Please help, would benefit all users - moire and resolution.

[Snapper123]

Hey, as much as anyone, I've wanted to get the best footage possible from my camera, and after spending around $2,000 for my DSLR and gear, I've wanted to convince myself that the footage I see in various players is not the real representation and that the player "must be adding the blur and moire." The problem is that while my videos look much better and hyper-realistic if I down-res them to less than half of their original size (say, 1080P ---> 480P), the 1080P files themselves look too unprofessional to use in respectful projects geared outside of Youtube. As much as anyone, I want to find a solution, and as most professional users agree, moire and blur happen no matter how close or far away you shoot, no matter what production rules you apply.

Here's a professional comparison I made, you can find comparisons like this on major DSLR blogs:

Now, are there are secrets that would get my footage to look closer to the photograph or crop mode selections? (Picture Style, aperture, shutter, and ISO are all the same here, no tricks.) I think everyone can agree no matter what camera they use or how often they use that camera for their own productions, that the image on the top right is not useable for a professional, realistic production that will have a full 1080P showing. What am I doing wrong beyond not going out and buying a GH2? Surely this is not the footage quality they used to film Tiny Furniture, Rubber, ect ect. Heck, is something possibly wrong with my camera?

P.S. Some things to notice on the Photograph vs. 1080p Crop images:
-Clarity of Game Logo
-Clarity of Power Switch
-Clarity of Hi-Fi Stereo Logo
-Clarity of Controller Dock
-Clarity of the Wires
-Sharpness of the Console Edges
-Moire on the side of the Console, Cartilage, and on the grey Ejection button.
-Overall slight 'pink/washed' tinge when no settings were changed.

Again, NO settings or focus changes were made between these two shots, no blurring filters were used, and this was filmed/shot with optimal aperture settings and one of the sharpest lenses of Canon's stock *as visible with the Photograph.*

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

You can't get a still image quality in your dslr video, because with the still image the DSLR is using all of the sensor information, and when recording video it is throwing information out.

That is the way The DSLRs turn a 12mp image into a 1080p one.

They pixel bin, and throw out information.

Fine details either alias or moire or both.

That being said, there are plugins that MAY help with the moire SOMEWHAT, like the Marvels DLSR moire reducer.

Just realize that is one of the limitations of shooting video on a dslr.

 

[Snapper123]

Well, with this example, I shot this object from only three feet away. A limitation is something you can work around, but a failed technology is one that you cannot use under any circumstance for a certain purpose, and I believe the purpose of cinema filmmaking for a full 1080P showing is one thing that a Canon DSLR cannot do realistically. I used to even believe that shooting "close up" is a way to get around moire and bad detail, but many tests I've been doing lately prove that not even shooting "close up" helps. As of currently, there are no major producers or directors, much less distributors and film companies, that would accept an image like the one on the top right, and that's my problem; I got talked into buying a DSLR because a billion users here told me that the image on the right would not happen as long as I employed certain rules ex. the "close up" rule. But that doesn't seem to work.

For example, many people don't know this, but the "720P" resolution of Youtube is merely 480P. People actually seem to believe that DSLR's must look like the quality on Youtube at the full resolution, but it doesn't, those "720P/1080P" videos on Youtube are exactly 1/4th of the original video size: down-res'ing seems to have a direct positive effect on the illusion of sharpness and quality - many folks don't even seem to view their full 1080P files from the DSLR. But since my purpose is for the big screen (full 1080P), and not Youtube, the problem becomes severe - I shoot to sell my films to major producers and companies. But again, there's not one mainstream company in the biz that would accept an image like the one on the top right; it's just not at all a realistic image, and it's not the moire that's the main problem, it's the complete lack of detail (it looks as though someone blurred it by 50%).

I mean really, I know some great films have been shot on entirely or partially DSLR, but personally, not one of them have been distributed in mainstream cinemas as of yet, and most people report that DSLR films look "very soft" in theaters. Softness is one thing, but the footage I'm getting looks like a 1993 VHS tape!

I just wish my local rental store would hurry up and get a batch of F3's....I'd love to test them.

 

[Kholi]

Well, with this example, I shot this object from only three feet away. A limitation is something you can work around, but a failed technology is one that you cannot use under any circumstance for a certain purpose, and I believe the purpose of cinema filmmaking for a full 1080P showing is one thing that a Canon DSLR cannot do realistically. I used to even believe that shooting "close up" is a way to get around moire and bad detail, but many tests I've been doing lately prove that not even shooting "close up" helps. As of currently, there are no major producers or directors, much less distributors and film companies, that would accept an image like the one on the top right, and that's my problem; I got talked into buying a DSLR because a billion users here told me that the image on the right would not happen as long as I employed certain rules ex. the "close up" rule. But that doesn't seem to work.

Google: Tiny Furniture

It was good enough for a large screen, right? It was picked up by iFCFilms if I remember properly. So, that's not an accurate assumption, although an assumption most of us would make.

It's good enough for an audience and a sale, because it's definitely good enough to be the primary image of a Sundance purchase totaling four million.

I think it's more so a question of if it's good enough for you to move on to the next stage. Which, for a lot of us again, it probably isn't.

But since my purpose is for the big screen (full 1080P), and not Youtube, the problem becomes severe - I shoot to sell my films to major producers and companies. But again, there's not one mainstream company in the biz that would accept an image like the one on the top right; it's just not at all a realistic image, and it's not the moire that's the main problem, it's the complete lack of detail (it looks as though someone blurred it by 50%).

Well, I don't know your background, but without knowing I'd say "there's not one company that has the money to purchase your movie that would buy your movie if it's not even made."

I do agree, the 7D and T2i are probably the worse for detail, but on a large screen it's probably not gonna matter. I've seen 7D and GH-1 (non hacked) footage on a large enough screen to judge and the resolution may be lacking, it isn't enough to detract from something that has your attentions from the get-go.

I mean really, I know some great films have been shot on entirely or partially DSLR, but personally, not one of them have been distributed in mainstream cinemas as of yet, and most people report that DSLR films look "very soft" in theaters.

Come this year, several all DSLR feature films will be exhibited on a large screen. Trust in that.

It does look "soft", but it's not that terrible honestly. Again, it's not enough to suck you out of a comedy, drama, or especially horror/thriller. Chances are if you're shooting on a DSLR and the 2,000 you spent to get it is a tough sale, you can't afford to shoot much more than comedy, drama, or especially a horror/thriller.

I just wish my local rental store would hurry up and get a batch of F3's....I'd love to test them.

Resolution isn't gonna sell your project. It's so easy to say, I know, but it just isn't. You have to get beyond the resolution thing and just do work, otherwise when you finally realize that your material is more important than a couple hundred lines of resolved detail it'll be too late.

The only reason I'm shooting RED MX on my feature is because I have the ability to. If all I had access too was a GH-13 or 5D or 7D, then I'd do with what I had and just get it done.

I guess if you feel the F3 would free your mind from the internal debate, that's the choice you have to make. On the same side of that coin, I'd be worried about shooting certain types of material on DSLRs so I'd want the piece of mind, too.

Just get on with it. If you have the content then the resolution won't matter.

If you want to invest in anything... invest in a great SOUND team. Of all the components that'll murder your chances, that is the prime one.

 

[Snapper123]

Well, with Tiny Furniture, I downloaded a press pack of screencaps and the quality looks like what I get from my photographs, and I haven't seen a drop of moire where there should be tons of it, and the clarity of the caps are absolutely stunning ~ I can bet this is the #1 reason IRC picked it up; looking at Furniture's screencaps, you'd think it was shot on film as it's so sharp and free of moire or rainbow coloration. Alternatively, Rubber's press package shows screencaps that look realistically more in the direction of the quality loss I get, yet also without moire and with less severe quality loss at that. I just want to know how they did it, because I'm not getting footage that is standard with the few DSLR films that are getting distributed. It could be anything, who knows, maybe my USB cord has a wire loose, or maybe those extra 8 pixels that are attached to these MOV. files are somehow messing up the footage in typical players more than it naturally is, I just know that tons of people aren't getting the footage that they expect from these cameras. Even in a low resolution world, we have a few films that define the standard. Rubber or Tiny Furniture wouldn't be caught dead with a shot that looked as ugly as the crop above, and wether it's moire, rainbow colors, severe blockage in reds, or just severe blurriness, I never see it in the screenshots of these cinema DSLR films.

 

[jambredz]

Snapper...just end your woes and be done. Sell the t2i (or watever flavor of canon you have) and just get an f3 or RED. Simple. Problem solved. You stated NUMEROUS times how u've felt. Why torture yourself. Canon dslr's are NOT for you. move on and shoot goodstuff and stop letting this stress you out.

 

[Kholi]

Well, with Tiny Furniture, I downloaded a press pack of screencaps and the quality looks like what I get from my photographs, and I haven't seen a drop of moire where there should be tons of it, and the clarity of the caps are absolutely stunning ~ I can bet this is the #1 reason IRC picked it up; looking at Furniture's screencaps, you'd think it was shot on film as it's so sharp and free of moire or rainbow coloration. Alternatively, Rubber's press package shows screencaps that look realistically more in the direction of the quality loss I get, yet also without moire and with less severe quality loss at that. I just want to know how they did it, because I'm not getting footage that is standard with the few DSLR films that are getting distributed. It could be anything, who knows, maybe my USB cord has a wire loose, or maybe those extra 8 pixels that are attached to these MOV. files are somehow messing up the footage in typical players more than it naturally is, I just know that tons of people aren't getting the footage that they expect from these cameras. Even in a low resolution world, we have a few films that define the standard. Rubber or Tiny Furniture wouldn't be caught dead with a shot that looked as ugly as the crop above, and wether it's moire, rainbow colors, severe blockage in reds, or just severe blurriness, I never see it in the screenshots of these cinema DSLR films.

They're shooting with the same cameras that you are. It's the same image.

There's no trick to it other than they just do it and work around what they know.

 

[Barry_Green]

DSLRs can look horrible, and they can look gorgeous. There's no magic to it, it's just (as Kholi said) knowing what they can do, and avoiding what they can't do. Same with Philip Bloom's stuff -- he knows what to avoid, so he avoids it. You'll never see a deep-focus wide-angle shot in a Bloom video shot on a Canon. If he has to shoot wide, he'll open the iris up all the way to fuzz the background, or he'll lock the tripod so nothing moves. He knows how to avoid the problems. If he's shooting one of his montages and sees a subject who looks great but happens to be wearing a corduroy jacket... he shoots someone else. Someone wearing a solid. And if he gets to the editing station and any shots are ruined, he tosses them out, and you only ever see "the good stuff."

These cameras are what they are. Use them for what they're good at, and you can make footage that looks like it came from something much more expensive. But they can't do everything, there are many things they're just not good at, period. Know the tool and use the right one for the job.

 

[Barry_Green]

Snapper...just end your woes and be done. Sell the t2i (or watever flavor of canon you have) and just get an f3 or RED. Simple. Problem solved. You stated NUMEROUS times how u've felt. Why torture yourself. Canon dslr's are NOT for you. move on and shoot goodstuff and stop letting this stress you out.

Agreed. If something doesn't do what you want -- don't use it. Get something else.

 

[Barry_Green]

The problem is ... the 1080P files themselves look too unprofessional to use in respectful projects geared outside of Youtube.

Yep. You are correct. It is not true 1080p. It's somewhere between SD and 720p. This is a known fact and has been discussed on these forums for years.

As much as anyone, I want to find a solution, and as most professional users agree, moire and blur happen no matter how close or far away you shoot, no matter what production rules you apply.

There is no solution that you will find, as long as you stay with a Canon (or Nikon or Pentax) DSLR. Even the 1D Mark IV has the same issues. It is the nature of the beast. Every device has compromises. You will not get Red One performance out of a $799 T2i, no matter who tells you otherwise.

Now, are there are secrets that would get my footage to look closer to the photograph or crop mode selections?

The camera cannot do what you're asking. It can take a still at full resolution, but its video will never be anywhere near that crisp. It is not made for taking video. It is not optimized for that job.

What am I doing wrong beyond not going out and buying a GH2? Surely this is not the footage quality they used to film Tiny Furniture, Rubber, ect ect. Heck, is something possibly wrong with my camera?

That is the quality they used to film Tiny Furniture and Rubber and other things, yes. You're not doing anything wrong. You're seeing exactly what these cameras do. And while the GH2 will be crisper and clearer than the Canons, it's still a stills camera and will have its own share of issues.

Put another way -- you're wanting Red One or F3 quality out of a sub-$1000 digital stills camera. It doesn't exist. There are reasons that the Red One costs $25,000 and the F3 costs $13,300 and the T2i costs $800.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Your photo shows exactly the level of difference that I would expect, when comparing the stills mode to the video mode. The thing you have to do, is decide whether you want to continue with these types of products or not. This is the level of quality that Gale Tattersall used when he shot the season ending episode of House. This is the level of quality that Tiny Furniture used. This is the level of quality that Philip Bloom shot on "Red Tails" for Lucas. This is what a DSLR does. If this is not acceptable to you, then you shouldn't be shooting on a DSLR.

Really, though, this is nothing new. I showed a year or two ago how much better a little Panasonic HMC40 looked, as compared to a 7D. The DSLR is no good for sharpness and high resolving power, period. It's good for shallow-DOF film-style images where you employ that shallow DOF to separate out the subject. In deep-focus shots, it stinks. It is nowhere near comparable to a Canon HV40 even. But the HV40 or HMC40 could never do the lush shallow DOF footage that a DSLR can do, and so that's why they're popular.

Nobody's patronizing you, and you're not doing anything wrong. You've just looked behind the curtain and found that the Great and Powerful Oz is, in fact, just a doddering old man pulling some switches. But, with that said -- when you keep it to what it does well, the results can be quite impressive.

 

[pulpfiction007]

Yep. You are correct. It is not true 1080p. It's somewhere between SD and 720p. This is a known fact and has been discussed on these forums for years.


There is no solution that you will find, as long as you stay with a Canon (or Nikon or Pentax) DSLR. Even the 1D Mark IV has the same issues. It is the nature of the beast. Every device has compromises. You will not get Red One performance out of a $799 T2i, no matter who tells you otherwise.


The camera cannot do what you're asking. It can take a still at full resolution, but its video will never be anywhere near that crisp. It is not made for taking video. It is not optimized for that job.


That is the quality they used to film Tiny Furniture and Rubber and other things, yes. You're not doing anything wrong. You're seeing exactly what these cameras do. And while the GH2 will be crisper and clearer than the Canons, it's still a stills camera and will have its own share of issues.

Put another way -- you're wanting Red One or F3 quality out of a sub-$1000 digital stills camera. It doesn't exist. There are reasons that the Red One costs $25,000 and the F3 costs $13,300 and the T2i costs $800.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Your photo shows exactly the level of difference that I would expect, when comparing the stills mode to the video mode. The thing you have to do, is decide whether you want to continue with these types of products or not. This is the level of quality that Gale Tattersall used when he shot the season ending episode of House. This is the level of quality that Tiny Furniture used. This is the level of quality that Philip Bloom shot on "Red Tails" for Lucas. This is what a DSLR does. If this is not acceptable to you, then you shouldn't be shooting on a DSLR.

Really, though, this is nothing new. I showed a year or two ago how much better a little Panasonic HMC40 looked, as compared to a 7D. The DSLR is no good for sharpness and high resolving power, period. It's good for shallow-DOF film-style images where you employ that shallow DOF to separate out the subject. In deep-focus shots, it stinks. It is nowhere near comparable to a Canon HV40 even. But the HV40 or HMC40 could never do the lush shallow DOF footage that a DSLR can do, and so that's why they're popular.

Nobody's patronizing you, and you're not doing anything wrong. You've just looked behind the curtain and found that the Great and Powerful Oz is, in fact, just a doddering old man pulling some switches. But, with that said -- when you keep it to what it does well, the results can be quite impressive.

Totally agree - use the DLSR for the beauty/shallow shots and add a high end consumer camcorder for all else - you'll be so much happier with it on deep wide high detail shots. Any one of them, Sony, Panasonic, Canon....they all look like a Red compared to a DLSR in those situations...exaggeration yes, but you get the point.

 

[bwwd]

hey if terrible looking blair witch project was shown in cinemas then everything can be shown,dont make excuses and just shoot.
LOL it has even Bluray release ,wow
http://www.movie-vault.com/reviews/the-blair-witch-project-bluray/

Visually the Blu-ray is stunning with it’s level of detail when the three amateur student filmmakers are in the woods. You can see every twig, rock and leaf as well as every blade of grass.

:grin:

 

[Snapper123]

The reality is I have a budget, I can't afford to even rent a Red or F3 for a $1,000 a day, I'm shooting DSLR because I have absolutely nothing else I can use short of a camcorder and a lens adapter, in which I'm shooting DSLR alternatively for a billion reasons. It's just that, well, just download the press stills package from here - http://tinyfurniture.com/#press

How in the world do they get that type of footage in the shot where the girl's laying down near the tiny furniture, you can even zoom in and see the individual pixels on the mom's glasses, or on the tiny furniture's legs and shapes, or on anything, and it looks like something you'd generally get on the Red. I just personally don't see a "trick" in any of those caps, they just look like 1080P shots from a camera free of moire, more as though they were taken by the photography side of the camera. I'm not lazy, I test my camera and try to find solutions almost every single day, but when I play back the files, I never get anything close to what these guys are getting. Even if there's no moire, as that's not my biggest complaint, the quality loss of my files is just unbearable - nothing like those screen caps.

It's one reason why I ask about those extra 8 pixels that are added on to the DSLR files, is there a chance that these extra 8 pixels are causing my players (or the actual files themselves) to be "squished", even by a small extent? A change of proportion by even 8 pixels, either by rough squishing or rough uprezing, could probably cause a file to look bad. I mean again, I have to use DSLR, I generally have no choice in that, it's just that I've never gotten one beautiful quality video from my camera - it's not a "oh some shots are good, some are bad" thing, every single video I've ever taken is either full or moire or so blurred that I can't read letters or even comprehend what the objects are. It's not even a cinema screen concern, my files are so bad that I have to down-res them to 640P just to get them to look realistic, and that's lower than DVD quality!

But yet the screencaps of Tiny Furniture look utterly outstanding and crystal clear at the full resolution??? I just don't understand what the trick is, and I know it's not any sort of framing trick because that woman's glasses are more diagonal, and farther away from the lens perceptionally, than anything I've dared put into my tests! Yet when you zoom into the pixels, it's like a perfect 4:4:4 color scheme and something!

 

[jambredz]

try out the gh2 since f3 and RED is not in your budget and you need to stay with dslr's. Canon is not for you. its that simple. Either accept it for what it is or dont. the reality wont change.

this will sound cliche but i s**t you not...do you know how much stuff you could get done during this time that you are stressing over that camera. You could be shooting and learning how to use the camera despite its faults and getting amazing footage. OR you could have chucked it a long time ago (which we've mentioned) and got something else and be shooting and learning that camera DESPITE its faults ...because it WILL have faults.

 

[Kholi]

The reality is I have a budget, I can't afford to even rent a Red or F3 for a $1,000 a day, I'm shooting DSLR because I have absolutely nothing else I can use short of a camcorder and a lens adapter, in which I'm shooting DSLR alternatively for a billion reasons. It's just that, well, just download the press stills package from here - http://tinyfurniture.com/#press

How in the world do they get that type of footage in the shot where the girl's laying down near the tiny furniture, you can even zoom in and see the individual pixels on the mom's glasses, or on the tiny furniture's legs and shapes, or on anything, and it looks like something you'd generally get on the Red.

I just looked at the stills... they look like they were actually taken with the stills side of the camera, man. I say this because of the grain/noise structure in most of the images and the aberration that's showing up around edges, etc. You're probably beating yourself up over something that's exactly what you're describing: stills.

I just personally don't see a "trick" in any of those caps, they just look like 1080P shots from a camera free of moire, more as though they were taken by the photography side of the camera. I'm not lazy, I test my camera and try to find solutions almost every single day, but when I play back the files, I never get anything close to what these guys are getting. Even if there's no moire, as that's not my biggest complaint, the quality loss of my files is just unbearable - nothing like those screen caps.

Did you watch the actual movie? I'm pretty sure you'll find all of the bad stuff that you're afraid of in it. I could see a bit of it in the trailer, and those were probably most of the money shots.

It's one reason why I ask about those extra 8 pixels that are added on to the DSLR files, is there a chance that these extra 8 pixels are causing my players (or the actual files themselves) to be "squished", even by a small extent? A change of proportion by even 8 pixels, either by rough squishing or rough uprezing, could probably cause a file to look bad. I mean again, I have to use DSLR, I generally have no choice in that, it's just that I've never gotten one beautiful quality video from my camera - it's not a "oh some shots are good, some are bad" thing, every single video I've ever taken is either full or moire or so blurred that I can't read letters or even comprehend what the objects are. It's not even a cinema screen concern, my files are so bad that I have to down-res them to 640P just to get them to look realistic, and that's lower than DVD quality!

Back in the D90 days, someone discovered a way to shift some pixels around and get a better looking image out of the camera. That's not the case with the 7D but if you think the extra 8 pixels is an issue you could easily go into an NLE and adjust it by those 8 pixels to see if it does anything.

It probably won't. And, you're right, the 7D, 60D, T2i or whatever all look like uprezzed SD footage, to my eyes. That's why I wouldn't get one. I'd get a 5D or a GH-2 at this point, because the 5D offers more flexibility and an interesting image and the GH-2 is pretty obviously better quality than the rest of the DSLRs to my eyes, as far as resolving detail goes.

If you're concerned about resolved detail, you're messing with the wrong DSLR. That's the bottom line. Get a GH-2.

But yet the screencaps of Tiny Furniture look utterly outstanding and crystal clear at the full resolution??? I just don't understand what the trick is, and I know it's not any sort of framing trick because that woman's glasses are more diagonal, and farther away from the lens perceptionally, than anything I've dared put into my tests! Yet when you zoom into the pixels, it's like a perfect 4:4:4 color scheme and something!

Like I said, they're probably actual stills from the camera. It doesn't take much to snap a photo in the middle of shooting a take... just press a button and it continues to roll. They could've done it during blockin rehearsals, etc.

I mean, one of the actual stills is horizontal, and the dimensions all look off.

 

[Snapper123]

Basically, I just hate the distance to quality loss ratio these cameras have. I mean really, I've done this before, shoot your subject macro style - say, a shot only big enough to fit a flower in - and everything will look crystal clear, there's virtually a complete lossless quality when you use a macro style so atomic that the atoms in the air are larger than the pixels that are binning. But as you start to back up and shoot your scenes at professional filmmaking distances - say, shots that involve an actor's chest all the way up to their brow or so - that distance will get you a scene that has a quality of roughly 720P at best, with quite a bit detail loss and such and forth. Then from there and father back perceptionally, details just seem to give way completely and unreasonably, with the videos absolutely requiring some alternate form of sharpening or down-rez'ing to even have the illusion of appearing realistic - this defeats the camera where the purpose of detail is needed most. Once you get to perceptions that capture an actor's entire body or the detail of a room (such as the "furniture/bookshelf" scene of Tiny Furniture, with the Mom in the chair and the girl on the ground), that type of scene will be so diminished that, by the quality of the clarity, it will only be a 540P video. Would any of you seriously shoot a major film with a 540P resolution? Because that's the exact resolution your Canon camera is outputting when it comes to body shots. The crop mode's resolution is higher than that. What about say, a shot that has say a small house as the subject, ground to roof? You will get 360P at best, I've tested it completely.

That's why I'm such a big advocate of telling people what these camera's can and cannot do, is because really, I seem to be the only person around here who bothers to test things before jumping into projects, and wether anyone likes it or not, you can't project a 360P video onto a major cinema screen (40ft+) even if that 360P video was shot with a Red. You might be able to get away with it on a good 6ft screen or so, as 360P - 480P is perfect for business meeting projections and Youtube videos (Youtube's maximum resolution output is 480P-ish no matter if you click 1080P or 720P.) and that's why, again, virtually everything from a DSLR looks perfect on Youtube. But if you want to have a professional film, you can't have a film on a 40ft screen that switches between looking like human eye quality for the close-up shots and looking as though you have cataracts during the wide shots - this cataract effect is documented perfectly on the thread with the trees where I had a fit. That image was exactly a 360P quality image, as though 360 was uprez'd to 1080P.

So yeah, beyond this rant, I do feel entirely that I want to move to a hacked GH (or depending on the footage, possibly a Nikon D7000), or even possibly a Panasonic TMZ camcorder, as the project I'm using a DSLR for actually calls for deep focus shots more often than not anyway. With that option, I'd just be worried about facial perception and distortion, rather than depth of field. I don't want ugly actors! Just one more thing to study like crap =/.

 

[David Jimerson]

OK, as this is going nowhere, this thread is closed.