Tokina 11-16 - blurry video! comparison videos, please have a look!

M

mrchirster

Well-known member
Hey guys,

I was on a shoot for a client and they wanted an ultra wide shot of their building.
I must say that the result looks horrible and the client was not happy!

I used the Tokina 11-16mm.
Picture Style Neutral, ISO 100, Aperture 11. Shot at 1080p25 with shutter 50, focused to infinity:
Here is the full resolution grab out of the footage:
http://91.121.5.111/upload_uv/MVI_9862.mov.zip

Is this how its supposed to look? What could I have done different? I mean it's clear that this footage is a good example of the aliasing problem of the camera but I wonder why the picture appears so blurry!
I suspected that somehow maybe the Alpha of Magic Lantern could have had something to do with it.
I just made another little video out of the window without ML.
Picture Style is standard this time with contrast turned down all the way:

http://91.121.5.111/upload_uv/MVI_9928.MOV.zip

I suspected my lens has a blur issue, but then I took a picture in movie mode and it looked alright to my eye:
http://91.121.5.111/upload_uv/IMG_9929.JPG

What do you guys think?
 
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mrchirster,

I think your lens is ok. what setting is sharpness at? I sometimes add a sharpness of 1 instead of zero. sometimes it helps.
 
It does look like it's soft. I'd hit this one from another angle. Simply take a still and pan it in software. If you do an HDR still at dawn or dusk with some lights coming on you could really make it pop and move for them.

As a side note that lens never looks good when panning or tilting straight lines from an angle like that IMHO. The way the lines change angle (skew) as you pan is probably causing a bit rate overload and dumping info causing the blur. If you have the new version of ML, you could try a much higher bit rate and see if it doesn't sharpen it up a bunch. Another option is to beg, borrow or rent a GH1 or GH2 for this shot. They do a much better job with sharpenss and the aliasing issue here.

Cheers,
Pete
 
The main problem I see here is the footage looks over exposed. I would adjust my settings accordingly and ALWAYS shoot at the rite time of day, preferable sun rise, sun set or the sun behind you illuminating the buildings. Your sky looks washed out and just looks really bad. This is user error.
 
This is Canon aliasing and moire, which all of their DSLRs suffer from when shooting video. Hopefully this will be fixed with the next generation of Canon DSLR cameras.

In the meantime, you can fix this by either borrowing/renting a Panasonic GH-1 / GH-2 camera ( Panasonic has almost no aliasing/moire ) or by shooting your wide shots with a traditional ENG video camera. Even a good consumer camera would be an excellent choice: Panasonic TM900, Panasonic TM700, Canon G10, etc...
 
vision_filmz said:
The main problem I see here is the footage looks over exposed. I would adjust my settings accordingly and ALWAYS shoot at the rite time of day, preferable sun rise, sun set or the sun behind you illuminating the buildings. Your sky looks washed out and just looks really bad. This is user error.
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mate, with all due respect, you don't always have the option shooting at your preferred daylight! in this scenario its best to shoot at 7 pm, I know that. The film had to be finished by that time already..
the overexposure has not much to do with the blur.... but I agree I could have stopped down even more!

Anyways thanks for all your feedback :)
teddybear said:
mrchirster,

I think your lens is ok. what setting is sharpness at? I sometimes add a sharpness of 1 instead of zero. sometimes it helps.
Click to expand...
c3hammer said:
If you have the new version of ML, you could try a much higher bit rate and see if it doesn't sharpen it up a bunch.
Click to expand...

the sharpness was set to normal, only contrast was turned down by 3!
The aliasing wouldnt have been this strong with sharpness turned down I guess. I didnt see the issue on the small screen though...I could have tried out a higher bitrate, I use alpha 12 and bitrate change works well! It could be that the image has too much information, I didnt think about that! Good point!

One more thing: I wouldn't have gotten the extreme wide angle with a traditional camera, the tokina is amazing at producing unconventional looks!
The main problem of the footage for the client was that the name Scholz & Friends is blurry. they didnt complain about the moire/aliasing since the film was rendered out at a small web-resolution...
So I wonder if I have a bad copy of the lens or if everyone would have had similar results with this setting and camera/lens!
 
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mrchirster said:
they didnt complain about the moire/aliasing since the film was rendered out at a small web-resolution...
So I wonder if I have a bad copy of the lens or if everyone would have had similar results with this setting and camera/lens!
Click to expand...

It's the aliasing that is making the shot look blurry. If you want to confirm that the lens is OK, then take still photo at full resolution and see if things are still blurry. My guess is that a still photo will look tac-sharp if the camera is steady, but aliasing is killing the sharpness of this lens with your video shoot.
 
TheDingo said:
It's the aliasing that is making the shot look blurry. If you want to confirm that the lens is OK, then take still photo at full resolution and see if things are still blurry. My guess is that a still photo will look tac-sharp if the camera is steady, but aliasing is killing the sharpness of this lens with your video shoot.
Click to expand...

How does aliasing make a shot look more blurry? This is exactly opposite of what aliasing does, it adds more detail that is false. It gives you pixelated edges. I shoot with the Tokina 11-16 all the time and I have found that the problem is typically the amount of detail in the shot. The compression in Canon cameras with wide deep always lacks detail because it is pushing the codec. (Not to mention the just lack of resolution in general)
 
Rick's answer sounds the best. Didn't get to look at the footage, but you zoomed in via live view to adjust the focus manually correct? I think the tokina is one of those lenses that infinity isn't really at the end, but just before to let the lens expand in the heat. Like the way zeiss works. You can't just set them at infinity.
 
Well as TheDingo said, taking a full resolution photo through the lens answers the question. If that is sharp, then the lens is NOT the problem, period. The lens works the same in video mode and still mode, absolutely no difference. I've shot LOTS of wide deep shots at 11mm, and I zoom in to set focus, and when it records, I know that the resolution is lost. I've just lived with it (well, until I got an AF100 and an FS100:) )
 
guys you are right about the still photo! as you can see in my post i shot a movie and attached a jpg. the jpg is sharp, the movie is blurry... i guess the answer is a codec issue combined with aliasing and CA that makes the video look that bad! next time i'll pump up the qscale and see if it improves level of detail!
 
Rick Burnett said:
How does aliasing make a shot look more blurry? This is exactly opposite of what aliasing does, it adds more detail that is false. It gives you pixelated edges.
Click to expand...

Aliasing will try to add detail that the sensor/CODEC cannot resolve and what you end up with is a very mushy / blurry looking image.
 
If it had to be delivered the same day then the client cannot complain. You must learn the best time to shoot your projects.

If I have to be up at 5:am then I will do it, also learn your equipment and tools. If you would have zoomed in and made sure you specifically set your focus on the business name then you would not have these problems.

This footage to me looks over exposed and out of focus.
 
TheDingo said:
Aliasing will try to add detail that the sensor/CODEC cannot resolve and what you end up with is a very mushy / blurry looking image.
Click to expand...

That is not true, sorry. First, aliasing causes false detail. Blurry/mushy is the lack of detail. Go into photoshop and create a line with anti-aliasing turned off and look at the line (diagonal of course). It will be VERY sharp and VERY jagged. Now, turn on anti-aliasing on that line and look at it again. The edges of the line will be blurry because anti-aliasing creates shades on the adjacent pixels to remove the jagged detail.

With cameras that suffer from aliasing, everywhere you see aliasing, you see very tiny jagged edges. They are NOT blurry, they are not mushy. They are EXTREMELY sharp in those area. So much so, that close together lines start to form moire patterns which are also VERY sharp.

Blurry/mushy is a codec problem (if not the lens). When you have too much detail in a scene, even if it is resolving properly, there just isn't enough bandwidth to handle the detail OR in many cases, movement which generates new detail for intermediate frames.

Want proof? Take a look at a GH1 and an GH13. Look at deep wide shots, or shots with lots of movement in the GH1. LOTS of detail loss, lots of mushy blurry areas in movements. Now, take a look at the quality of shots done with some of the GH13 high bit rate hacks. All those problems are SERIOUSLY reduced. To the point the GH13 definitely outresolves on wide/deep shots than my 7D. The different between them is the bit rate limits. The sensor is identical. The image coming from the sensor is identical.

Now, something that you do to a system to reduce aliasing is actually MAKE the image slightly more blurry by using an OLPF. This basically blurs the image coming into the sensor to a point where it can be sampled properly. This removes false detail. If the DSLR had an OLPF that was strong enough to remove aliasing the image would be SUPER soft. Mainly because of how much area is skipped and not used. This is why no one has modified a DSLR with a stronger OLPF because the problem is the space between the pixels that isn't used.
 
Rick Burnett said:
First, aliasing causes false detail. Blurry/mushy is the lack of detail.
Click to expand...

Yes Rick, thinking about it again, I have to say that you're right.

I've seen that "blended" look from video that was shot at low data-rates, where the CODEC was throwing away so much data that the image details were no longer there.

I guess I don't think of Canon DSLRs as being bandwidth starved ( 40+ Mbit ) when it comes to recording video, but having a CODEC that does not use B-frames, I guess they are in certain situations. ( like high detail wide shots )
 
Hehe, if you knew how much times I spent researching this stuff, it would make you crazy. I was helping a group of people try to figure out if we replaced the OLPF on the 7D with a stronger one, would the image improve. I spent A LOT of time not only doing the math, but contacting companies that make OLPFs. In the end, any sensor that skips space on the sensor for any reason just cannot be made better.

People also think that reducing sharpening reduces aliasing, but the truth is, the aliasing is still there, it's just not sharpened by the sharpening algorithm. What I can say is it reduces the appearance, but that also reduces the appearance of ALL detail in the scene! :) I even tried the Caprock filters but they don't work on most situations.
 
vision_filmz said:
If it had to be delivered the same day then the client cannot complain. You must learn the best time to shoot your projects.

If I have to be up at 5:am then I will do it, also learn your equipment and tools. If you would have zoomed in and made sure you specifically set your focus on the business name then you would not have these problems.

This footage to me looks over exposed and out of focus.
Click to expand...

well the whole project is about the name, we shot a lot of scenes during one day of shooting. and the stuff i had shown here was shot a few days later where we didnt have the full day but only one hour!

in fact the client is really surprised at the overall quality and loves the look! and i didnt deliver just one clip of course... i shot stills of this framing who look perfectly fine! this is the only scene i'm not happy with!

thank you guys for making it clear to me what the problem is! vision filmz, please don't complain about unrelated stuff! i feel like you are bashing my work....
 
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So Rick, bumping down sharpness during filming and then sharpening in post won't have any benefits over just keeping sharpness enabled within the camera?
 
Canon isn't too low bitrate for its codec, what are you mumbling about? The loss of resolution is becasue there is no resolution... 1080p is 720p at best (comparing with GH13/GH2). The video recording skips every third line.
 
Martin Oller said:
Canon isn't too low bitrate for its codec, what are you mumbling about? The loss of resolution is becasue there is no resolution... 1080p is 720p at best (comparing with GH13/GH2). The video recording skips every third line.
Click to expand...

It is too low for it's bitrate on certain wide deep focus shots. There are plenty of threads I have participated on here with the Canon, GH1 and GH13 where these things have been explored to death. Just zooming in on the wide shots and looking at the detail, you can see the macro blocking from the H.264 codec. The GH1 used to be really bad till the GH13 hack which REALLY helped out and surpassed the Canon implementation without question. Deep and wide is just not great on the Canon cameras, but we just lived with it.

And the camera *reads* every 3rd line, it skips two lines.

Whether you sharpen in camera or after camera, both of these are post sensor so what you need to evaluate is what is happening with the sharpening. If the sharpening for instance is reducing the gradients on soft edges, well, then there are less colors to encode in that area. It really depends on how the internal compressor works. For me, for instance, on my AF100 I use some sharpening to actually allow some of the grain type noise that is extremely subtle into the image. The purpose is, if the colors are too clean, the AF100 tends to show a bit more banding in my experience. With the slight noise, at the 1:1 pixel level it dithers out the color differences and the compressor handles this better in my opinion.

For the 7D I left the sharpening at default and was okay with it.

For the AF100 I use -5 (because at -7 banding started to become an issue).
 
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