Master footage image issue with 7D.

Y

yaltunin

Member
Hey everyone,

I'm having some issues with clarity and sharpness in my master when shooting on my 7D and I was hoping some of you might be able to help out. This happened on a short film I did last february and with recent camera tests. My main problem is that I'm getting allot of image degradation when it goes from shadows to highlights and I'm not getting as crisp and clean an image as I would like . Its minor but it bothers the hell out of me sometimes and reflects poorly on me as a professional. The link for the camera test footage is below as well as my entire workflow along with camera settings. If anyone can take a look at it and maybe tell me what I can do to clean up the image and just make it over all cleaner and sharper as the 7D is known for that would be fantastic.

Camera Test: http://vimeo.com/25995984

In regards to the issue, you can usually see it if you fullscreen the video and look at the cheek and jaw mostly. You can see how the shadow areas are split up into different shades and are clearly divisible at they transform into highlights. Any thoughts on how this can happen?

Equipment and Setting:
- Natural light shooting with a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 Non-AI Lens
- My own Picture Style that is just bit flatter then the neutral preset, but much less than MarvelCine.
Sharpness (0)
Contrast (-1)
Saturation (-1)
Color Tone (0)
- 1/50 Shutter, 320 ISO and f/stop at 2 or 1.4.
- 1080i at 24p

Workflow:
1. Footage is uploaded and transcoded into ProRes 422 (Not HQ or LT)
2. Import into FCP, cut and edit.
3. Sent to Color and applied grade.
4. Send back to FCP to apply a 2.35:1 crop and export using Quicktime conversion.
Settings: MP4 Format with 1920x816 dimension, preserved aspect ratio and cropped. (9000 bit rate - Philip Bloom suggestion)
*These are for internet uploads only. I use H.264 for screenings
5. Vimeo upload

Some thoughts that have affected my workflow:

During my research I came to an issue with pictures style such as MarvelCine and Super flat, which stated that to much of a flat image can be to much for the codec when you grad in post which can cause the image to degrade.
Heres a link with some information about it and some in-camera color balancing tips.

Thanks in advance,

~Y
 
I think that it's soft because you are shooting with the lens wide open. The footage also looks underexposed. You need to add more light. Before you start take a still photograph & look at the histogram.
 
I'm talking about the image degradation on the master clip. Specifically the way the shadows become highlights. They have a weird sort of pixelation to them.
 
Isn't that just the - forgot how it's called (edit: banding?). Same if you shoot sky or gradients. The sharpness is indeed probably due to the fact that you got your lens wide open. The 7D is not known for it's sharp footage (at all imo), it's known for its depth-of-field, which is often misperceived as sharpness (it's more sharpness-to-blur ratio or something? :D). Sharpening a little in post could help loads.

As a side note, i think your footage looks very cinematic, great!
 
work on getting your exposure correct for the picture style you choose to work with. The histogram helps alot. Your footage looks underexposed by two or two and half stops.

If you've looked at chapter one of the zacuto shootout, the 7D has about 5 stops under and 5 stops over of latitude. The grade could be effecting your shadow compression too.
 
You don't have that much dynamic range in you image to start with. You subject may be lit by soft natural light but it lacks a lot. Seems like normal 7d footage to me in that situation.

There's not much of a shadow, midtone, highlight. Also your grading might be a major cause of what you're talking about.

The 7d needs light.. light light.

Also you don't have much color. By the way shadows are noisy in DSLR. So the more you can shoot with a lower ISO the better.

Lastly the lens you're using also lends to the look that you are getting. If you threw something ... say a Canon 35mm L 1.4 on you'd see a difference in the rendering of the image.
 
I have a 7D and I cannot comment on your lens, but my 50mm F1.8 wasn't as sharp as I like, so I stopped using it. I agree with a lot of the comments, you need more light. And I say this having used the 7D in MANY a project where we did found light. But, I still think the shots look like what I would expect out of the 7D when I looked at the 1:1 on my 30" LCD screen. The 7D is not very sharp, and it really gets less sharp the wider the shot (so the more detail).

I'd try shooting it a little more exposed and see what your grade does. That will probably help with the banding issues (which I believe I saw around the nose).

One thing to remember is that shooting flat on an 8-bit camera is not a great choice. You can do it, but you risk posterization (banding) on heavy grades. You really want to do as little as possible in post. We tend to get the exposure where we want them, then just do more of tinting in post and not stretching of ANY of the DR.
 
I shot two different exposures in my backyard to check this out with my 7D. First I exposed for the highlights, then for the shadows.

The first two are the exposed for highlights image, and that same image boosted in post to raise the shadow area. There is noise, and poor detail retention in the patio area when compared to the third image with the patio area properly exposed.


Backyard_DR_test_000.jpgBackyard_DR_test_001.jpgBackyard_DR_test_002.jpg

We get a lot of bang for our buck with these canons, but it's important to know where they are weak so it can be worked around.
 
Even shooting in film you would use the same principals of photography.

In film if you were to shoot that shot for a feature film, possibly they would light up the shadows a bit with a large bounce or HMI's to bring the contrast down depending on the look they wanted.

Don't be afraid to let things fall in to black. (shadow) Realize that in a shot like that somethings are not going to be seen if such a range of light is in the image such as the inside of the window.

Personally I always expose 1 or 2 stops under my subject.
 
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