Why does my 720 look sharper than 1080?

O

Overlook

Active member
I have shot some run and gun interviews in daylight in 720 Cine D 24pn. They look great, luminous, clean, sharp.

Then I went one better and shot some landscapes on a tripod. 1080 Cine D 24pa. Focus was carefully set to infinity and checked by eye. These 1080 images just don't look as good. Not as sharp, noisy. They don't have the zing the 720 shots have.

I am very puzzled.

I am viewing these shots in FCP on my 15" Powerbook G4. Does the monitor on the laptop not play 1080 well?

The landscapes were done with lens zoomed all the way out. Is it not as sharp all the way out? But then some of the run and gun material was also zoomed out I'm pretty sure.

Frustrating.
 
I don't expect you are going to find what you are looking for shooting with focus set to infinity. If I could suggest perhaps (as long as you have a tripod) shooting the extact same scene, same lighting, etc., first in 720 then in 1080 and compare. Barry (I think) and others have suggested there is something in the area of a 15% improvement. Let us know what you think (please).
 
My suspicion (only a guess) is that 720 shows natively (no uprezzing or downrezzing neccessary) on most tv and computer monitors.

1080 will have to be downrezzed to fit on an average monitor, and the process may not be optimally implemented.

I'll bet 1080 will look great on a 1920 x 1080 monitor.
 
I bet it has to do with f stop you shot at more than 1080/720. outside you may have been shooting closer to an 11, and after all the camera costs much less that most "professional" HD lenses alone for the 2/3 inch type cameras, and while lens is good, it does have some limitations, which may override the 10% incease in sharpness by going 1080.
 
Wrestling with sharpness issue still

Wrestling with sharpness issue still

I ran more tests today and have determined that the lens is only very slightly softer fully wide and fully telephoto. That is to be expected. Tests done at 5.6 f-stop.

I also determined that 720 still looks a little better on my G4 15" powerbook screen than does 1080. Tests done at 5.6 f-stop. I would be grateful to hear an explanation for this. I worry that there is something wrong with the 1080. How can I know? I'm in the field shooting a doc. I'm getting good results using 720 for interviews but I want to have some panoramic landscape shots in 1080 because ultimately I want to deliver a 1080 master.

The panoramic shots just aren't looking that good. It seems they should be spectacular. Is it possible that I am expecting the camera to capture too much detail. Getting a great shot of a face is one thing, while a panoramic nature shot, one could argue, has way more detail. Any opinions about this?

The nature shots of the wolves at bootcamp were great. For reference, my shots are much more panoramic than those.

Also, would I be happy if I had the small Panasonic filed monitor, the BT-LH900A? Would it give me confidence in knowing well enough what I have captured? I notice that it is 1024x768 so it would be doing some kind of reshuffling of the pixel info. Would there be some degradation because of this?

Also, can someone explain why when focusing on something very far away, over 500 feet, with lens zoomed all the way in and with the focuc assist activated, it is possible to find the sharp point, which naturally is located at the infinity point as indicated by the symbol on the screen, but that you can then keep turning the focus ring past infinity and lose focus. How is this possible? Infinity is infinity.

Well, thanks all for the info.
 
"How is this possible? Infinity is infinity."

Oh oh. You focused into the fourth dimension!!!

Some of the larger and longer 35mm SLR telephoto lenses do this. It probably has something to do with allowing for some slight variations in the lens if the photographer encounters extreme temperatures. At infinity the objective lens is at its closest point. If it set to stop at exactly infinity at a low temperature, it might not go to infinity when it gets warmer.
 
Hey Overlook,

i fear if you are doing this panoramic shots, you shouldnt get the best.
But this is natural, and due to the limitations that a 1/3chip cam has, so if you are looking for good panorama i think you will need a bigger one.

My cameragirl says always "forget about shooting panorama shots with such a "small" cam, it doesnt work well.

I can give a good example, if you watch the movie "Land of Plenty" by Vim Wenders, ist done 90 Percent with a DVX 100, and its great and very filmic, because of a skillfull cameraguy and good light.
But as far as i know, for the panoramic shots they had to use something else(i think shot on film..but dont know for sure..)

Definitly worth to see this as an example, how fine your work can look with a hvx now, but also to know the limitations..good luck!
 
I noticed in your first thread regarding this issue that you didn't respond to the 3 people that offered some ideas, but rather started another new thread. I'm sure you'll have better luck with your problem if you exchange information with the folks taking the time to offer assistance.

In your original thread Stabwound mentioned resolution. Perhaps your Powerbook might be down-scaling the 1080P image. That's certainly the first thing I'd look at.

So a few questions that will help others help you:
What's the resolution of your Powerbook?
What software are you using to view the footage?
Have you shot the EXACT same scene with the EXACT same settings in 1080P and 720P to compare.
Finally, any chance you can post some frame grabs at full resolution?

www.philipwilliams.com
 
Thanks everyone.

Phil, yes I am hoping part of the problem has to do with the "down-scaling" issue. But I can only explore this further on my end once I can view some shots on a better monitor. I'm hoping for advice regarding the BT-LH900.

I did film a scene using identical settings in 1080pa and 720pn and the 720 looks better on my 15" Powerbook which has a screen resolution of 1280 x 845. The scene I tested with was a brick wall shot at 5.6 and midway on the zoom lens. Resolution appeared slightly better on 720, when you would expect the opposite.

I am watching the shots in the viewer of FCP 5.0.4., not the canvas or from the timeline.

I will post some frames once I get to a high speed station. I'm on the road and relying on dial up at the moment. (If I can I will rerun the brick wall test and try to post these even from dial up.)
 
Dean, twilight zone, indeed. There is a zone beyond infinity where focus is still up for grabs. And I am focusing on a tree line at least 500 feet away. It seems the concept of infinity, so solid in still, fixed lens photography, does not apply with some zoom lenses.

I hope there will be some more input on this.

By the way Dean I'm going fishing for trout in the Pecos Wilderness in New Mexico today on way to a shoot Saturday. How about that? I'll try to get a varispeed shot of a fly cast if I can fit it on a 4 GB card.
 
Have you tried this yet:
Export a frame from the 1080 timeline at 1920x1080 and then export a frame from the 720 timeline at 1280x720. Pull up the frames in an image viewer that will let you scale both to 100% and see how the 1080P looks then. That won't let you see the entire frame at once, but it will at least eliminate downsampling issues.
 
Brilliant, Phil, I will try this. Thanks! This should tell us something. I will do this tonight after dark.
 
Infinity is infinity.
Click to expand...

ON the DVX100 infinity was not infinity (Z98) but Z95

I have asked this question in other threads and still have not gotten the answer:

Has it been confirmed that the HVX infinity is at the end and not a few steps back like the DVX100 ?

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Come back with some examples instead of just telling us about it, will ya' ?

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On another note; I have never pictures the HVX for a panorma landscape shooting camera. You may have the wrong tool in your hand if that's your goal
 
Infinity, is not actually always infinity, the reason there are some focusing points past infinity is because heat, both inside and outside the camera can change the refractive index of the air. That means it sometimes focuses to diffrent positions. Granted at full wide this isn't much of an issue because of DOF but it can still be a factor.
 
Look at the video in the FCP canvas window. Select 100% from the top of the canvas. You will have scroll bars on the footage, but it will let you see the whole image. I am working with a PB15", and it has to do some resampling to work with 1080, the screen just isn't large enough. Maybe rent a plasma for testing?
 
John_Hudson said:
Has it been confirmed that the HVX infinity is at the end and not a few steps back like the DVX100 ?
Click to expand...
HVX works just like the DVX does. Infinity is MF95, but you can focus to MF99.
 
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