First Letus35A shoot

Yeah stupid photoshop upres method I used. I am going to purchase the redgiant software and give that a run I mean for $99 its not too much, and no one else has it so tests arent conclusive. Someone has to jump in.

Scharky Im using Premiere and after effects. I am sure after effects would be better than using photoshop. Ive tested Disjecta's method before, but I find the whole process too time consuming, although with excellent results.
 
Norm will have to correct me if I'm off on this, but from what I remember off the top of my head, with the Letus35 we were at:
Z71 - Z69
MF8 - MF10

OK now i have a problem with my cam......wont focus below 30 ?
 
Depends on your zoom setting. The more wide-angle you are, the closer you can focus. As you zoom in, the minimum focus distance increases too.
 
Thanks Barry, I have no idea how I have overlooked this in the past. I guess its never arisen as an issue so I just never noticed it, I mean at Z99 even if you could there are few circumstances where you would need a focus below mf40. But thanks for the quick reply now my heart can settle.

The first thing I did was a quick eyeball of your book, couldnt see it.

OK now I have that sorted out question:

On settings Z71 - Z69 MF8 - MF10, I cant pull any focus at all. I played around every number around this and no chance. Myabe cause this is the flip. Now just sitting here and watching on a monitor my sharpest focus is easily around MF 75. I went through the whole scale, the same number I have been using for everything I have done so far.

I have a severe brain malfunction today...... it relates to the fact that I have a cold? (heh my excuse anyway) anyway of course the FLIP settings will be different.
 
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Man what a rough morning: wasted so many good work hours playing.. anyway.

Heres an image comparison between original and upressed with redgiant. upress was done not conforming to 16:9 even though the boarder is. Whats bugging me is the upress looks like it has some interlacing where the original is clean. Will have to look at that.

flip.jpg


newred.jpg
 
ncje said:
On settings Z71 - Z69 MF8 - MF10, I cant pull any focus at all. I played around every number around this and no chance. Myabe cause this is the flip. Now just sitting here and watching on a monitor my sharpest focus is easily around MF 75. I went through the whole scale, the same number I have been using for everything I have done so far.

You'll have to play around with your unit- as you'll see in Scharky's post his numbers are close to ours, but they are not exactly on either. I think this has to do with the fact that the Letus screws on- and depending on how far in you screw it, I would imagine that would effect your Z&MF settings.

Norm and I found that it was best to hook up the camera to the computer and view your intire image and zoom & focus in from there. aqs this will allow you to see the full image- over scan and all- which is important if you will be displaying your work on the web.

We just did some more testing today, trying to figure out what settings we want for our short, and for the Letus35 Filp we had the following settings: Z87 MF84.

Hope that helps.
 
scharky said:
Z87 and MF84? That doesn't sound right? MF at 84 is focused almost to infinity.

This is for the FLIP version, not the regular Letus. I know that doesn't sound right, and I just double checked it. But it is correct, none the less.

I just pulled out my camera and focused using the following method using the Letus Flip:

1. Attach the Flip to the lens via the threads, until it is snug.
2. Set on Z00, adjusted the flip so that the window / GG is square with the lens.
3. Using the computer monitor to check my overscan area, I zoomed in until I coul not see the edges of the GG. (Z87)
4. With the GG turned off, no lens on the adapter, and pointing the GG at a light- I then focused on the grains on the GG. (MF84)

Not sure what to tell you other then that is what appears to be the correct settings for my camera. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that the GG is at the other end of the adapter in the Flip. In the reg. version the GG is VERY close to the lens, but in the filp the light from the GG is bounced off of a couple of mirrors.
 
Though the GG is bounced off of mirrors, it shouldn't have any difference in how far it appears to the lens ... keeping in mind that the Letus35Flip that we still need to get back to Quyen has the GG off center for the DVX, so we have to zoom in further than normal. I'm pretty confident that if the GG were centered, we'd be around Z72-Z76 zoom ... similar to the regular Letus35.
 
Yes well mine is centered ok left to right, however depending on how I screw the thread up or down is a little off, dont know how that works. Did a little test today will add a link very soon.. rendering.
 
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Envision said:
Though the GG is bounced off of mirrors, it shouldn't have any difference in how far it appears to the lens

What I was trying to say- is that the GG is further away from the lens in the Flip model, then it is in the Normal version. In the flip the GG is at the end of the adapter (Next to the 35mm lens) where as in the reg. version it is at the begining of the adapter- next to the DVX lens. So that distance is what it causing the different MF settings, I think ...
 
Hey Scharky, think you could post up a place to DL those filters you used (i.e. noise reduction, etc.). I've tried DL'ding them from the normal size that has those plug ins, but it keeps saying the .zip file is currupt.

Also, I can't recall where it says it, but I think Barry Green had stated at one point that F5.6 was kind of the sweet spot for the DVX as far as highest resolution. Since DOF doesn't matter for focusing on the GG, do you set your camera at 5.6, or is there a really safe range you're aware of to keep maximum resolution?
 
I usually try to keep my DVX from around 3.5-5.6 whenever possible. I have found that this makes a big difference in the sharpness of your footage. as for the DNR filter. . . here you go. I'll only leave it up for a little while, because I'm not sure of the leagal implications, even though it is a free file.

http://www.stefweb.net/vegdnr.exe

it is the straight exe file.

I'm going to be shooting 3 commercials and 1 info mercial this weekend all using the letus for certain shots, so hopefully I can post some footage of that soon.
 
Thanks Stef! :) Any other filters you highly recommend? I've never gotten into the third party scripts/filters, etc. but more & more I'm thinking I need to get familiar with some of them.
 
hey scharky and all,


I am using PPro1.5 myself and compressing with procoder2.0. It turned out ok with the canopus codec but when i tried to compress to mpeg2, the result is pretty disappointing.

How did you manage to get a good compression with all the grains?

oh lastly,did you notice that there are same sort of fixed pattern of grain when you pan or move the camera?
 
scharky said:
But what I found with the camera is that turning the master ped all the way up to 0, gave me alot of freedome in getting rid of alot of dark noise. I then applied a curves and levels filter in post, to bring the contrast back to where it should be, and got very favorable results. I also applied a sharpening filter, an edge soften filter and then finally the dynamic noise reduction filter at +7. I have found that I can turn the filter all the way up to about +10 without any adverse effects, it just depends on how smooth you want your footage.

Hey Stefan,

Any reason you apply the DNR filter last vs. first in your line up of filters? Personally, when I apply the DNR, I'm not seeing a whole lot of change, but I've also not rendered it out yet, which could be the big difference ... just looking for changes in the preview monitor, like I do with CC, etc.

I'm getting ready to export a bunch of PNG image sequences now, so I'm going to apply only the DNR, then once VFX are added, I'll bring everything back in & apply CC, levels, etc. so that everything blends the same.
 
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