YouTube compression has destroyed this video. I downloaded it @ full HD 1080p and it was just 82MB for a 5 min file, which normally would be about 1GB in-camera before editing.
The softness (even @ f5.6) was quite noticeable, plus the aliasing is horrendous - look at the black rubber zoom + AF rings on the lenses; they are positively dancing! I think it has a lot to do with YouTube compression and downsizing of the bitrate (to reduce file size).
Finally, I did apply a few effects in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, like Anti-aliasing (had no effect??), some color correction (boosting the backs a couple of percent looks a lot better), plus Sharpening (50%) really improved it. However, the high compression (just look at the pix-elation and block patterns in both the whites and the blacks, as well as along the edge of your hand) makes it look like 240p and not 1080p! Btw I watched this a couple of times on YouTube at 1080P HD on both my HD monitors (one 40" and the other 25") and it just doesn't appear to be proper HD. It is a shame as you obviously went to some effort to capture and edit it. Even your titles and banners look soft that has to be YouTube's fault -> I bet the lettering of your text/titles looked great on your original edit.
How much of these issues are due to the high-ISO used is not possible to determine due to the nature of the destructive YouTube file processing.
Hi thanks for your very useful feedback ... you seem to be a professional at video ... I am not a professional, just a bloke messing around, some of what you said went over my head. I basically use iMovie to do simple edits. A few months ago, I purchased Final Cut Pro but am yet to take advantage of it as I seem to be quite happy with my measly iMovie edits.
Yes the original footage was a little over 3 GB ... I have a smugmug account that lets me upload up to 3GB video files each, if you like I can upload the original file and give you the password for you to download and do your thing.
I totally agree with you about the softness due to f/5.6 ... I realized the moment I saw it on the big screen that I should have gone at least f/8 (especially due to the short distance between the camera and the subject). I am kind of new to full frame (just a few months old) ... on my 7D, f/5.6 use to be pretty sharp for this kind of stuff ... I am realizing the difference of full frame vs crop frame when it comes to depth of field.
