shooting a little soft - how to sharpen up?

F

filmguy123

Veteran
OK I know this is vague, but:

I really like my scene setting, but even when in focus everything appears a little soft to me. I'd like to up the sharpness. Which setting would be best to up a little bit increase sharpness in general, but also especially on facial shots? I don't want to overdo it or get unpleasant results, but I could go for a little more sharpness in the images.

Thanks!
 
Depends how much you're turning down the detail in the camera , but I've been using 30% sharpening in FCP 7 sharpen tool on a whole load of different interviews shot over the past year and it's looking about right for me. I can't remember which detail/coring cam setting I was using, as I no longer have the camera - but it was along the same lines that most others are using and followed Panasonic's recommendations (I think Abel Cine have a blog post with the details.)

A tiny bit of Magic Bullet Cosmo added on top of the sharpen filter can help flatter skin texture (it has a function to isolate just skin tones), while leaving everything else sharpened.

Ben
 
Last edited:
I'm usually OK and sometimes grateful for some softness. When our stuff is soft in a hurtful way it's usually focus ;) Cine-D feels softer to me than say HDNorm or B.Press. I would say that B.Press is the most sharp. Detail coring makes the picture appear less sharp so you may want to check your settings there, and the detail setting under -4 will appear less sharp.

I have used Sharpness in post to bring back some edge detail but usually it's to mitigate soft focus.
 
cine-D *is* softer than HDNorm or B.Press. When you choose cine-D or cine-V, you not only get a new gamma curve, but the camera also dials down the edge enhancement ("detail") to about half of what it is in the other gammas.
 
I just made the switch last week from cineD to black press and saw a marked improvement in perceived sharpness. And because its such a clean gamma, I felt safe in raising the detail level up a hair more to strengthen the effect. To compensate for the contrast increase, I also bumped up the master ped a bit. Much happier now.

I always sort of ignored black press until I read joe748's thread over in the AF100 footage forum. I then re-evaluated my faith in the cine gammas, and gave BP another look.
 
Same here! Joe748 has started a trend. I just did my first shoot this week with B.Press. I had auditioned it and dismissed it because I thought I could always "pull the blacks down," but it does deliver a really crisp image. Further testing will include working with the knee adjustment which is active in B.Press. I also mentioned in his thread that it seems to do a killer job with gradient backgrounds to mitigate blocking, but I need to see a few more examples to be sure.

I don't think I'll be abandoning Cine-D for everything. It does provide a much more film like image, but if I'm going for crisp high saturation, higher contrast type stuff, B.Press is it. Just watch your contrast ratios as those shadows are more "baked in."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top