deliver much better quality and significantly reduce banding artifacts.
Since I don't know you footage, it's hard to say, if it's only banding you are talking about or it there are other effects like clipping in some color channels. Maybe you could share your preview with us.
Regarding the noise reduction: the best approach would be to reduce noise on the areas with lots of movement that are not affected by banding (bottom part) and add some noise to the sky where you currently see your banding. You could use the gradients to do this.

This post was last modified: 2017-05-03, 13:44 by malcolmp.

thanks, I am using prores. mp4 was not an option for 8k so I used prores for both 1080p and 8k.

I found this statement online, would you agree with it? "the blue to black in 8bit per channel world is very hard to keep from banding I've been fighting it for years." Would it perhaps be the difference between 16 bit and 8 bit that makes banding worse?