Need some help getting a good base image

F

fixxxer76

Member
Hi,

I consider myself an amateur videographer with pretty good knowledge of a wide array of topics in the field. Here is my issue. I have a t2i, I have magic lanterns (june 7th update) I have my iso set to 160 native ISO am using 1/48 second shutter speed, and have picture style on technicolor cinestyle with sharpness at 0, contrast -4 and saturation -2. I have a 50mm 1.8 EF and a 17-55 IS 2.8 lens. I have a class 4 card and have my Qscale set to -14. My camera records fine and I use focus assist to aid in focusing. Heres my problem. I see people get great results from this camera and the lenses I have (example http://vimeo.com/13994916 - especially at 1:00) I understand composition, lighting, etc goes into making great looking pieces, But whats that quote? garbage in = garbage out. When I record , ALL my footage is soft and never is as sharp as others I have seen on vimeo/youtube. Also I see compression artifacts when recording close up shots even though my qscale is set for a high bitrate and I use a low ISO. Does anyone know, or can point me to a tutorial on how to get a good starting image from the t2i so i can grade it and play with it to make it look the way i want? Could there be a minor issue with my canon sensor, if thats even possible ? or do I just suck. I've tried stopping down but I still get a softer focus and artifacting. Please look at the example link I posted and give me some pointers. I appreciate any help.

PS - I used to have an HV20 with a dslr adaptor and was able to get good results from that so i know a little of what I am doing, just can't get the tackness down on the dslr.
 
First thing that stands out to me is your SD card. You need the fastest class 10 card you can get if you are trying to use Qscale -14. I'm pretty sure you're way way way overloading the data rate that class 4 card can capture and the reason your image is blowing up.

Cheers,
Pete
 
c3hammer said:
First thing that stands out to me is your SD card. You need the fastest class 10 card you can get if you are trying to use Qscale -14. I'm pretty sure you're way way way overloading the data rate that class 4 card can capture and the reason your image is blowing up.

Cheers,
Pete
Click to expand...

+1

Also that footage you posted as an example has been color corrected and graded.....
 
Thanks guys, I wasn't sure if the speed of the card would affect the compression and artifacting. I've read mixed reviews on it. But I assumed my class 4 was to slow regardless. Also , I am aware the footage I posted has been graded , however, I watched a tutorial from that users website and his beginning images before grading are even much higher quality then mine and he claims to use the same lens and camera I do. That is my concern. I have seen many tutorial on effects and grading , and all the end results look great, but they all start with sharpish, noise free, low artifacting images. I don't know , maybe it could have something to do with the lighting also??
 
A big thing with digital is that in most case scenarios, it'll look awful until you resize it down to 720p - the noise pixels seem to be just too large at 1080p to look natural at any ISO. It's incredibly shocking how severe it is when compared to a camera like the F3 - the F3 at 3200 is a bit like 100 on the Canon's.

However, for many purposes (mostly well exposed ones), the DSLR can virtually look noise free up to 800. May not be that easy when it comes to grading, but I've been pleasantly surprised with low noise with my camera as long as things are exposed well.

Also, about softness, again, these cameras only seem to have a real resution of around 720p, so resizing the product down to that should both help with percieved sharpness and noise - I've seen great things from the noise reducer plugins as well.
 
I use sony vegas pro 10, would you recommend a specific program to down-convert the footage, or can I just import the 1080p file into a 720p project to achieve what you are talking about?
 
Also, just for the sake of experimenting, try shooting in Canon's neutral or faithful picture styles instead of technicolor's.

Technicolor has the best color grading options, but I've actually heard of folks complaining that the image comes out a bit softer when using it. I personally find it needs a bit of of sharpening filter in post. Maybe that's what you are noticing?

I disagree with the folks above suggesting its the card- yes, a class4 card is very limited and I'm surprised to see you using it with any kind of success at that speed. However, the speed of the card shouldn't result in poorer looking footage. It should cause a buffer error that halts recording early (making you press record again afterwards).
 
I had the same problem when I started shooting with my t2i: I felt my footage was incredibly soft, and way behind what others were posting on the net

as it turned out, it was not all the result of me being a newbie, but instead largely caused by some errors in my workflow:

* first and foremost: I usually forgot to add sharpness back in post; if you take it out in camera, you have to add it back in post; it works; big time (now what I do is that I don't take it out in camera: I shoot with sharpness two notches above the minimum; I feel that adding it in post exacerbates image artifacts)

* minor issue for you: I was using an ND fader; it's not a big deal at 35mm, but at 135mm it kills your images

* recoding affects image quality, even with the best intermediate codecs, and specially if the recoder you're using is not as good as it should be; if you can edit the raw H.264 files on CS5, that's the way to go

* also: find a good way to export your final clip; I had to walk a long journey until I found a way to avoid the .mov gamma shift (which, in any case, has nothing to do with sharpness) (what I do now is that I export a 40Mbps H.264 file, then recompress it to 13Mbps H.264 with handbrake, which is what I need in order to squeeze 5min into the 500Mb vimeo limit)




edit:
I love magic lantern, but I've never played with the Qscale parameter; I don't think it's necessary
if you don't play with it, footage comes out at around 48Mbps including audio and all, which means class 6
check the real world writing speed of your particular class 4 card; in most cases a class 4 card will be able to record those 48Mbps without problems, but maybe yours won't
 
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I don't really like playing around with Q-scale, in my opinion the higher bitrate doesn't really help you unless you're shooting a really complex scene (wide FOV, aperture stopped way down and lots of movement in the frame). For most uses of the camera I think the normal bitrate is fine.
 
OK maybe some silly stuff here but since you're actually not posting any example it's hard to know your level.

1. maybe you're using filters. Like fader ND's. Almost every brand is crap. Throw them out.

2. many people upload to vimeo in 1080p, but the playback is in a small window. Ie you're watching a video with "false" resolution looking extremely sharp.

3. add in a bit sharpness in post (NOT in-camera). i usually do it with Canon footage, cus it's so soft (or actually, low resolution).

4. cinestyle brings in more noise, especially on other cameras than it was designed for (ie 5dmk2). So, maybe you wanna scrap cinestyle, unless you're actually in to grading. Cus that's the whole point with it (if you're just settling with the preset LUT, you're doing it wrong).

Finally: i dislake all these discussions about bitrate, cus they do not apply for 95% of the people here. That's special type of situations you BENEFIT from modifying the bitrate. This is h264, low-resolution video squeezed into a bitrate sufficient enough for most work (and no, you should not be using them for deep wide shots in the first place...)

Also the video you linked to... IMO it looks rather soft throughout (also noticing they used cheap glass). SO, if you like these images, it's not cus they are sharp, it's cus you like the grading, or whatever. Cinematography.
 
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