lolcatwtf? @ camera consumers?

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Snapper123

Well-known member
I just did a test with my T2i, using Quicktime Player, to see what would happen if I stretched my 1080P videos to 4K resolution. The result is: it looks just about the same! As long as the image is generally overexposed, it seems as though you can actually export these things at 4k resolution with no seemingly obvious side effects. Now, stylistically, the tests I did looked bad, you'd never shoot a film with such a flat, slightly-too-bright range, but quality wise, the videos actually looked pretty darn perfect (with no lines, noise, or anything) at 4K, even in the shadows. This is without exporting though, it was just stretching it to 4k in the player.

Now, the test I did this was as follows; the image overexposed 1 full stop with absolutely no harsh or deep shadows in the entire footage (I filmed a light grey wall with a electric outlet.), and the footage was also a macro shot (the lens was maybe 3 feet from the wall?) but I mean, when apples comes to apples, I was downright shocked @ this camera. Especially when I had been getting such horrible footage when it comes to filming contrast areas.

P.S. One thing I want to say, though, is I sometimes get the feeling that my camera randomly works and doesn't work for video, I feel like it's actually 'random' that my footage tends to produce lines, pixels, noise, and harshness dpending on when I use the camera, not rare, and there seems to be no pattern.

But yeah, just thought I'd give a heads up about how it seems 4K footage can, in best case scenario, be seemingly shot with this camera.
 
http://i36.tinypic.com/mkzlsw.jpg

I honestly get worse results than that viewing the quality of this camera's photos, so that means that it's very possible that using certain filters on the lens would even block just a bit more of blurring light, making that 4K image even sharper.

I don't know, I honestly think that if it was an emergency scenario and you needed 4K (can't really think of one) that if you stand just a few feet back, the 4K quality seems pretty outstanding, even completely amazing, for what I expected lol. There's no glitches at all, just a minimal blur with highlights. Of coarse, even that video was shot with 7 Sharpness in camera, but I'm not claiming that it looks stylish just...videos honestly have that same texture as above if the sharpness is set to 0 so....to be honest, what exactly is a person to shoot in?? 0 or 7 Sharpness? 0 Just seems to mean no 4k, 7 seems to mean yes 4k.

With how filters would help, even a better lens would help too, as supposedly the 50mm isn't exactly sharp at 1.4 (even at it's sharpest point). Better 'for-studio' lighting would also help. Overall, I bet this camera produces 4k video under the best circumstances and we don't even know it.
 
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That image doesn't really do anything for me. Also boosting sharpness in camera does not, from my perspective atleast, add any style. Simply makes it look more video-ey, and (shoddily) sharpened. Me thinks it's best to just grab a nice wide signal rather than adding more layers of post processing before the image is written to the card/tape/drive whatever.

Your image is already being degraded several times. From the actual scene to the lens, to the CCD/CMOS to thru the image processing (knee, color temp, sharpening, for example) and then onto the card with whatever compressed format (h264 for the canons, I believe)

Simplify that process as much as possible by removing the confounds (for example imposing less processing in-camera) and you're golden.

My opinion.
 
Snapper123 said:
P.S. One thing I want to say, though, is I sometimes get the feeling that my camera randomly works and doesn't work for video, I feel like it's actually 'random' that my footage tends to produce lines, pixels, noise, and harshness dpending on when I use the camera, not rare, and there seems to be no pattern.
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that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. if you do think it's randomness, i suggest you do several proper tests to test your theory.

randomness in technology will lead you to discover something technical going on. when you say randomness, it boarders on superstition.

and i don't believe you can get usable 4K footage from the t2i. i could be wrong, but i'll believe it when i see it. and no, that cropped image doesn't prove anything.

Pookie said:
4K, from a T2i......:grin:
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don't you know? anything's possible in the twilight zone!
 
I'm sorry... Are you being serious?

You get an image that barely resolves 1080P, stretch to 4K and call it good?

And what is MACRO STYLE?
 
Snapper123 said:
I just did a test with my T2i, using Quicktime Player, to see what would happen if I stretched my 1080P videos to 4K resolution. The result is: it looks just about the same! As long as the image is generally overexposed, it seems as though you can actually export these things at 4k resolution with no seemingly obvious side effects. Now, stylistically, the tests I did looked bad, you'd never shoot a film with such a flat, slightly-too-bright range, but quality wise, the videos actually looked pretty darn perfect (with no lines, noise, or anything) at 4K, even in the shadows. This is without exporting though, it was just stretching it to 4k in the player.

Now, the test I did this was as follows; the image overexposed 1 full stop with absolutely no harsh or deep shadows in the entire footage (I filmed a light grey wall with a electric outlet.), and the footage was also a macro shot (the lens was maybe 3 feet from the wall?) but I mean, when apples comes to apples, I was downright shocked @ this camera. Especially when I had been getting such horrible footage when it comes to filming contrast areas.

P.S. One thing I want to say, though, is I sometimes get the feeling that my camera randomly works and doesn't work for video, I feel like it's actually 'random' that my footage tends to produce lines, pixels, noise, and harshness dpending on when I use the camera, not rare, and there seems to be no pattern.

But yeah, just thought I'd give a heads up about how it seems 4K footage can, in best case scenario, be seemingly shot with this camera.
Click to expand...

So you've seen it shown on a 40ft screen with a 4k projector? And it still looked great? What about side by side with actual, proper 4k? 4k has about 6.5mp more than true HD video (from a proper HD camera, not super soft psuedo-HD from a DSLR) so there will be a huge difference. I'm sure plenty of features are converted to film or 2k or 4k for final delivery after being shot in HD, but even they can't touch the resolution of true 4k scans or RAW.

None of the DSLR's even approach 1920x1080 lines of actual resolution. They are very soft by HD standards, and nothing you do will be able to change that. The video is only as good as it's weakest link - and there's plenty of possible hiccups along the way. Filters, lenses, sensor, in camera processing, compression, format/resolution and post processing all contribute to the final image. Having an 18mp sensor or super sharp L-series glass won't matter if you're using a pretty average sensor read-out method. In fact, those extra 16mp will be detrimental because you are in effect throwing them away and leaving big 'holes' in your image. Likewise, exporting to 4k won't increase the resolution.

There are also no filters that can "block blurring light." In fact, quite the opposite, anything you put in front of the lens will degrade the image, even if it is barely perceptible. The same goes for in camera sharpening. It does not actually increase the resolution of the image, rather it uses edge enhancement and adjusts contrast to increase the percepted resolution. And doing it in camera or in post will give the same effect, only doing it in cameras does not give you the option to undo it later on. So it's completely false to say that sharpness set to 7 allows 4k, but set to 0 it doesn't (even ignoring the fact that the 550d/7d definitely cannot produce 4k under any circumstances).

If your 18mp still's don't look alot better than that 100% crop then there is something definitely wrong. Maybe you are using very soft lenses or additional filters or missing critical focus or not using the lens ideally (having aperture too wide or small will cause defraction and decrease sharpness before the light even hits the sensor). Even 12mp stills from my K-X look sharper than that, even when zoomed in past 100%.

As for those 'random' behaviours of the 550d/7d video they are well documented. All video produces lines and pixels. It's how video is made. In an ideal HD camera, you would be getting exactly 1920 vertical lines, 1080 horizontal lines, and 2,073,600 pixels. Unfrotunately very few cameras do actually deliver this many lines, and the actual resolution in generally a little bit lower than the containing format resolution. The other thing you may be trying to describe is aliasing and moire - artifacts and coloured patches introduced by the way the 1920x1080 data is extracted from the 18mp sensor. A very simple way of explaining it would be to say that the camera is trying to fill those large gaps left in the image has when throwing away all those extra pixels. Noise is directly related to ISO (lower values are cleaner) so make sure you never use auto ISO and that you only use higher ISO's (anything over 800) in low light scenarios. Finally, the 'harshness' you describe could be a result of the camera's default picture style. By default the contrast if very high so you might need to turn it down a bit.
 
Well see, I did a test where I shot the same video at 0 sharpness and 7 sharpness, to see which one looked better at 4k, and the 0, you couldn't really make out the details, and at 7, well, that's the crop I posted. Overall, I couldn't see using that crop to suggest I'm going to go out and film Knowing with this camera, but I'm saying that overall, the footage isn't anywhere near glitchy or anything.. I honestly expected things like pixelated edges, unrecognizable footage ect ect. It just surprised me.

Anyway, yeah, the one thing is that all the photos I take with this camera look blurry and a bit low quality at their native 18MP resolution, I always tend to think they look perfect when resized to 15MP. And nah, I'm focusing perfectly, and doing everything right. I've always felt that my videos, even stylistically and sharpness-wise, tend to reflect the slight low quality look I get at 18MP with photos. That was just some of the first-look problems though, I've since discovered much more to be picky about.

But all this doesn't really stop me from again, being surprised at the fact that video can be stretched to double its size without HUGE negative effects! This means that 2K is without a doubt possible.

Oh yeah, macro style is macro style lol!
 
That crop looks over-sharpened. Look at the fake halo's between lines, it's fake detail and it has a 1990s over-sharpened DV quality to it.

You don't need a cinema display, a 40ft 4K projector to see that at all. Peering closer to your monitor is enough, although if it's not calibrated properly your eyes may not percieve the actual detail there.

The 18MP from this camera is gorgeous. Take a raw still of that same scene. Then go into Canon's Digital Photo Professional and ramp the sharpness up all the way. In fact, go into Photoshop and use its Camera Raw Sharpness, and ontop of that use the Filters\Unsharp mask too. You can push that very, very far.

The video processing and video compresion on the other hand, no where near. But it's still better to shoot not at 7 sharpness.
 
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