Soft & noisy image - Why?

[Henrik Öberg]

Hi! I'm somewhat of a beginner videographer, and I'm by no means an expert. I've been using my BMPCC 4K I bought recently, and it's been great at many kinds of shooting conditions I've thrown at it so far (portrait shots, moving subjects, indoors and outdoors under different lighting conditions). However, yesterday I wanted to try out a simple slow moving shot of one of the streets in my neighborhood, and the result is... surprisingly noisy and soft. I'm not sure if it's my settings or my lens, or if the lighting conditions were too difficult for the camera to handle? My lens is not very high-end or anything, but the results I've gotten from it in other scenes have been really, really good. So I'm not sure what the problem was this time.

My lens is a Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f/3,5-5,6 II ASPH Mega O.I.S, and the settings used in this shot were:

Camera Type: Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K
Firmware Version: 7.3
Braw Compression Ratio: Q5
Braw Codec Bitrate: 470320320
Crop Size: 4096 x 2160
Shutter Type: Speed
Shutter Value: 1/192
Sensor Rate: 60.00
Internal Nd: 0
Aperture: f15.0
Exposure: 0
Focal Length: 12mm
Distance: 466mm
White Balance Kelvin: 4750
White Balance Tint: 15
Iso: 400
Clip Number: A006_08311310_C001
Reel Name: 6
Scene: 1
Take: 99
Good Take: false
Environment: interior
Day Night: day
Lens Type: LUMIX G VARIO 12-60/F3.5-5.6
Camera Number: A
Viewing Gamma: Blackmagic Design Video
Viewing Gamut: Blackmagic Design
Viewing Bmdgen: 5

 

Is there any way to make a shot like this better on the BMPCC 4K (without breaking the bank?)

Any help would be very much appreciated!

[Mark Dunn]

You haven't posted a link to the footage, and there's no way to tell from the settings whether your exposure was correct.

One thing- "Distance: 466mm"- was the focus really set to 46cm? That's way close for a long shot even allowing for DoF.

[Tyler Purcell]

We need to see the video. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by Tyler Purcell

[Mark Dunn]

17 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea need to see the video. 

A good reason to use an off-camera monitor you can, like, actually see.

[Robert Hart]

If your aperture was set to f15, (I am assuming the "5" in "15" is a typo and you meant "f16"), then the softening will be due to diffraction. You should aim for a wider aperture in the ballpark of f5.6 by using ND filters or even better, IRND filters.

Then I think you will see an improvement.

IS0400 may spoil your whites. You might be better off using enough ND to allow you to set your camera's ISO to its sweet setting or even more ND to enable a higher gain setting to protect bright details like clouds in sky and the form of light coloured motor vehicles and the texture of bright walls.

Please take more heed of the comments of wiser folk than I who may add comments.