Information cut off on Canon LCD?

J

jpastuch

Carbonite Member
Don't know if this is the right forum for this... but I shot a short film on a crappy camera, the Canon Optura 200MC (it's all I had at the time). I had a long take- a 5 minute longshot where the camera doesn't move- and everything worked out fine- the lighting, sharpness, framing all seemed to be perfect. I used the viewfinder as opposed to the LCD the entire time to save battery and because it just seemed more accurate- it's darker and more focused for me, so that's what I generally use. When I connected it to a TV tonight just to take a look at the raw footage, it all still seemed good. Then I glanced at the LCD and noticed it has much more information on the right and left side.

No boom poles drop in or anything- but it makes the shots look a lot sloppier as I had objects placed and framed with precision for that very purpose. Then I sort of remembered this happening before with a project I shot on the camera and uploaded to youtube- I noticed the aspect ratio seemed to get slightly wider, but didn't pay it much mind then as I thought perhaps it had gotten stretched or something.

So basically I'm wondering, if I edit this in FCP, is there an option to preserve the 4:3 ratio without losing picture quality? Does the LCD of this camera give the TRUE aspect ratio, or is the LCD actually the misleading component here, not taking into account the "Safety zone" of 4:3 TVs? I know most people on here probably never even used the camera, but maybe it applies to all or most consumer cameras. I know TVs will cut off info in many instances, but my question is whether or not I can make the more "square" look I see in my viewfinder and TV the official image without losing image quality (i.e. when you "zoom in" in editing, which I refuse to do).


Thanks,
 
Generally, only a few cameras actually offer underscan on their LCD. Most camera overscan, basically cropping off the edges of the image.
 
So sorry, does that mean my LCD is overcompensating or it's my viewfinder that's wrong (since I prefer the viewfinder like most)? And when I get to editing it, will there be an option to preserve 4:3? Basically I just don't want the "extra" edges visible on projectors.

Thanks

EDIT: Nevermind, I get it (it's my LCD). So should I just black out the extra areas in editing in case it's viewed on a hi-def TV or something?
 
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viewfinder is not exactly what you get on most cameras, in your case it doesn't show the whole image width.
 
So the LCD is the full width? Why wouldn't the viewfinder be correct on most cameras? Isn't that basically what you're supposed to use?

And can't I just put black bars on the right and left to crop the image?
 
u can bring the file to your computer and playback, it's not suppposed to be square, it's supposed to be 4:3, that's what your camera will record.
u might think about getting a different camera.
 
u can crop or do whatever you want with the footage, u dont have to be 4:3 or go be any rules, it's ur footage, go wild.
 
Well, aren't most TVs 4:3? I'm saying my viewfinder is 4:3 but my LCD is a little wider, showing the "safety zone"- which is fine, but apparently this will show up on digital projection. It's all very confusing to me...I just want the framing that shows up on my viewfinder and TV to show up all the time, including during projections.

PS: does the dvx100 have this problem, or is it "what you see is what you get" on both LCDs and viewfinders?
 
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