I just wondered is anybody had done any serious testing. I ordered a mild diffusion, and a slightly stronger diffusion but clear in the center (Hoya DUTO) today to test out as one tool to fight aliasing on the 5D. Anybody experimented with difffusion as a fix for some situations? Not gonna solve every case I know, and there are other options like shallow DOF with the offending objects out of focus, as well as just taking the whole frame slightly out of focus. I was shooting my girlfriend in the kitchen last night doing some testing and the horizontal line from the bottom of the white kiitchen cabinet was just brutal.
Diffusion filters for aliasing
- Thread starter Gonzo_Entertainment
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Pretty sure I do. I'll confirm tonight. I followed the Shane Hurlbutt tutorial for the settings when I first got the camera, but it may have gotten turned back on. I shot both neutral and with one of the crooked flat profiles. I may need to get in there and really tweak a profile to get the sharpness down to a level that reduces the issue. I am pretty sure I am going to want to shoot with at least mild diffusion most of the time anyway. The image is tending to be a bit to "sharp" for my taste. I did some test shots on a loaction scout the other day and had no moire issues with the brick walls, but man that hard white horizontal line last night just ate it up.
Some good alternatives in the comments for that article. seems to REALLY soften the image though. I wonder if the OLD glass, some of which is a bit soft, has less of a problem in this area?
My issue last night was with the Super Tak 50mm 1.4 Not the dustiest of my old lenses to be sure, but you would expect it to be a little soft. I ordered some cheap Hoya filters ($20 each) to just test them out. I may look at those Zeiss Softars though.
Went to a neutral profile -2 on the contrast, -1 on the saturation, and put a mild Hoya diffusion filter on there I didn't realize I had, and it pretty much took care of it. I also went back through ALL my settings, and not sure auto exposure compensation was turned off when I did original footage. As knightly suggested that may have been the major issue. I may wind up at -4 on contrast, but trying -2 for now.
That's not a bad thing with the 5DMII, unless you're shooting the mating habits of bees for HD Theater. A RED One 4K camera has a 12 megapixel sensor, a 5D has a 21 MP sensor with choking compression - and it's still too sharp with aliasing issues that can render footage unusable. A little softer is good. High quality filters can make a difference in the final product also.
good ground work CamVader.. now Im more glad I have a GH2 (but a big sensor would be dreamy)
I learned a lot at that Philip Bloom workshop. DSLR's, especially the Canon's, suffer from TMI - too much information (data) for video. They can do a great job if you understand their limitations and shoot accordingly. For stills, they are incredible.
The industry standard digital movie cameras actually take less information and process it flawlessly, or just about.
Yeah, everybody obsesses on "sharp". Virtually every old lens I am going to be shooting on has internal dust ranging from mild, to quite a bit, plus it looks like I may use diffusion filters in a lot of situations. It's not about sharp to me, it's about lack of noise (which was the problem with the HVX200, too much noise in the dark areas), and a "pleasing" image.
As far as stills (where I do use decent grade Canon lenses) I did some shots with a 50mm of a model from a good 8 feet away and I could zoom in on the RAW image to the point of an individual hair on her arm without pixelation. That image could be blown up to the size of a barn and be clean as can be.
As far as stills (where I do use decent grade Canon lenses) I did some shots with a 50mm of a model from a good 8 feet away and I could zoom in on the RAW image to the point of an individual hair on her arm without pixelation. That image could be blown up to the size of a barn and be clean as can be.
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That's misleading. The 5d does not employ the full sensor in video mode. It uses line skipping technology and in fact, on a good day, the 5d is short of 720p. So no, I don't agree that it's sharp out of the box, quite the opposite actually in terms of actual resolution. There have been a ton of tests all over the web supporting this. The Canons have their virtues, but great resolution is nt one of them.
I hear you. I wasn't trying to get too techie on everybody. You're right, every 3rd line gets skipped. That was part of the TMI I was touching on. I've read all the Barry Green articles and the tests do not lie. The thing that can't be ignored though, is all the tutorials I've read and watched have the user turn down the sharpness as much as possible if you're going for a film look on a consumer sized television.
Peace.
The full SENSOR is being employed. You are getting the low light properties and the DOF of the 21 mp "vista vision" sensor. The OUTPUT from that sensor is then compressed using line skipping, binning, etc... to get the footage you wind up with.
Resolution of the output is way overrated. If it really was outputing real 1080P or better I'd most likely really be stacking the diffusion filters on there and doing other things in post to soften that image anyway.
The main drawbacks of the 5D aren't the resolution they are moire and aliasing (from the compression/line skipping) and ther inability to resolve bright areas that you can see in the Zacuto shootout. Where film can (for example) be pointed at a lightbulb and you can clearly see the filament glowing while still having some detail in the dark areas. The 5D sensor shows even more detail in the darkl areas, but always blows out the lightbulb to a white blob.
I agree, the moire and aliasing is the big issue for me, I had a 7d and it was plagued by the same issue. It's hard to spot too until you dump it into your NLE. And the other maddening thing about the 7d is the overheating. I had to get rid of it. Replaced it with GH2 and now I'm happy -- though it too can produce some nasty artifacting, it's way minimal compared to Canon. And no overheating.
I haven't had heat issues yet, but it gets it's first full production run the end of June on a 2 day short film shoot.
I sure HOPE it looks good since I now have over 5K in this rig and still don't have a matte box.
I sure HOPE it looks good since I now have over 5K in this rig and still don't have a matte box.
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