D5100 - Moire
- Thread starter mojo43
- Start date
You'll see a lot more moire from the Nikons (or Canons) than from Panasonic's cameras, simple fact of how they interpolate the image. You either live with it, work around it, or run away screaming. There aren't any particularly good options.
That said, I've had good use out of Jorgen Escher's filter. It doesn't solve really big problems (radiator grilles, walls, the wrong sort of shirt), but it can help reduce the small scintillations that sneak past you on a shoot (hair, water, foliage). Worth a look if you're a Final Cut user; if not, there are likely similar tools for your system.
That said, I've had good use out of Jorgen Escher's filter. It doesn't solve really big problems (radiator grilles, walls, the wrong sort of shirt), but it can help reduce the small scintillations that sneak past you on a shoot (hair, water, foliage). Worth a look if you're a Final Cut user; if not, there are likely similar tools for your system.
With few exceptions, it really isn't possible to remove moire in post. As I understand it, the moire is a side-effect of the camera interpolating resolution it's not really sampling. It can't be removed because you don't have the data from which to reconstruct the 'correct' image. The only real solutions are to sample at the correct resolution, or (better) at a higher resolution and perform a more intelligent downsampling.
Panasonic cameras are cleverer about this; what Nikon and Canon are doing is quick and dirty, and moire is where their shortcuts show.
About the best you can do is monitor properly while shooting and deal with it before you ever record. Alternatively, get used to garbage mattes and blur filters, you'll be using a lot of them.
Panasonic cameras are cleverer about this; what Nikon and Canon are doing is quick and dirty, and moire is where their shortcuts show.
About the best you can do is monitor properly while shooting and deal with it before you ever record. Alternatively, get used to garbage mattes and blur filters, you'll be using a lot of them.
mojo43
Well-known member
More on this... I have tested a bunch of settings and when I lower the sharpness to 0 in camera the moire and aliasing is almost gone.
So what I am thinking is shooting with the sharpness on 0 and then adding the sharpness in post where needed. My question is though... At a setting of sharpness of 0, is Nikon blurring the image or are they not adding any sharpness at all?
I wonder if I can achieve the same sharpness in post after the fact?? Does anyone know?
So what I am thinking is shooting with the sharpness on 0 and then adding the sharpness in post where needed. My question is though... At a setting of sharpness of 0, is Nikon blurring the image or are they not adding any sharpness at all?
I wonder if I can achieve the same sharpness in post after the fact?? Does anyone know?
Blackpeppers
Member
At 0, they don't add any sharpness (I did a test with a resolution chart on d7000) and you don't have less details with sharpness to 0 but contours aren't accentuated.
Can you achieve the same sharpness in post ? I don't think, I tried but you'll get macro-blocking which absolutely awful. Indeed, the sharpness settings on DSLRs are probably applied before the encoding with a raw signal and not an AVCHD one.
Hope it helps.
Can you achieve the same sharpness in post ? I don't think, I tried but you'll get macro-blocking which absolutely awful. Indeed, the sharpness settings on DSLRs are probably applied before the encoding with a raw signal and not an AVCHD one.
Hope it helps.
mojo43
Well-known member
Hi Blackpeppers... thanks so much for the response, it does help. So basically I should be applying the sharpness in camera. It certainly looks great with a medium level of sharpness but there seems to be aliasing everywhere. Even on a shoot yesterday, there was aliasing on grass that was blowing in the wind. Any idea how I can prevent this?
bleach551
Member
Mojo,
Welcome to the world of Aliasing and Moire. As an owner of the Canon 7D which displays alot of aliasing and Moire , I have minimized both by shooting at wider apertures with a shallow D.O.F. I have also found that setting the sharpness to 0 does nothing but leave you with a soft image to sharpen in post never to my liking.
With the Canon 7D The long held settings were:
Sharpness= 0
Contrast=-4
Saturation=-2
Color tone=unchanged left on the middle line
with a "Neutral" picture style. I tried that for about 4 to 5 months and always hated how soft it looked and even when I tried multiple sharpening programs it still looked like a soft image with artificially sharpened edges. I was told by someone more knowledgeable than myself on the subject that by setting the sharpness to "0" I wasn't defeating the "Anti- Aliasing Filter". The " Anti- aliasing filter" in the 7D, and I believe in most DSLR's, are designed to limit certain high frequency information "artifactsl" from the digital signal. However, the AA filter also removes some none "artifact" information "Detail" that will leave your images looking a little soft.
So I started shooting with a combination of sharpness set at "1" and with fairly wide apertures( F2 to f3.5 with 50mm lenses, F2.8 to f4.0 with 85mm lenses and up) along with a Diopter in some cases to throw objects that I tried to keep out of focus further out of focus. I have also found that by increasing the "Shadow- Contrast" in my Hacked version of Avid Media Composer with an Avid Symphony color corrector, that I can get a naturally sharpened look. Shooting with apertures higher than the ones previously mentioned with sharpness set to "1" will make the aliasing and moire already present look even worse.
I believe the Nikon D5100 has a 1.53X crop factor the Canon 7D has a 1.6 X crop factor. I have learned to take advantage of the slightly shallower D.O.F that the 7D gives being a 1.6X cropped sensored camera in relation to the Panasonic's 2X cropped sensored cameras, to help me control aliasing and moire. With the d5100, with a slightly shallower D.O.F than the 7D, this could be a great aide in helping you. But, for now, "Deep focus" shots with either of these two cameras with little to no aliasing or moire is a dream that only panasonic gh1, gh13, gh17 and gh2 owners can realize.
Its trial and error really. You will have to find what In-camera settings work for you with what the lenses you use and your shooting style.
BTW,
here are two videos with the settings I use in the Canon 7D with wide apertures and a Diopter.
http://www.vimeo.com/21371442
http://www.vimeo.com/16228206
Welcome to the world of Aliasing and Moire. As an owner of the Canon 7D which displays alot of aliasing and Moire , I have minimized both by shooting at wider apertures with a shallow D.O.F. I have also found that setting the sharpness to 0 does nothing but leave you with a soft image to sharpen in post never to my liking.
With the Canon 7D The long held settings were:
Sharpness= 0
Contrast=-4
Saturation=-2
Color tone=unchanged left on the middle line
with a "Neutral" picture style. I tried that for about 4 to 5 months and always hated how soft it looked and even when I tried multiple sharpening programs it still looked like a soft image with artificially sharpened edges. I was told by someone more knowledgeable than myself on the subject that by setting the sharpness to "0" I wasn't defeating the "Anti- Aliasing Filter". The " Anti- aliasing filter" in the 7D, and I believe in most DSLR's, are designed to limit certain high frequency information "artifactsl" from the digital signal. However, the AA filter also removes some none "artifact" information "Detail" that will leave your images looking a little soft.
So I started shooting with a combination of sharpness set at "1" and with fairly wide apertures( F2 to f3.5 with 50mm lenses, F2.8 to f4.0 with 85mm lenses and up) along with a Diopter in some cases to throw objects that I tried to keep out of focus further out of focus. I have also found that by increasing the "Shadow- Contrast" in my Hacked version of Avid Media Composer with an Avid Symphony color corrector, that I can get a naturally sharpened look. Shooting with apertures higher than the ones previously mentioned with sharpness set to "1" will make the aliasing and moire already present look even worse.
I believe the Nikon D5100 has a 1.53X crop factor the Canon 7D has a 1.6 X crop factor. I have learned to take advantage of the slightly shallower D.O.F that the 7D gives being a 1.6X cropped sensored camera in relation to the Panasonic's 2X cropped sensored cameras, to help me control aliasing and moire. With the d5100, with a slightly shallower D.O.F than the 7D, this could be a great aide in helping you. But, for now, "Deep focus" shots with either of these two cameras with little to no aliasing or moire is a dream that only panasonic gh1, gh13, gh17 and gh2 owners can realize.
Its trial and error really. You will have to find what In-camera settings work for you with what the lenses you use and your shooting style.
BTW,
here are two videos with the settings I use in the Canon 7D with wide apertures and a Diopter.
http://www.vimeo.com/21371442
http://www.vimeo.com/16228206
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mojo43
Well-known member
Thanks a lot for the information bleach551... After a bunch of tests I have come to the conclusion as everyone has mentioned, that I cannot lower the sharpness in camera and try to resharpen in post without degrading the picture. I then looked for a way to remove moire and it seems like there isn't a way for AE or Vegas or Edius users. The only plugin I could find was with FCP. So it looks like I will stick do wide open apertures with this cam and deep depth or field for the GH13.
Rick Burnett
Section Moderator
The moire happens at the sensor because of how the sensor is skipping detail hitting it. Normally, an OLPF (Optical Low Pass Filter) is tuned to basically blur the image a bit before it hits the sensor, so that it reduces the spatial frequency to something between the density of green photosites and that of red/blue which are half as much. This is why cameras like the F3 and Red One still have a tiny amount of aliasing in extreme spatial frequency situations because if they tuned for just red/blue, the amount of softness in the green (which is most of the luminance to our eyes) isn't as pleasing. That is the nice thing about the AF100, GH1 and GH2, they all have zero chroma aliasing which means it's less common (but does happen).
When you sharpen in post, the aliasing is still present, so it becomes more defined just as it would in camera. I have a Nikon D90 and the aliasing is REALLY bad in it.
Some people will selectively blur in post to save some aspects of pictures, but honestly, there is no answer other than to prevent high frequency situations from hitting the sensor. When I was shooting on the 7D, it was common for me to lose a bunch of shots because I just didn't realize there was a problem (can't see the issue in camera).
When you sharpen in post, the aliasing is still present, so it becomes more defined just as it would in camera. I have a Nikon D90 and the aliasing is REALLY bad in it.
Some people will selectively blur in post to save some aspects of pictures, but honestly, there is no answer other than to prevent high frequency situations from hitting the sensor. When I was shooting on the 7D, it was common for me to lose a bunch of shots because I just didn't realize there was a problem (can't see the issue in camera).
bleach551
Member
Mojo,
That's basically it buddy. I tried everything from turning the sharpness all the way down on my 7D then sharpening in post. Next, I tried adding sharpness and un-sharpening it in post. I tried softening filters both optical and software based, NOTHING!. It either looked like sharpened blocky mud or was so soft it looked like it was from a "Dream sequence" from some movie. I finally decided on shooting fairly wide open, and since I use an anamorphic lens to shot everything now, the anamorphic lens seems to soften the pixels very slightly and makes the finally image looks naturally sharpened.
That's basically it buddy. I tried everything from turning the sharpness all the way down on my 7D then sharpening in post. Next, I tried adding sharpness and un-sharpening it in post. I tried softening filters both optical and software based, NOTHING!. It either looked like sharpened blocky mud or was so soft it looked like it was from a "Dream sequence" from some movie. I finally decided on shooting fairly wide open, and since I use an anamorphic lens to shot everything now, the anamorphic lens seems to soften the pixels very slightly and makes the finally image looks naturally sharpened.
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Mojo -
I saw your post and video sample in the GH1/2 forum
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?252582-Video-Is-this-aliasing...
and coming from an ex-Canon user, you learn techniques to deal with this stuff
For the color moire patterns, you can use various chroma blur plugins. Most NLE's have them.
The aliasing is more difficult to improve, but there are avisynth filters that can significantly improve this without blurring the image to mush (avisynth also has filters for color moire) . But there is a bit of a learning curve for avisynth, and the processing times are very slow for the higher quality motion estimation based plugins (that's why it's not blurred to mush)
This was your original video link
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0...jgtOGJiYTJlZjQ4N2Yy&hl=en_US&authkey=CPfLqM0B
Avisynth processed
http://www.mediafire.com/?1vzohgo2ta6fzrc
I saw your post and video sample in the GH1/2 forum
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?252582-Video-Is-this-aliasing...
and coming from an ex-Canon user, you learn techniques to deal with this stuff
For the color moire patterns, you can use various chroma blur plugins. Most NLE's have them.
The aliasing is more difficult to improve, but there are avisynth filters that can significantly improve this without blurring the image to mush (avisynth also has filters for color moire) . But there is a bit of a learning curve for avisynth, and the processing times are very slow for the higher quality motion estimation based plugins (that's why it's not blurred to mush)
This was your original video link
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0...jgtOGJiYTJlZjQ4N2Yy&hl=en_US&authkey=CPfLqM0B
Avisynth processed
http://www.mediafire.com/?1vzohgo2ta6fzrc
Code:
FFVideoSource("DSC_0052.MOV")
FFT3DFilter(sigma=4,plane=3,bt=3,ow=16,oh=16)
QTGMC(inputtype=1, preset="slow", sharpness=0.2)There is still some aliasing, but it's significantly reduced. You can stack some AA filters (either in avisynth or other programs), but the stronger filters tend to blur the image too much
As usual, adjust the settings to your own tastes . QTGMC is meant to be a deinterlacer, but using inputtype=1 can be used on progressive footage to help improve aliasing and badly deinterlaced footage
There is not much you can do about the blinking object (chair?) behind the dog, short of masking it out /rotoscoping and fixing the color.
mojo43
Well-known member
Thanks... I am not as worried about the chair and the trailer blinking because I can prevent this scenario as I can see it come up as I am shooting.
I was more worried about the ground because the aliasing was really bad imo and I could not see it as I was shooting. I find it is at an acceptable level with what you have done to it. Thanks so much for the help. I can stop banging my head against the wall!
I was more worried about the ground because the aliasing was really bad imo and I could not see it as I was shooting. I find it is at an acceptable level with what you have done to it. Thanks so much for the help. I can stop banging my head against the wall!
mojo43
Well-known member
I tried your script and loaded it in virtualdub and it doesn't look the same as yours. It still has the aliasing. Can you tell me what I am doing wrong? Everything loads from the avs file with your script and I then compress it and save it as a new file and it looks like all of the aliasing is still there...?
thanks in advance...
mojo43
Well-known member
Sorry, one last question... Where did you read about using this filter? I mean, everyone must be dealing with this problem. Did you come up with this solution or did you read about it on another forum? I am having problems bringing up any discussions about using these tools to remove moire.
Thanks again!
Thanks again!