I recently purchased the HMC-40 and am very pleased with the quality of it. I have seen more videos done with the camera and they seem to be alot better quality. Is it mainly because I shoot action sports with fast moving objects from farther away or am I just not formatting everything right? Any advice would be appreciated. The videos from Sean O'Brien up are the ones shot with the new camera.
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- Thread starter Twake06
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jplevinski
Member
Are you shooting in 720p/60fps ?
BobDiaz
The Professor
For sports, you'll want to shoot 720/60p to get the best look for fast movement. Also, watch you shutter speed; either select 1/60 of a second or 1/120 of a second shutter speed. Longer shutter speeds result in motion blur and shorter shutter speeds may give a bit of a strobe like effect.
Hand held shot at the "wide angle" setting are OK, but at telephoto, it's next to impossible to get a good shot. Even with a mono-pod, it's hard to keep steady.
If you must shoot telephoto, use a tripod to help steady the camera. A tripod with a fluid head works the best, but that can get expensive.
Another thing is that in order to follow the action, OIS may have to be turned off. I have not tested this, so try it both ways.
When you say the videos you see are a lot better quality, what exactly is it that seems to fall short in your video?
Bob Diaz
Hand held shot at the "wide angle" setting are OK, but at telephoto, it's next to impossible to get a good shot. Even with a mono-pod, it's hard to keep steady.
If you must shoot telephoto, use a tripod to help steady the camera. A tripod with a fluid head works the best, but that can get expensive.
Another thing is that in order to follow the action, OIS may have to be turned off. I have not tested this, so try it both ways.
When you say the videos you see are a lot better quality, what exactly is it that seems to fall short in your video?
Bob Diaz
JoeJITSU
Veteran
What if im just shooting music videos, weddings and scenerio shots? I am used to the HV30 settings on 24 cinema mode. Any suggestions? Thanks
hey bob, i just feel like everyone else has a lot brighter colors, sharper images...etc..i shot a motorcycle shop promo the other day in 720 and i feel like its the worst quality ive gotten out of the camera. Check out www.vimeo.com/lockdownmedia and the first few are with the HMC40. I know a lot of it has to prob do with color correcting but, i was just curious what the best settings would be as far as 1080/__p/i? thnaks for the response
ShugPro Digital Studio
Active member
Tyler,
Some of the promo just looks blurry. Could it be focus problems? shutter speed too slow causing blurring during the pans? Perhaps it's related to your editing/compression system? what are you editing with? what codecs?
The color isn't too bad, but doesn't pop like it sounds like you want it to. you can turn up the chroma in the scene file settings on the camera. Did you set the white balance correctly? Were you using a lot of gain? (that causes a lot of color loss) Do you have a way to do some simple color correction in your editing system? (I don't let anything out the door without a run through the color correction process, no matter how good it seemed to look out of the camera)
Let me know if any of this helps..:happy:
BobDiaz
The Professor
My connection is somewhat slow and it will take over 1/2 an hour to download the file, plus time to carry it over to the HDTV to watch.
It will take me a bit before I can answer....
Bob Diaz
ZFHProductions
Active member
What are you using to edit and how are you dealing with the AVCHD files. I convert everything to Apple ProRes and edit with Final Cut Pro.
Are you shooting in Auto or Manual? I would take a look at shutter speed. With lots of motion in the shot, the higher the shutter, the more crisp it will be.
I pretty much just shoot at 1080 unless I know I am going to want to slow it down, in which case is shoot 720/60p.
Are you shooting in Auto or Manual? I would take a look at shutter speed. With lots of motion in the shot, the higher the shutter, the more crisp it will be.
I pretty much just shoot at 1080 unless I know I am going to want to slow it down, in which case is shoot 720/60p.
BobDiaz
The Professor
I looked at your video on both my computer monitor and on my HDTV:
The sharpness seems to vary, the tight shot of the bolt of the motorcycle being tightened seems to be razor sharp, but many of the pan shots seem a bit off. Did you use auto-focus or did you use manual focus? IF manual, did you use the Focus Assist (expanded)?
In looking at you video in spots, frame by frame, you seem to have a high shutter speed. This should have taken care of motion blur.
The selection of the resolution shouldn't matter to much here. To me it looks like the focus is a bit off.
Bob Diaz
Robert M Wright
Well-known member
It sure looks like that footage (motorcycle shop) was shot essentially on auto-pilot. You really need to learn your camera and take control of it, if you want good results (other than by accident).
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As far as it goes, are there any GOOD tutorials/books/dvds on color correction out there? Yeah, I get that if you turn up green, you get an image that is more green, thank you. I am interested more in "when this happens, we do this, and here's why..." and "Don't do this because you'll end up screwing things up when you try this part later" types of explanation.
Or am I waiting on Barry's book in March for this also?
Or am I waiting on Barry's book in March for this also?
Robert M Wright
Well-known member
What NLE are you using?
Macfionn
Active member
I am more or less in v3rlon's position. I have more camera than I do knowledge of it.
I'm hoping this awaited book by Barry will take the greenhorn and make him/her very comfortable with all facets of the hmc40... as if assuming this person has never ventured into videography before. Because that would be me in a nutshell. And others I'm gathering.
I'm hoping this awaited book by Barry will take the greenhorn and make him/her very comfortable with all facets of the hmc40... as if assuming this person has never ventured into videography before. Because that would be me in a nutshell. And others I'm gathering.
For NLE's I have Pinnacle Super Duper Edition (or whatever they call the latest one with all the bells and whistles) and Newtek SpeedEdit (though no one here seems to talk about it much... It is pretty much JUST an NLE and considerably more powerful than Pinnacle in that respect).
ShugPro Digital Studio
Active member
I've watched some very helpful video podcasts about color correcting using Final Cut Pro. I'm sure some of the techniques would apply to all color correction tools, the interface may vary though.
Bic Parker
Active member
This may wax a bit, but there you are.
Here's a few things I've learned, so far, as someone just starting out in videography and with this camera:
First, just like with photography, you have to start with the basics. Focus, composition, depth of field, lighting, exposure, et al. To that, you have to add the aspect of dynamic footage instead of the static still. This means following action (and anticipating it), learning when to use zoom (and when not), adjusting for changing conditions (lighting, perspective, sound, footing for your mounting, etc.), and learning how to move a camera effectively, whether by hand or mount. In the end, post doesn't do any good if you don't have fundamentally good raw footage.
Second, know your equipment. Video controls, while sharing some aspects of photography, also include several other things to cope with the dynamic environment. I've had to learn and understand things like gamma, knee, pedestal, and others. And don't get me started about white balance! I used to do a lot of astroimaging (taking pictures of galaxies, nebulae, and other faint stuff a few million billion light years away) and manipulating white balance correctly was a fundamental skill, and a very critical one when you are actually counting photons! But it has taken on a new perspective with video.
Reading and researching has helped a lot in getting started. And you have to read and learn a lot because there are many things that you have to bring to the table in your arsenal of knowledge.
But, after a certain point, there is no substitute for practice, practice, practice. It's how you get to Carnegie Hall and also how you learn this medium form. And that is most of what I am doing now.
These forums are great, because I am picking up a great number of technical ideas and details. I turn around and apply them and others in some test footage and see what turns out.
This post has turned out to be a bit beyond the scope of the OP's question. But with respect to it and what I just said, it has been my observation that the quality of the the better clips and footage that I have seen have not been attributable to just the settings, but to everything else I mentioned above and more, plus judicious use of editing in post.
This is just from a beginner, though, so it is only worth what you paid for.
Here's a few things I've learned, so far, as someone just starting out in videography and with this camera:
First, just like with photography, you have to start with the basics. Focus, composition, depth of field, lighting, exposure, et al. To that, you have to add the aspect of dynamic footage instead of the static still. This means following action (and anticipating it), learning when to use zoom (and when not), adjusting for changing conditions (lighting, perspective, sound, footing for your mounting, etc.), and learning how to move a camera effectively, whether by hand or mount. In the end, post doesn't do any good if you don't have fundamentally good raw footage.
Second, know your equipment. Video controls, while sharing some aspects of photography, also include several other things to cope with the dynamic environment. I've had to learn and understand things like gamma, knee, pedestal, and others. And don't get me started about white balance! I used to do a lot of astroimaging (taking pictures of galaxies, nebulae, and other faint stuff a few million billion light years away) and manipulating white balance correctly was a fundamental skill, and a very critical one when you are actually counting photons! But it has taken on a new perspective with video.
Reading and researching has helped a lot in getting started. And you have to read and learn a lot because there are many things that you have to bring to the table in your arsenal of knowledge.
But, after a certain point, there is no substitute for practice, practice, practice. It's how you get to Carnegie Hall and also how you learn this medium form. And that is most of what I am doing now.
These forums are great, because I am picking up a great number of technical ideas and details. I turn around and apply them and others in some test footage and see what turns out.
This post has turned out to be a bit beyond the scope of the OP's question. But with respect to it and what I just said, it has been my observation that the quality of the the better clips and footage that I have seen have not been attributable to just the settings, but to everything else I mentioned above and more, plus judicious use of editing in post.
This is just from a beginner, though, so it is only worth what you paid for.
Robert M Wright
Well-known member
For color correction, the biggest fundamental thing is "simply" getting neutral colors (white, gray, black) truly neutral (no color cast). Do that, and often color will fall into place nicely.
Personally, I wouldn't bother with Pinnacle. When I've tried it out, I quickly uninstalled it - struck me as just awful (overly simplistic, klunky and buggy as heck). I'd love to try SpeedEdit, but they don't do trial versions, and I'm not in the habit of blindly dropping a few hundred bucks on an NLE (or any other kind of software, for that matter).
You should have got a copy of Edius Neo 2 with the HMC40, which has some pretty nice tools for color correction. I'd suggest you install it, and start out by doing some experimenting using the "White Balance" tool. It's in the "Video Filters" under "Color Correction". Try experimenting with the color picker to point at portions in a frame that should be neutral (white/gray/black) to automatically remove color cast.
If you upgrade to the newer version of Neo 2 (should be able to get the upgrade free from Panny, but maybe a real PITA with the sucky website), you will have a solid basic NLE that is excellent for being able to work with AVCHD natively.
Macfionn
Active member
As ya'll repeatedly say "NLE", is this what you mean?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-linear_editing_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-linear_editing_system
hey, I am still trying to learn the camera and all of the proper settings for it. luckily the promo was just for fun, not a real deal 
but I realized last night that i hadn't even been editing it correctly on FCE, I had it in a completely different format (hence the black lines at the top/bottom) but i got that figured out and now it looks ALOT better, not gonna redo a whole edit just for that though. But yeah i know I have a lot of work to go learning the camera esp the iris shutter speed and all which brings up my next question. what type of shutter speed should I have used for a "promo" video like this with no quick actions really going on? thanks everyone for the "constructive criticism"
but I realized last night that i hadn't even been editing it correctly on FCE, I had it in a completely different format (hence the black lines at the top/bottom) but i got that figured out and now it looks ALOT better, not gonna redo a whole edit just for that though. But yeah i know I have a lot of work to go learning the camera esp the iris shutter speed and all which brings up my next question. what type of shutter speed should I have used for a "promo" video like this with no quick actions really going on? thanks everyone for the "constructive criticism"
BobDiaz
The Professor
Yes, there's a lot of odd terms we use here, people who have used them for years forget that anyone who has not learned the terms is going to have a hard time, sorry.
Back the the "bad old days" of tape to tape editing, we had to build the program from start to finish. Want to pull out a shot at the start of the tape OR add something? Sorry, you either make a copy and go one more generation down OR you back up to the point where the change had to be made and start from there. NOT FUN. :embarasse
Today, we use computers to edit the video. Want to add something in the middle OR remove something? No problem.
rogar-Happy(DBG): This is known as NLE (Non-Linear Editing). You can do things out of order.hey, I am still trying to learn the camera and all of the proper settings for it. luckily the promo was just for fun, not a real deal
As a general rule, I like to keep the shutter speed within the 1/(Frame Rate) --> 1/(2 x Frame Rate). For example:
720/60p or 1080/60i: Use 1/60 of a second --> 1/120 of a second.
720/30p or 1080/30p: Use 1/30 of a second --> 1/60 of a second.
720/24p or 1080/24p: Use 1/24 of a second --> 1/48 of a second.
With 720/60p and 1080/60i, it seems that the eye is less sensitive to the strobe effect of higher shutter speeds. Thus, even speeds like 1/2000 seem to work, BUT it there's a repeating pattern, the very high speeds are a bad idea. If there's a repeating pattern, stick to the lower speed, like 1/60 of a second.
With 720/30p and 1080/30p, the frame rate is getting lower and the eye is more sensitive to the strobe effect. I like to use a speed of 1/60 of a second, but you might be able to get away with higher speeds, like 1/120 of a second, but be careful.
With 720/24p and 1080/24p we get into an area that's VERY sensitive to the strobe like effect. Try this, shoot some outdoor action at 1/1000 of a second, it just seems to jump from frame to frame and is not smooth movement. A low shutter speed, like 1/24 of a second gives the smoothest movement, BUT any movement is now a blur. We solve one problem and generate another. It seems like the best setting is around 1/48 of a second or 1/50 of a second.
MORE IDEAS:
I have been shooting 720/30p, because this matches the mode of FCE. Sorry, but FCE does not offer 720/60p or 720/24p. I could shoot in 1080/60i, which is supported by FCE and 1080/30p is laid on top of 1080/60i, both would work in FCE.
I did encounter problems with 720/30p in the conversion to AIC and Quicktime. (See message 93 & 106.)
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=196613&page=3
Right now I'm still working on the best possible solution to the conversion problem. I don't have the newest version of iMovie, which could take care of it and I don't have Toast 10, just Toast 9.
I believe that shooting 720/60p solves the conversion problem and when transferring to 720/30p, every other frame would be dropped, but I need to test this to be 100% sure.
Bob Diaz