Gear Talk > EOS Bodies - For Video

Canon 60D Video Images look SOFT!

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jasonmillard81:
Later this evening or tomorrow I will post footage showing that my video footage looks soft on my Canon 60D.  Even compared to the same model the video looks soft relative to video clips on Vimeo & YouTube of other users.

I use:

Tokina 17-55 (2.8)
Canon 50 (1.8)
Sigma 85 (1.4)

Regardless of the lens i use my images seem "soft" and not "sharp/clear"  I could try correcting it in post production but doubt that would be the issue.

thoughts/experiences/comments?

Best,

Jason!  ;D

paul13walnut5:
You need to tell us what happens to the footage between the cam and vimeo?
Do you edit etc? If so using what platform and software..

General points:

In camera processing:
For video the camera colour profile should be sRGB not AdobeRGB

Check your picture profile settings - standard or a flat style is better if you are going to be doing any post work such as grading

Post-production:
Does your edit suite handle straight movs from camera or do you have to encode?  In FCP7 I need to transcode first, via MPEGDstreamclip to one of the Apple Pro Res codecs (for me this is APR HQ, 1920x1080, 25p)

You need to make sure that your editing app is handling the footage as progressive, that the sequences / timelines are also progressive, and that any output or encoding for disc or web is also kept as progressive.

Camera Skills:
Out of focus is not the same thing as unsharp or soft.  Different causes, different solutions.

Keep your cam stable via a tripod, monopod or rig.  Keep the shutter at the 180 rule (so 1/50th for 25fps video, 1/60th for 30fps)

Precheck focus with 10x live view.  Wider lenses have greater depth of field and so easier to keep in focus, longer lenses have shallower depth of field and so more critical to have accurate focus.

Looking forward to seeing footage, see if we can work out whats going on.

Axilrod:
Everything Paulie said is very true, but I'd be willing to bet you're shooting at fairly wide open apertures with that 85mm and 50mm huh?  At f/1.4 if you move forwards or backwards even a few inches it will throw everything out of focus, it's critical that you have some type of stability gear.  Shoot a video on a tripod and make absolutely sure the focus is on, then pull that into your NLE and see what it looks like.  Is the video still soft?

marekjoz:
Yes, what was said before: what settings did you use? What apperture? How focused? What ISO (high ISO makes even still images look flat), etc.

c3hammer:
Make sure you're in one of the 1080p modes and not 720p.  720 is horribly soft on the Canon's and completely unusable IMHO.

Make sure you haven't got a screwed up picture style.  I have changed the settings of the standard style by accident a number of times.  They should be 3, 0, 0, 0 as the default.  Same for Nuetral and Portrait which I like better than standard for editing later.

That 85 f/1.4 is a pretty sharp lens at f/2.8 and should give great results.  Make sure you're getting perfect focus via the 10x zoom before you start recording.  Also just in case.....the Canon's with the exception of the new T4i aren't autofocus when recording, so you have to pull focus perfectly.  It's virtually impossible at f/1.4.

Cheers,
Pete

http://www.youtube.com/user/c3hammer
http://vimeo.com/petecarney

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