Noises of the Wolf

Matthew Bennett

Matthew Bennett

Well-known member
Everyone has been talking about the wolf footage. So, I download it. It's great footage, it's sharp, decent color, exciting subject. Great shooting. The strobing snow looks very cool. As a matter of fact, wolves are just damn cool to begin with.

But, the footage seems to have a real problem with artifacting...

I took some cropped frames into photoshop and applied the levels filter to them, and randomly added gamma to the image. It looks very blocky to me...

When I info'd the file in quicktime is says that it is DVCProHD vout - is it some kind of compression I'm seeing ... or is this the camera...?

Here is what I'm talking about.
(sorry about linking but I don't have permish to add attachments)

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/1.Wolves_Artifacts_1.tif

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/2.Wolves_Artifacts_2.tif

http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_upload/uploads/3.Wolves_Artifacts_3.tif



Can anyone explain this to me?? It seems really bad for 4:2:2, which is what DVCpro is, right??
 
I would say these are more problems with the movie files than with the camera original footage. Of course all video images don't have the latitude in post that film has. But you also don't see film on an LCD display while you're shooting it. So these drasitic corrrections are seldom necessary in post when shooting video. I would think that if the cinematographer wanted to create an image as bright as your gamma'd up tiffs he would have exposed for it.
cheers,
Sam
 
I don't know why you would need to push levels that far. Those frames look terrible, but then again it's pushed to an extreme. Do that to anything but film and you'll get pretty poor results.
 
All I know is that I put together some of the footage on a DVD and sent it to a friend of mine. She called me today crying on the phone because it had moved her so deeply.

I don't like to mess with much of anything in post. I try to get it how I want it to look as I shoot it.

It just kind of cracks me up when people dissect everything to the Nth degree and I have people crying on the phone that they love the footage so much. :) I mean have you ever seen the Mona Lisa up close? Man, there's cracks all over that thing. :)

I'm sure you could take about anything and make it look like junk if you screwed with it enough.

I don't regret getting the HVX for a second. My only regret is that I don't have more time to go out and shoot with it.
 
n8ture said:
It just kind of cracks me up when people dissect everything to the Nth degree and I have people crying on the phone that they love the footage so much. :) I mean have you ever seen the Mona Lisa up close? Man, there's cracks all over that thing. :)
Click to expand...

LMFAO

That's so freaking true. Too many technicalities are being pulled out on these cameras.

Not my words, but: Just more excuses not to get out there and shoot what you have.

Camera's a plus, but it's still second to the story, people. =P
 
Kevin, I found your wolf footage to be inspiring, exciting and beautiful.
As good as anything I've seen from National Geographic. The clip shot
at 60 frames is the one I've shown most to show off the film-like beauty
of this camera (I'm getting mine soon!) :)

Keep up the great work.

Richard


___________________
www.richard-gale.com
 
Thanks Richard. That's what the camera's all about. Everyone who's seen the DVD has never said anything about noise, artifacts, nothing. Usually they just say "Holy sh!t!":Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

Matthew, you're pushing those stills to the extreme. Unless it was Bigfoot getting out of a UFO if I had to do that to footage, it would never see the light of day.

I look at all the footage I've seen posted here and I'm blown away. I mean this is with camera's that people have had in their hands for just a couple of hours. Imagine what's possible once people really get to know it?
 
Matthew,

Don't forget we are dealing with compressed footage. DVCPro HD is a variant of DV and unless your shooting uncompressed video, somethings got to give. This is obviously the same for HDV. The dark areas are going to see the most artifacting.
 
Barry,
Are you talking the 720p stuff of the 1080p stuff?
I see according to Apple's white paper that FCP doesn't support 1080p 24p yet which is why that one file I sent you was messed up with those "tween" frames. Hopefully Apple will support it in the next version.

I have a compressed clip from the DVD I put together that has a good snarl in it.
It can be found here

It also has a longer shot of the original wolf clip that was posted here.

This camera has allowed me to take some of the best wildlife footage I've ever done.

I also think some of the issues are with the QuickTime Player.
I was uploading a clip that a client was wanting to buy and I wanted to double check it before I uploaded it. I looked at it in the AuickTime player and I was shocked. It looked horrible.
All I did was add a time-code burn to it. So, I opened up FCP to see if I could fix it and it looked great again. The colors were more saturated, the noise I had seen was gone etc.
I opened it back up in the regular QT player and it looked like crap again.

I emailed the client to let them know to view the clip in FCP and not judge it by playing it in QT alone.

I realize this doesn't address all the issues but it certainly scared me for a minute. :)

If the light is nice today I want to go out and film some stuff at 12fps since I haven't had a chance to mess around with that yet.
 
Thanks for all your responses.

There sure is a lot of passion about this camera! I posted an HVX 'naysay' on another thread and I found the responses there to go way beyond normal consumer reactions.

Is there ... (dare we say) a deep LOVe bond forming for the HVX ... only weeks out of the panasonic womb???

Man!! We must really be living in the future!

I think it's awesome. Here's to all the great films we'll be making with all this passion.
 
Matthew,
I think it is passion. I certainly don't feel like I have to make excuses because I spent $6000 on a camera. I defend it because I'm not seeing the issues that are stopping people from buying the camera.

I just look at what I'm getting from this camera and I want to stop people on the street and say LOOK AT THIS!!!

I can't wait for Barry's book so I can learn more about the camera. I mean people are getting some fantastic footage right out of the box. Imagine what's coming down the road!
 
MATHEW YOUR PAINTINGS AND PICTURES ARE CRAZY!
love the anime edge to them but a little too much penis for my taste
indeed that nay say thread hit a chord amongst the crowd, but it was just so unjustified
again, too much penis
haha, cool site though
go TORONTO!
 
n8ture said:
Barry,
Are you talking the 720p stuff of the 1080p stuff?
Click to expand...
Not sure. I'm not on the Mac at the moment, but I believe the clip was called "snarl.mov" and it had some feasting and a bloody snout and it was just breathtaking. I think it was slow-mo, so that should make it 720p. The wolf on the left had the bloody snout... man was that a good clip... :thumbsup:

The other clip that you said was messed up was called "wolf-fight" IIRC. But this one was "snarl", I'm pretty sure.

Oh, and by the way, how in the world are you shooting this stuff? When that cougar turns and looks at you and you can just see in his eyes the ka-ching of "lunchmeat" register on his face, and then he starts bounding at you -- do you have a shotgun or something right next to you? Or at least a running jeep? Or a homebrew 3000x lens? That's some crazy stuff.

And speaking of crazy stuff, that grizzly bear clip, the one you use for your avatar is perhaps the scariest thing I have ever seen. I sincerely hope you were at least a quarter mile away when you shot that, that's some powerful footage! :)
 
Damn, now I'm salivating like a wolf / bear / cougar that's just spotted a human size meal. What a tease :)
 
Well, kind of getting off topic but I can tell quite a few stories. Like the time in Yellowstone I was photographing a black bear and I kneeled down to get a better shot and about squahed one of her cubs. Then three of them shot out from under me.
I thought one squeak from any of them and I'm lunch.

Lucky for me it was Rosie, a black bear that was extremely accepting of people. She hangs out around Tower Junction if you ever want to photograph her. If she's still around I'll have some HVX footage of her later this year. :)

The Jackson Hole cougars were awesome but too many people found out about them and they've all been shot and killed now.

I have an opportunity to film the federally protected Western prairie fringed orchid (Platanthera praeclara) this year but it took me years of trust building to be able to go in a film it. I'll have HVX footage of that this summer. :)

Yes, there are guns handy, pepper spray too. Never used them although I did see once where pepper spray was laid down on the ground to stop an animal once.

Here's one place you can go for wild black bears that is fantastic...

There are 80+ individual wild black bears that visit the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary throughout the summer season. They range in age from sows with spring cubs to old males approaching their thirtieth birthday. They vary in color from the deepest black to all shades of brown. They exhibit natural behaviors that even seasoned researchers rarely, if ever get to witness including scent marking, mating, play, dispersal, nursing, and dominance struggles. Some have called the Sanctuary “the best place in North America to photograph wild black bears in their natural habitat”.

The bears can come and go but like McNeil River, they're used to people being in a certain place and you can get some great shots. Might have some HVX cub stuff this year too. :)

I've been photographing or filming wildlife for almost 30 years now. I've been concentrating on North American predators for almost 15.

I've taken some great shots in zoos. I think the Minnesota zoo has a great tiger habitat. I've photographed bald eagles in raptor rehab centers.


Looking for someplace to go over Easter. I have some free time but none of my contacts say anything good is going on in their neck of the woods. I wouldn't even mind doing some landscape stuff. Anyone have any suggestions?

Anyway, back to the topic....

It scares me when I read about this noise issue but I have yet to see any footage of my own that I thought was bad.

The worst clip I had was the day I got the camera and I did a time-lapse of the sunset and put the camera in auto. The darker it got the more gain and thus the more noisey it got. Other than that the camera has worked great. I guess I've been lucky in that I haven't been in a situation where the noise has showed up in my shots.
 
Kevin,

Beautiful looking footage. I worked a job with a cameraman recently who traps bears in Montana in the summer. Sounds like an amazing experience.


As far as beautiful landscape footage... I still think that one of the most beautiful places I've ever been can be seen along the road from Sundance to Park City in Utah. There are two giant fresh water reservoirs on either side of the road.. and even though the water was freezing.. I braved it and swam in the most serene and relaxing crystal clear lake surrounded by 12k mountains on all sides. It was worth the freezing water and it was just heaven. I think there are so many beautiful places in Utah that I want to get back.. and next time I'll bring my surfing wetsuit so I can stay in the lake more than 20 minutes.. I swam out into the middle of the lake and just floated around... unbelievable.

The other option would be to come down to Florida to get some footage of the strange northern snowbird women in their natural sun-worshiping shananigans. I'm hoping that this camera has an unforseen x-ray option....


Good job bro and keep it coming. Simply stunning even given that jackass dudes attempt to undermine your footage. I'm surprised he didn't compare it to the canon or such. Maybe he's also upset that the free steaks that come with the canon didn't quite match up in footage to your wolves.
 
Justyn,
I was thinking about going around the Moab area. I've been there before beautiful.
But, I don't have a polarizer yet for the HVX.
Don't know if I want to get a screw in or go the whole mattebox route.

That is the one thing I'm dissapointed so far with the HVX and it's not the cameras fault. I haven't been able to get that killer sky/cloud timelapse. But the ones I have done don't have the blocky noise everyone is talking about.
 
Kevin... I haven't made it to Moab Yet.. but that's a yet. I have friends who love it down there. Maybe if it's on your route you could check out the northern part of Utah as well.


I'm also torn on the matte box situation. I like the grad filters and all the choices but it's such an expesnse. Cavison have inexpensive set-up but I've read on here.. specifically from Barry.. that it's a cheap flimsy system. I'm kind of waiting on the redrock setup.


Also. for your purposes have you checked out that soft/ ballistic matte box everyone is talking about. Looking like it might be a lightweight system especially for your type of shooting where you'll be lugging the gear....
 
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