any hope for improving 7D rolling shutter?

M

meauounji

Well-known member
Here's some food for thought. The 7D uses dual Digic 4 processors... and so does the 1D Mark IV. Yet the 1D has a noticeably improved handling of rolling shutter. Enough for Nocturne (whenever that comes back on Vincent Laforet's blog) to use the Bourne-Cam shaky handheld shots without fear of gelatinous looking footage. Nocturne co-director Stu Maschwitz confirms this in his own retelling of the shoot (www.prolost.com).

This makes me wonder... would a future firmware update possibly improve upon the 7D's rolling shutter?

Would Canon care to do so? Can we as a community petition them to do so like what we did with the 5Dmk2's manual controls and (hopefully by next year) 24p? To me, there are only two real major limitations with the 7D, one being rolling shutter, and the other aliasing/line skipping. I can use filters and make design choices to limit or eliminate elements that would create nasty aliasing artefacts (to a certain degree, anyway) but rolling shutter virtually eliminates certain types of shooting styles... styles which would be really useful for high-energy action movies, commercials, documentaries, etc. I mean, it's great for slower paced projects, but I'm finding rolling shutter to be a very limiting factor.

By the way, I do own a 7D so unfortunately I can't really pull a "won't get one until they fix this" card... I already love the camera as is, just think that if they can eliminate this ONE thing, I think canon would instantly sell this camera to hundreds if not thousands more customers who view this little problem as a deal breaker.
 
meauounji said:
This makes me wonder... would a future firmware update possibly improve upon the 7D's rolling shutter?
Click to expand...

The answer to this hasn't changed since people asked the same thing about the D90. And the 5D II. And the T1i... And...

The answer is no.
 
BTW- there's rolling shutter *all over* the place in the final few scenes of 2012. The spoiler- underwater rescue/fix the door scenes- have massive rolling shutter anytime there's a flashing alarm light going off. So not only is rolling shutter not going anywhere but I'd suggest most audiences don't even know what it is or care at this point... :Drogar-Evil(DBG): If you wait for it to be 'fixed' you'll be sitting out an entire generation or two of CMOS cameras.

Noah
 
meauounji said:
Here's some food for thought. The 7D uses dual Digic 4 processors... and so does the 1D Mark IV. Yet the 1D has a noticeably improved handling of rolling shutter. Enough for Nocturne (whenever that comes back on Vincent Laforet's blog) to use the Bourne-Cam shaky handheld shots without fear of gelatinous looking footage. Nocturne co-director Stu Maschwitz confirms this in his own retelling of the shoot (www.prolost.com).

This makes me wonder... would a future firmware update possibly improve upon the 7D's rolling shutter?

Would Canon care to do so? Can we as a community petition them to do so like what we did with the 5Dmk2's manual controls and (hopefully by next year) 24p?
Click to expand...
The problem is that we don't know what is or is not possible with the current hardware. We don't know how the 1D Mark IV eliminates the skew. So any assumptions are simply not reasonable. We are not Canon engineers. So why presume to know better than they do?

Let's not get worked up about this. Just keep in mind what Barry Green has said time and time again: Don't buy anything for something that it might do in the future that it doesn't do now.
 
NoahK said:
BTW- there's rolling shutter *all over* the place in the final few scenes of 2012. The spoiler- underwater rescue/fix the door scenes- have massive rolling shutter anytime there's a flashing alarm light going off. So not only is rolling shutter not going anywhere but I'd suggest most audiences don't even know what it is or care at this point... :Drogar-Evil(DBG):If you wait for it to be 'fixed' you'll be sitting out an entire generation or two of CMOS cameras.

Noah
Click to expand...
It's funny....I know what rolling shutter artifacts look like but I never picked up on those issues while watching that film. Matter of fact I didn’t realize it was shot on digital video…but there were a few scenes (that had nothing to do with rolling shutter) where I could tell that it was (something about the motion in certain scenes).
 
Ian-T said:
It's funny....I know what rolling shutter artifacts look like but I never picked up on those issues while watching that film. Matter of fact I didn’t realize it was shot on digital video…but there were a few scenes (that had nothing to do with rolling shutter) where I could tell that it was (something about the motion in certain scenes).
Click to expand...

I didn't notice but wasn't really watching for that kind of stuff either.

2012

Camera
Panavision Camera and Lenses
Panavision Genesis HD Camera, Panavision Primo Lenses

Laboratory
Efilm (scanning & recording)

Film negative format (mm/video inches)
35 mm
HDCAM

Cinematographic process
Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format)
HDCAM SR (1080p/24) (source format)
Super 35 (source format)

Printed film format
35 mm (anamorphic)

Aspect ratio
2.35 : 1
 
I've had no issues with rolling shutter on the 7D except for flash bulbs and dead on shots into strobe - save stuff that would have been problem on HV20, EX1, Red etc. It's better than 5D Mk II, seems about same as GH1 and much, much better than D90. The D90 ilk are the only ones with rolling shutter that prevents dynamic camera movement.

If you shoot handheld with telephoto lenses and faster shutters, yeah, you will see it but that kind of footage looks bad anyway, rolling shutter or not especially on larger screens.
 
Sttratos said:
Wait! If 2012 was shot on the Genesis, how can it have rolling shutter? The Genesis is a CCD camera.
Click to expand...
It might be possible that they used another type of camera to shoot certain scenes. I mentioned earlier that there were moments in the film that shouted “video” as if something changed (or used another cam for that scene). While watching the movie I had no idea this was shot digitally….but those few scenes made me wonder if that were really the case. And now I know.
 
Make that sucker weigh as much as the RED cam and your handheld quality will increase. I know because of the moire artifacts not many people would suggest to use the 60p mode, but it does reduce rolling shutter artifacts and wobble and going from 60p to 24p is pretty easy.
 
Exactly. It's not like it's an impossible concept. If you add weight and proper stabilization, you minimize the effect of skew on moving imagery.

It's still THERE, but far less exaggerated. This is exactly why I walk around with a 14-16lb 7D rig, so that I can shoot up to 180mm handheld and not have to worry about the image wobbling or jittering like crazy.
 
Kholi you using a shoulder rig? I used a 12lb rig for a shoot so i could do handheld and i was dying after.
 
maarek said:
I've shot with the 5d and 7d and trust me, in 1080p mode the rolling shutter skew is the same on both cameras.
Click to expand...

I've not done a scientific side to side test but the readout seems a bit faster on the 7D to my eye. Nor have I seen a scientific test. But given the differences in sensor design, size and processing/readout rates, it's unlikely rolling shutter is identical on both cams.
 
stephenvv said:
I've not done a scientific side to side test but the readout seems a bit faster on the 7D to my eye. Nor have I seen a scientific test. But given the differences in sensor design, size and processing/readout rates, it's unlikely rolling shutter is identical on both cams.
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No scientific test? There's been more than one that, IMO, qualifies. The testers mounted the cameras on top of each other and matched FOV, I believe. That's the right way to do it.
 
I worked on a huge promo package for NBC prime time that was shot entirely on the 5D. The rolling shutter was pretty bad. The 7D seems to be better IMO. I get it sometimes on the 7D (I shoot a lot of handheld), but usually it's when I'm trying to get the shot set up and not the critical part of the shot.

For handheld, I just do the technique where you have no slack in the neck strap and there very little to no rolling shutter. If you do quick pans or have sudden jerks, you get rolling shutter but usually you never use that part of the shot anyways.

Shorter focal lengths are better than long focal length and Image Stabilization seems to help also.

Honestly, if you're semi-competent you have little to worry about. If you're getting rolling shutter, you're probably doing something wrong.
 
ydgmdlu said:
The problem is that we don't know what is or is not possible with the current hardware. We don't know how the 1D Mark IV eliminates the skew. So any assumptions are simply not reasonable. We are not Canon engineers. So why presume to know better than they do?

Let's not get worked up about this. Just keep in mind what Barry Green has said time and time again: Don't buy anything for something that it might do in the future that it doesn't do now.
Click to expand...

I think that in the same vein that we shouldn't assume what can be done, we also shouldn't assume or expect that nothing can be done. This is not a proclamation of knowing better than Canon engineers, just an application of logic.

My point was that since there are two cameras using identical brains and one is more capable of dealing with the issue than the other, there should be a possibility of closing the gap between the two... assuming all else about the two cameras being equal... which it isn't. Depending on how much of the problem is software related, and assuming the program/firmware isn't absolutely perfect (hard to believe since they're still making updates to it) I think there's probably room for improvement. Also that as customers, we should be able to expect Canon to make potentially critical improvements to their products whenever this is possible. I don't believe the statement is not a pipe dream, especially in light of the 5DmkII's manual controls firmware, and the (supposed) future 24p firmware.

Let me be clear, I bought the camera fully understanding most, if not all, of its issues. It's not sitting in a box waiting for some magical firmware update that'll solve all my problems. I said I am avoiding a particular style of shooting due to a limitation in the camera called "rolling shutter". I hope that doesn't sound defensive. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying it's not wrong to expect improvements to a product when there are evidences of it being possible.
 
For 2012- yeah next time you watch it for those spoilery scenes. Watch the lighting effect of the yellow strobe lights. You'll notice it's broken in half in a lot of shots, i.e. you can see the light flash at the bottom of the frame before the top. Not a deal breaker but when I saw the first shot with it- I was like well there you go that answers the question about whether audiences can accept rolling shutter. They'll pretty much accept anything if they're into the story.

Noah
 
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