Is there any post process that can help emulate the mechanical shutter or motion/ blur of film? I know that it is possible to write scripts within Sony Vegas, has anyone written one that helps with film motion?
Sony cameras and the "video look".
- Thread starter Simon Shasha
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Is there any post process that can help emulate the mechanical shutter or motion/ blur of film? I know that it is possible to write scripts within Sony Vegas, has anyone written one that helps with film motion?
I'm waiting on a render so I thought I'd jump in.
In my humble opinion, the answer to your question 'is it the camera or the operator' is that it's both.
You can get a filmic quality out of just about any camera--it just takes more work with some than others. Every camera has a set of weaknesses and you have to decide what you're willing to work around and what are deal-breakers. Much of this has to do with your idea of a "filmic quality". I shoot a ton on film, so I'm hyper critical. Others are are looking for little more than shallow depth of field.
Here's an example: in college I worked at a hardware store and I'd help people load the stuff into their trucks. Some people would load fifty 2x4s into the back of their F250 Super Duty like it was nothing. Then there were the guys with the little Mazda pickups. In order to open the tail gate you'd have to kick the bumper. We'd load fifty 2x4s in the back and spend another 20 minutes tying them down so they didn't fall out. The driver had to drive slowly and be sure to avoid bumps. My point: both drivers got the job done; one just took more work than the other.
In my humble opinion, the answer to your question 'is it the camera or the operator' is that it's both.
You can get a filmic quality out of just about any camera--it just takes more work with some than others. Every camera has a set of weaknesses and you have to decide what you're willing to work around and what are deal-breakers. Much of this has to do with your idea of a "filmic quality". I shoot a ton on film, so I'm hyper critical. Others are are looking for little more than shallow depth of field.
Here's an example: in college I worked at a hardware store and I'd help people load the stuff into their trucks. Some people would load fifty 2x4s into the back of their F250 Super Duty like it was nothing. Then there were the guys with the little Mazda pickups. In order to open the tail gate you'd have to kick the bumper. We'd load fifty 2x4s in the back and spend another 20 minutes tying them down so they didn't fall out. The driver had to drive slowly and be sure to avoid bumps. My point: both drivers got the job done; one just took more work than the other.
Showman Media
Member
Agree 100 percent with Nirv there. Especially the pp comment which always irks me, as if dialing up a different pp was all anyone has to do to get the same footage! I also think that the reason we're even discussing this is because now almost anyone can afford to buy/rent/borrow a great camera be it the fs100 or the competition, even 8 years ago owning a camera as good in its day as this meant you would almost certainly know your stuff, you were going to know how to compose and light and what a tripod was for because you had to sell both your kidneys to buy it! You weren't going to complain constantly about its failures because you made your living from it and as long as it did the job, who gave a hoot! I owned was a PD150, I shot with it for BBC, and that was a great starter camera in its day! Now look at what we've got, it's mind-blowing how the video landscape's changed and the opportunities it has created.
In the end whatever camera you buy it will have problems but they won't make even a tiny bit of difference as to whether the footage looks good or not if you can't compose and light a shot.
In the end whatever camera you buy it will have problems but they won't make even a tiny bit of difference as to whether the footage looks good or not if you can't compose and light a shot.
stancemedia
Carbonite Member
Seen footage that makes it look exactly like the FS100 minus the extra
detail obviously. However color wise it's exactly the same in footage I've seen.
The FS100 has a red issue and the FS700 does as well, at least in footage I've
seen recently. In certain situations the FS100 gives great skin tones without
a red issue. It appears to give a more accurate skin tone reproduction at times
and it seems to come down to the white balance.
SergeSmArt
Well-known member
Actually the problem comes out of the way of how "digital shutter" work - it's cut image between the frames as a knife - too fast.. compare how mechanical shutter ( "obturator" ) works:
So.. in digital we got not so smooth trasaction between the frames... Tessive company produce "Tessive Time Filter" to solve the problem.. but it's work only with cameras which have Genlock Synchronization ( ARRI ALEXA and RED EPIC )
http://www.tessive.com/home/time-filter
Personally I just shoot in 30 FPS .. and I like the result
Also.. I prefer DARK exposure style... ....instead of that way -
I prefer this one:
..and even darker .. -->
...and for better looks we have to use very FAST lenses -
SergeSmArt
Well-known member
Yeah.. Sony RED seems crazy.. but I find the way around... and seems like I'm able to get any kind of COLORING Style from FS-100 ..
.. Just be careful of VIOLET tints in compositionYeah.. Sony RED seems crazy.. but I find the way around... and seems like I'm able to get any kind of COLORING Style from FS-100 ..
Are you able to avoid the red in any situation (run and gun) or just in a controlled situation?
Last night I played with a footage I download from Vimeo and tested it with coloresta.
I actually find it to do a great job with removing the redness from people faces.
stancemedia
Carbonite Member
Can remove it pretty much always regardless. I had a crazy piece that was like lobster red...not even joking.
Got an amazing look out of it actually. I have a reflection issue in this last Wedding. I'll be uploading to another
thread in literally a couple minutes...was a major reflection of the window like when you film a light
and you can see the large reflection of it in the footage. Don't know what can be done about that...
Got an amazing look out of it actually. I have a reflection issue in this last Wedding. I'll be uploading to another
thread in literally a couple minutes...was a major reflection of the window like when you film a light
and you can see the large reflection of it in the footage. Don't know what can be done about that...
Postmaster
Dark Side of the Camera
Thats why my new G-Log got strange looking parameters (at the first glance) - but you get nice skin tones and everything else falls in place.
Ruben/Sheri
Well-known member
I don't know what footage you have seen but the colors off the 700 are way better and more accurate than anything I have seen on FS100 in the past year hence the attraction to it the new gammas
Ruben/Sheri
Well-known member
Still every fs100 footage I see has a green matrix neo hue color cast to the entire videos even Philip bloom ones, it makes makes ppl's skin tones look sickly at times. I find this not the case with the700 from everything I have seen and also allot of magenta.in the 100 once color corrected
Actually the problem comes out of the way of how "digital shutter" work - it's cut image between the frames as a knife - too fast.. compare how mechanical shutter ( "obturator" ) works:
So.. in digital we got not so smooth trasaction between the frames... Tessive company produce "Tessive Time Filter" to solve the problem.. but it's work only with cameras which have Genlock Synchronization ( ARRI ALEXA and RED EPIC )
http://www.tessive.com/home/time-filter
Personally I just shoot in 30 FPS .. and I like the result
instead of that way -
I prefer this one:
..and even darker .. -->
...and for better looks we have to use very FAST lenses -
Great post, thank you for taking the time.
moldcad
Veteran
I've been following this thread with interest - even though the subject has been discussed countless times before, a couple of important things has been raised here. I think a very important point is the shutter characteristics of any digital camera (not just the FS100) - it can be as slow as film (24 fps), but it's not as smooth as the film camera "obturator".
I'd add to it all a couple of points (again - not specific to the FS100, but video in general):
- theater movies (films) are never as sharp as the video we all tend to produce
- theater projectors are never as bright, contrasty and "punchy" as the flat screens we watch video on
- colors in theater movies are never as saturated as in video we tend to produce
But of course, still the single most important difference is the contents. No matter how advanced a camera, if you are more involved in pixel-peeping than the story - it's not a film...
I'd add to it all a couple of points (again - not specific to the FS100, but video in general):
- theater movies (films) are never as sharp as the video we all tend to produce
- theater projectors are never as bright, contrasty and "punchy" as the flat screens we watch video on
- colors in theater movies are never as saturated as in video we tend to produce
But of course, still the single most important difference is the contents. No matter how advanced a camera, if you are more involved in pixel-peeping than the story - it's not a film...
paulcurtis
Veteran
I think the colour issues are a non issue really, the 700 might have better highlight handling which i perhaps giving way to better skin tones around the highlight but broadly speaking you can push both the 100 and 700 around in camera and then push again afterwards if needs be. They're both 8 bit output which is the limiting factor IMHO.
What is of interest is the motion rendering because it crops up every now and again.
I've yet to really understand the issues people are seeing. I remember Frank hitting upon some motion cadence that he liked by switching to 1050i, but i don't know whether he got a chance to investigate whether that really made a difference, Frank?
Digital footage can be too sharp and contrasty at times during a pan, this can create more apparent strobing artefacts.
But the motion issue is something i would love to understand more about and see examples of what's putting people off
cheers
paul
What is of interest is the motion rendering because it crops up every now and again.
I've yet to really understand the issues people are seeing. I remember Frank hitting upon some motion cadence that he liked by switching to 1050i, but i don't know whether he got a chance to investigate whether that really made a difference, Frank?
Digital footage can be too sharp and contrasty at times during a pan, this can create more apparent strobing artefacts.
But the motion issue is something i would love to understand more about and see examples of what's putting people off
cheers
paul
cpc
Well-known member
Contrast and sharpness don't have much to do with motion. You can always remove them in post if you want.
The sinusoid image above is a bit deceiving as it shows area-of-the-frame exposure plotted against time. Image capturing is in effect summation on both film and digital sensors. The total exposure time of a small area (i.e. close to pixel sized) is the same with a rotary shutter and electronic shutter. So locally you don't get more strobing or less strobing with one compared to the other (assuming same exposure; say, 180 degree shutter and 1/48s electronic shutter for 24fps), nor more blur or less blur. Yes, the camera does capture information longer than a digital sensor, but it is either one corner or the opposite corner.
That's why any difference can (if at all) be perceived in motion only if an object happens to move fast in the direction of the shutter sweep (minimal strobing), or in the opposite direction (excessive strobing). Same with panning. So this is not really a plus in terms of strobing. Rather, it is a bit different, and can result in both smoother and more jerky movements. I haven't heard anyone shooting film getting obsessive about this though. Because, really, there is only so much that one can bother about stuff like this. But in this sense, electronic shutters (especially global) are more predictable.
Ironically, the rolling shutter actually mimics the rotary shutter to a degree, because lines are read and reset in a sequence. But instead of creating the effect of sweeping exposure in a diagonal pattern, it is vertical.
And then, even film cameras are not equal. Not all rotary shutters are disc shutters. Panaflex cameras have "butterfly" shutters. A single revolution exposes two frames. And because the shutter revolves twice as slow compared to a disc shutter, partial corner exposure is even longer.
Anyway, in my opinion, this is not really an issue. It is much less apparent than framerate and shutter speed selection for example, or DR differences, or film grain texture, or anamorphic lens artefacts, or any other film look element that comes to mind.
The sinusoid image above is a bit deceiving as it shows area-of-the-frame exposure plotted against time. Image capturing is in effect summation on both film and digital sensors. The total exposure time of a small area (i.e. close to pixel sized) is the same with a rotary shutter and electronic shutter. So locally you don't get more strobing or less strobing with one compared to the other (assuming same exposure; say, 180 degree shutter and 1/48s electronic shutter for 24fps), nor more blur or less blur. Yes, the camera does capture information longer than a digital sensor, but it is either one corner or the opposite corner.
That's why any difference can (if at all) be perceived in motion only if an object happens to move fast in the direction of the shutter sweep (minimal strobing), or in the opposite direction (excessive strobing). Same with panning. So this is not really a plus in terms of strobing. Rather, it is a bit different, and can result in both smoother and more jerky movements. I haven't heard anyone shooting film getting obsessive about this though. Because, really, there is only so much that one can bother about stuff like this. But in this sense, electronic shutters (especially global) are more predictable.
Ironically, the rolling shutter actually mimics the rotary shutter to a degree, because lines are read and reset in a sequence. But instead of creating the effect of sweeping exposure in a diagonal pattern, it is vertical.
And then, even film cameras are not equal. Not all rotary shutters are disc shutters. Panaflex cameras have "butterfly" shutters. A single revolution exposes two frames. And because the shutter revolves twice as slow compared to a disc shutter, partial corner exposure is even longer.
Anyway, in my opinion, this is not really an issue. It is much less apparent than framerate and shutter speed selection for example, or DR differences, or film grain texture, or anamorphic lens artefacts, or any other film look element that comes to mind.
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Nirv
Carbonite Member
But to get to the bottom of the differences between an electronic shutter and a mechanical shutter without a scientific approach is just going to keep going round and round and round until the everybody just tires of one person's unfounded preference to another person's unfounded preference. It might not even be the right place to look.
Given the shear glut of high quality HD large sensor cameras available today it is possible to hire or buy the camera that does fit one's motion preference. Maybe that's a simple pragmatic answer to people who don't like the FS100's motion? But the issue has just as much to do with what we're viewing the video on as the camera recording it adding an almost limitless number of variables into the mix. Good luck to anyone trying to find what the secret sauce is.
The motion question keeps coming up in different eras because as technology changes new and interesting ways of playing back the video exists. I can remember the discussions when Panasonic used a different pulldown order for 24p in its DVX camera. People could sense a difference because 24p will pulldown looked a certain way to them.
There's not a human alive than can tell the difference between 25p and 24p but everyone can tell the difference when it's broadcast because of the "feel" cause by pulldown.
It may well be a monitoring thing that is causing people to register footage differently? I'm sure we'll never get to the bottom of it online as there's just too many variables that could skew the results from relative image sharpness, to motion blur phase and to sync of frames in a particular NLE. The list of variables that could subtly or dramatically affect motion representation is enormous.
Here I'm viewing 25p on monitors working at 60 Hz how different would the same footage look at different frequencies? We know it'll look and feel different whether it's projected or scrambled by a consumer TV's motion flow.
How does a FS100 compared to an Alexa when the footage is projected on film in a cinema? The million dollar question would have to be, how boring would the content have to be for the audience to notice?
paulcurtis
Veteran
I'm agreeing with cpc and Nirv here but i mention it because there's been a couple of cases where people have chosen to not use the FS (kholl for example) specifically because of the motion rendering. Yet nothing to back that up. With my conspiracy theory hat on perhaps kholl is a canon shill, but realistically i assume not - just that he has a very strong ideal especially with motion. I just would like to understand in specific cases and examples what is so offensive about it because technically i can't see that much that is innately wrong with the way it is being capture. As nirv points out - what's the playback on.
I remember a conversation from, i think, cml, many moons ago about something like this and that was actually scientifically put down to the way the compression and the panning interacted to create strong contrasting strobe areas. Of course a bit of contrast adjust in post can fix that.
Different people have different sensitivities. I can't look at most DLP systems because i can pick out the rainbow effect, unless it's spinning really fast or has lots of colours.
Best point in thread.
cheers
paul
I remember a conversation from, i think, cml, many moons ago about something like this and that was actually scientifically put down to the way the compression and the panning interacted to create strong contrasting strobe areas. Of course a bit of contrast adjust in post can fix that.
Different people have different sensitivities. I can't look at most DLP systems because i can pick out the rainbow effect, unless it's spinning really fast or has lots of colours.
Best point in thread.
cheers
paul
Nirv
Carbonite Member
This point reminds me of a situation that happened when I bought my first HDTV. I had been really unimpressed by HDTVs for years and had stayed with my trusty Sony 4x3 29". I skipped the whole widescreen CRT era and kept looking for the moment that large screen plasma or LCD TVs actually produced a good image. A friend of mine was the polar opposite upgrading TVs like they were going out of fashion (which they were!). He always purchased Panasonic TVs and he got a Plasma and invited me over. The colour reproduction was awful so I spent some time "calibrating" it by eye but what was really off-putting was the rainbow artefacting. My friend claimed not to see it.
Cutting a tedious story shorter. I finally found the Pioneer Kuro which to my eyes was about the best CRT replacement in the living room. It had no rainbow effect either and the colours were superb even better after calibration. I invited my friend over to check it out. His only comment was how bad the rainbow effect was!
There is some small chance that I may have been susceptible to his TV's rainbow effect frequency and he mine but generally people see what they want to see. Yes, I include myself too, we're all prone to bias.
My friend was a serious Hi-Fi buff too. He said could hear the difference his ridiculously expensive oxygen free gold plated interconnection cables made to his Hi-Fi. I couldn't.