AC90: AC90 and picture quality/sharpness

N

NanaK

Member
Hello. I've recently purchased an AC90PJ camera, which was an upgrade from my Sony HDR-SR11. I love the AC90's focusing, weight, low light capabilities and handle, but the thing is, when shooting in a well lit environment, the video quality doesn't seem much different than my previous camera which only had a single CMOS sensor and compressed in AVCHD, too. I'm shooting in the AC90's highest quality mode ( 1080 @ 60p ) using SDXC cards with 30MB/s transfer and with plenty of light, it just doesn't look as sharp as the Sony which is a 5+ year old consumer camera.

I noticed this when I transferred the MTS files to my computer and played them back using WMP, VLC and MPC. I'm still in the process of learning the camera and am aware that some settings will make the video captured by the AC90 "softer", so I left it in intelligent auto the entire time.

Has anyone else noticed this? Am I missing a setting in the camera; is this the outcome of using intelligent auto and not selecting a scene from the menu and boosting the sharpness/detail settings?
 
The intelligent auto (IA) although great in a pinch is hard, if not an impossible way to compare footage. For instance it will change your shutter speed, pick its own scene settings, bump the gain into noisy areas (+18db) without you knowing from the little LCD what happened. We have some very solid professionals here on DVXUSER.com that may add some addition insight and although I have much more limited (3 years) professional experience know I shoot manual almost all the time, because the camera (as smart as they are) make mistakes. For instance just on focus it will jump around "searching" when you have a group of folk instead of just staying put. Its has a lot of settings at its disposal in IA so I am not sure what it will or is picking and why. When I was first using it I loved the IA, but now I am more careful and watch it. My main gripe with IA is it changes shutter speed and you can't see it did. What I do is I keep it in manual and bump the Auto focus and Auto iris to quickly see what it grabs, the finesse it from there. I am also watching the settings it picks, because if it picks say A95 and I know its not that long range of a shot, then I know it got the focus wrong. Even then the other day M95 wasn't working right and I had to turn the camera on and off to get it reading correctly. Hopefully that is a one time deal, but you never know. I also ran into a shot which came out much grainer/noisier than a shot I did a few minutes earlier and all I had changed was the focus, added image stabilization, and a slight adjustment to the iris which was at f3.0.

You mention sharpness. Sharpness for this camera is a factor of focus, lighting, and scene settings. Sounds like you had plenty of light so I am guessing it is something else. Although the focus range/area is pretty large compared to the large sensor DSLR's I find it can easily be off. I am currently using it on a short outdoors and even when I am using manual mode and focus assist I can mess up and not get it as sharp as it could be. ie you can't rely on the LCD to be sure you are focused and the red peaking FA helps, but has its own limitations. I keep forgetting to use the magnification (factory default user button 3 I think) which for me is the very best you can get without a reference monitor. Another factor is whether you are focusing in macro mode. I find the macro (very close focus) to be even that more tricky.

What are you viewing your footage on? I have a 24" consumer grade Viewsonic monitor on a Windows 7 machine. I can see the differences between my in focus cameras shots and those which are not pretty easily with just it.

One last comment, most consumer cameras will over-saturate their colors for the average consumer who doesn't know any better. I don't think you are talking about color issues right?
 
NanaK said:
Hello. I've recently purchased an AC90PJ camera, which was an upgrade from my Sony HDR-SR11. I love the AC90's focusing, weight, low light capabilities and handle, but the thing is, when shooting in a well lit environment, the video quality doesn't seem much different than my previous camera which only had a single CMOS sensor and compressed in AVCHD, too. I'm shooting in the AC90's highest quality mode ( 1080 @ 60p ) using SDXC cards with 30MB/s transfer and with plenty of light, it just doesn't look as sharp as the Sony which is a 5+ year old consumer camera.

I noticed this when I transferred the MTS files to my computer and played them back using WMP, VLC and MPC. I'm still in the process of learning the camera and am aware that some settings will make the video captured by the AC90 "softer", so I left it in intelligent auto the entire time.

Has anyone else noticed this? Am I missing a setting in the camera; is this the outcome of using intelligent auto and not selecting a scene from the menu and boosting the sharpness/detail settings?
Click to expand...


Key is what does it look like in your NLE? Previewing to me in anything other than your NLE is not real footage depending on what you are using. Now if you have a HDTV and connected to HDMI from your camera, and your footage still looks soft then it focus issues or iris and you will need to run in manual everythings first to make sure you can get a baseline (you need to shoot in controled lighting for these tests). My guess its just the software you are using to preview, remember these are 1080 full raster h.264 compression at 60 frames. You need some cpu, hard drive, memory etc, there is not just a one reason.
 
I appreciate the response. I am still learning the AC90 and plowed through Panasonic's advanced manual the day before my shoot. I understand what you mean about things just arbitrarily changing while you're shooting in IA( WB, iris, shutter ) and plan to do more in manual once I'm more proficient with the controls. Funny thing is it wasn't just me that thought things were a bit "soft". I showed two non-video guys a comparison video and although the video from the Sony was very jerky, both chose the Sony as the better looking camera. The Sony and Panasonic were in their fully automatic mode, shooting video while held next to each other outdoors in broad daylight. I had heard nothing but great reviews of how sharp the AC90 was but the difference in picture quality between my HDR-SR11 and the AC90 hasn't been dramatic ( excluding image stabilization )

I'm using a Dell 30" IPS panel @ 2560x1600. One thought was that "well, the video is being compressed at 1920x1080 so going full screen will make it lose sharpness". But it's the same issue when played back at native/1920x1080 windowed.

It's not a color issue I'd say. The colors are nice! Just edges aren't crisp. When I did a side by side comparison of both cameras outdoors and got close up to some trees, the detail and edges were better on the Sony.

I don't have the manual in front of me, but I know when you use the scenes in the menu there are some sharpness/detail adjustments. Maybe that's what I need to dive into? I bought the AC90 because it seemed like a run-and-gun camera. I don't mind making a few adjustments on the fly, but missing a shot or your subjects losing interest because you're fiddling with the camera doesn't seem ideal.
 
rzr219 said:
Key is what does it look like in your NLE? Previewing to me in anything other than your NLE is not real footage depending on what you are using. Now if you have a HDTV and connected to HDMI from your camera, and your footage still looks soft then it focus issues or iris and you will need to run in manual everythings first to make sure you can get a baseline (you need to shoot in controled lighting for these tests). My guess its just the software you are using to preview, remember these are 1080 full raster h.264 compression at 60 frames. You need some cpu, hard drive, memory etc, there is not just a one reason.
Click to expand...

I'm using Pr Pro and am currently trying to sharpen and adjust things - I never did that with the Sony. I connected the AC90 via HDMI to my Dell panel and played around with scene seven from the menu and varied all the detail settings I could find for hours while reading the advanced manual. I turned on all the lights in my room, set white balance manually and pointed the AC90 at a bookshelf with a colorful array of books. It wasn't until I zoomed all the way into the spines of the books that the picture/sharpness got better. At Z00, where I would think the camera would have more light, the spines looked "soft".

My workstation is an Ivy Bridge i7-3770K, 16GB RAM, GTX 580 and 3x SSD in RAID 0. It isn't the best, but I thought this would be enough power to work with video the AC90 would produce.

I will try more settings while the AC90 is connected via HDMI. When I preview outside of Pr Pro, it's WMP, VLC or MPC. So far, WMP has had the best playback for some reason :/
 
The solution is not to sharpen up the image from the ac90, but to understand you've been tricked by the false detail of the SR11. It's only a 625 line camera. The ac90 is over 1000.

All the consumer cams are that way, even the Panasonic TM900 default sharpening is so high it appears much sharper.

Pro and semi-pro cams have much more conservative default settings, making the image much more gradable in post. Noise and sharpness waste bandwidth of the codec during compression. To the trained eye, the haloing and outlines and false contours added around edges are extremely reviled, particularly because they don't add detail, just enhance the perception of it.

You need a 2X ND filter for your ac90 outdoors always except at night, to prevent small iris diffraction.
 
Tom Roper said:
The solution is not to sharpen up the image from the ac90, but to understand you've been tricked by the false detail of the SR11. It's only a 625 line camera. The ac90 is over 1000.

All the consumer cams are that way, even the Panasonic TM900 default sharpening is so high it appears much sharper.

Pro and semi-pro cams have much more conservative default settings, making the image much more gradable in post. Noise and sharpness waste bandwidth of the codec during compression. To the trained eye, the haloing and outlines and false contours added around edges are extremely reviled, particularly because they don't add detail, just enhance the perception of it.

You need a 2X ND filter for your ac90 outdoors always except at night, to prevent small iris diffraction.
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Very interesting. So if the picture/video I'm getting from the AC90 "is what it is" and If I shouldn't sharpen, then what else can be done? In regards to the ND filter; wouldn't that just help with depth of field and would it help while shooting indoors? My comparison video was shot outdoors, but the majority of things I will shoot will be a combination of outdoors and indoors under various types of non-studio lights or low light.

Maybe the outdoor video I shot would help; the download link right at the top works - http://speedy.sh/NBAQ3/camera-shootoff.mp4

The first half is the AC90 and notice how the carpet seems like one big blob - it's just NOT sharp. Then the HDR-SR11 staring into the lens hood of the AC90... It just looks better.
 
There has been lots of very sharp looking video posted online using the AC90. In fact, I honestly cannot think of anyone else here on this forum that has so far complained about it being unsharp.

Have you checked your scene file settings, to see what they are currently set to? You could always reinitialize them back to the factory default settings.
 
LanceOregon said:
There has been lots of very sharp looking video posted online using the AC90. In fact, I honestly cannot think of anyone else here on this forum that has so far complained about it being unsharp.

Have you checked your scene file settings, to see what they are currently set to? You could always reinitialize them back to the factory default settings.
Click to expand...

Hi. That's the thing. Besides the initial "set the date and time", how you want the SD cards to be used and recording quality mode, I haven't made any other adjustments to the camera! the only scene I've adjusted was scene seven. I'm not opposed to doing a factory reset at all, but I used IA for the video comparison link and IA while shooting video last weekend.
 
Tom Roper said:
Can you post a native .MTS clip?
Click to expand...

Yes. Unfortunately I no longer have the HDR-SR11 or any of its .MTS files. Here is the .MTS from the AC90 while dual-wielding the AC90 and the HDR-SR11 and walking around outdoors ( please excuse the crunching sounds as I walk over dead leaves ). I really appreciate the insight and suggestions provided. Maybe my expectations were too high for a sub $2K camera...

It is about 400MB - http://www.speedyshare.com/rxWru/00018.MTS
 
Thanks for posting mate. To be honest other than jagged fast motion (to be expected running around outside!) I don't see anything wrong with the sharpness specifically. A cheaper cam may add more sharpness than this, but really this footage looks right. While not super flat by cinema cam standards the footage is reasonably flat, meaning it needs a bit of contrast/blacks/grading to make it pop. This almost flat washed out look isn't a bad thing, it may not be as pleasing to look at straight out of the cam, but with some grading it could look great.

It's kinda the same theory as consumer editing software having funky effects presets for the user to use. Then you spend 3-10x the amount on the pro version and it has non of it. The camera's job is the capture the footage with as much picture information retained as possible, it's up to the editor to make the most of it :)
 
NanaK said:
Hi. That's the thing. Besides the initial "set the date and time", how you want the SD cards to be used and recording quality mode, I haven't made any other adjustments to the camera! the only scene I've adjusted was scene seven. I'm not opposed to doing a factory reset at all, but I used IA for the video comparison link and IA while shooting video last weekend.
Click to expand...


It would probably be helpful to better understand this situation, to review what scene file settings you are using to record this video that you consider to be unsatisfactory.

If you are concerned about sharpness, then you should be reviewing the settings that you are using in your camera that affect sharpness.
 
Also, you did not seem to understand Tom's recommendation on using a 2X ND filter when outdoors. All video cameras provide worse image quality when shot using a small iris, due to lens diffraction. Same is true of still cameras too. The ND filter will allow you to use a larger iris, thus avoiding the image degrading affects of diffraction.

Here is a web page that discusses this issue, and shows some examples of how this degrades image quality:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-diffraction.shtml

I shoot with an AC130, which has built-in ND filters. So whenever I am outdoors, I always dial in at least a 2 stop ND.


By the way, that video that you posted has so much movement in it, that it is almost useless for judging sharpness.
 
NanaK said:
Maybe the outdoor video I shot would help; the download link right at the top works - http://speedy.sh/NBAQ3/camera-shootoff.mp4

The first half is the AC90 and notice how the carpet seems like one big blob - it's just NOT sharp. Then the HDR-SR11 staring into the lens hood of the AC90... It just looks better.
Click to expand...

Comment: And it should not be sharp, it is in fact just one big blob due to shallow depth of field at that range and iris.

Looking at this first video you can make a few observations from the image of two cameras pointed at each other:

1.) The AC90 is focused on the carpet fibers in front of the SR11 lens hood, the SR11 however is focused directly on the lens of the AC90.

2.) There is a shallower depth of field in play on the AC90 footage due to the particular (unspecified) combination of iris and zoom that were in effect. The garbage can in rear shows this difference, it's out of the field of focus for the AC90, less out of focus for the SR11. Magnification is different as well.

3.) For the AC90, the carpet fibers are sharp in front of the SR11 lens hood, and blurred behind. The lens hood of the SR11 as seen through the AC90 is behind the focus plane and thus not completely sharp, and also shaded. In other words, the AC90 was not focused on the SR11 lens hood.

4.) Looking at the AC90 lens hood as seen through the SR11, the focus plane is on the lens itself, the carpet fibers in front of the lens are out of focus, and also the whites are badly clipped.

5.) All of the other stuff that makes up the patchwork mosaic of detail-less areas is the result of compressed encoding (only 7.7 mbps) and down sampling (1280x720).

6.) I think the AC90 is located slightly closer to the SR11 than the minimum focus distance for that particular lens to target distance and zoom magnification. You can see the same thing happen in reverse where the SR11 is a little bit too close to focus properly on the top handle of the AC90. With either cam, you have to be farther away than the minimum focus distance, which is a greater amount at high magnification than when wide.

7.) Some of the other footage from the backyard shows the more pleasing bokeh and flare characteristics due to the AC90 8 blade iris versus the 4 blade iris of the SR11.

Basically, these images although appreciated for posting them, are not compelling or indicative of any actual sharpness differences, although the better highlight handling of the AC90 is visibly apparent.

If you want to do some more representative testing, shoot some well lighted newpaper print from 7 feet away, and framed to fill the page at the corners. But basically, the SR11 looks like all the other SR11 footage I've seen, basically HDV quality, and the AC90 doesn't look much different in this instance.
 
Tom: I think that NanaK can probably get sharpness to his liking by simply tweaking his scene file settings a little, and adding the ND filter when outdoors.

NanaK: If you have not yet experimented with these settings, try changing your current settings to Detail Level: +1 , V Detail Level: +1, and Detail Coring to -2 And then also add the ND filter that Tom recommended or perhaps a polarizing filter as another alternative, when you are shooting outdoors.

See if making those changes don't give you a sharpness look that you will then like.
 
Thanks everyone for the very insightful posts; they are appreciated and really opening my eyes! So much to digest and read up on. A few quick thoughts, but I will try and address what has been said more directly than generally when I have more time later this week.

The video shot with the AC90 while walking outdoors was taken because I figured, "it's a run-and-gun" camera, there's more light outside than indoors and that I should be able to walk around, have it quickly focus and stay sharp. I understand a bit more about the ND filter and the role it plays with light while outdoors, but I will mostly be shooting indoors with unpredictable overhead light.

Enerjex: The AC90 providing a "matte" video/picture makes sense if you're going to do color grading, etc. in post. versus the HDR-SR11 where chances are, you aren't going to do anything else to the video.

Tom and Lance: I was thinking of doing exactly that while at the office today - get something with fine print use as much light as possible indoors, setting the AC90 on a tripod and tweaking the scene's settings till I can make it look as best as possible before taking things into Pr. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I gathered was that the ND filter shouldn't be used indoors unless you've got some really bright lights or are trying to achieve a certain type of effect.

Unrelated - I've heard that you can output from the AC90's HDMI port to an external recorder and get 4:2:2, bypassing the internal compressor. Obviously, I'm not a pro at this, but is that something worth looking into?
 
Do you have Barrys book on the camera? This will help you greatly know what you are trying to adjust for what you want.
 
It looks like the Sony was set to a higher contrast and edge enhancement setting giving the impression of more sharpness. I would do what Lance is saying and also change the gamma to cine v. I think you can push the detail to +2 and detail coring to -5 if you're shooting something well lit. Agree with rzr that Barry's book is a must.

I also think that your expectations were too high regarding the sharpness. People rave about the sharpness because it gives 1,000 plus lines of resolution for under $2,000 while giving you pro features. High end consumer models can also do the same.

Also, "run and gun" doesn't mean running around and swinging the camera wildly. It means a shooting scenario where you don't have control over the situation.
 
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