Help!!dust or smudges on the front element are easily seen in DVX100 images

Today we finished our first 24P short with elaborate sets,great locations and props a professional DP..and professional actors as we started capturing our tape with Avid..we noticed a blurry smudge on some of the key scenes when the zoom was pulled all the way back against a white background!!!

The DP didn't see it either on the monitor or the viewer...missed it completely...is there ANY way we can get rid of that stupid smudge usning avid or any other software? is there a way to see whether that smudge is on the lense or on the CCD's? (did a test and wiped the filter and the lens and the image is clean now but some of our key scenes in locations we could only get once were smudged!!! :-().

any thoughts?

thank you so much in advance.

Pablo Lewin
 
How do I post a screen grab here? baiscally it's a blurry round fading gray circle about 1/2 the size of an actor's head...
 
Hi, when you day you wiped the filter, which bit of the camera is this that you wiped, just in case I ever have similar prob, as for getting rid of smudge, it depends where on screen it is, if not that importatn a bit, you could use after effects pro, and motion tracking, sample a bit of the scene where the blur isn,t, then superimpose it and motion tracking will keep it in place when shot moves, that would wourk ofr sky etc or aroom etc, you could also crop the shots in the edit to get rid off, I know changes your storyboarding, but I don't think that going in for a CU would make that much diff, at times, depends what you're doing sometimes just cropping the sides if blur is there doesn't amke much diff to scene, and if blur really bad, you could go in on mouths close or something, or eyes for reaction, so just think around I guess would be easiest answer, and after effects is the more labour intensive if you want to keep the shot integrity...
 
Hi, when you say you wiped the filter, which bit of the camera is this that you wiped, just in case I ever have similar prob, as for getting rid of smudge, it depends where on screen it is, if not that importatn a bit, you could use after effects pro, and motion tracking, sample a bit of the scene where the blur isn,t, then superimpose it and motion tracking will keep it in place when shot moves, that would wourk ofr sky etc or aroom etc, you could also crop the shots in the edit to get rid off, I know changes your storyboarding, but I don't think that going in for a CU would make that much diff, at times, depends what you're doing sometimes just cropping the sides if blur is there doesn't amke much diff to scene, and if blur really bad, you could go in on mouths close or something, or eyes for reaction, so just think around I guess would be easiest answer, and after effects is the more labour intensive if you want to keep the shot integrity...
 
Create a garbarge matte, set edges of matte to be soft, apply a sharpen filter or color correction to balance it out as much as reasonable. No need to motion track since it's locked to the camera.
If you shot with the zooming you may need to key frame the size and settings.
You should be using a UV or other protection filter in front of the lens. With the large depth of field of small chip video cameras anything on the lens will show so make sure to check the filter itself for every setup or at least at start of day.
 
Thank you all for the replies, I will pass them on to my editor tonight (he is a newbie like moi..)...any tricks by using Avid Express Pro 4.3?

thanks again

Pablo Lewin
 
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