Gif vs slow motion 4K60 video from the 1DX2.

[Jack Douglas]

Perhaps a dumb question since I am new to video.

I have acquired about 2 seconds of the beautiful Resplendent Quetzal flying to the nest in 4K60 while in Costa Rica. The frames are impressive but high ISO and slightly soft focus such that to be marginally acceptable as a movie clip they really need some noise reduction, sharpening and contrast boost.

Since we are talking a very small clip here, I thought perhaps extracting the jpgs and working on them as photos and then making a GIF would be an option.

So my question is basically what's the best way to maximize the quality of a short video clip shot in MJPEG. My goal is to create a video Costa Rica wildlife consisting of photos and video and burn that to DVD for friends/relatives.

Jack

 

[stevelee]

GIF files are limited to 256 colors AFAIK. So they are not a good option for preserving subtleties of color.

If all the frames need approximately the same corrections, you can just open the video in Photoshop and process it more or less as you would a still image and then output the video into whatever playable format you like.

You can export the still images of all the frames and then batch process the corrections. Then you'd have a wide choice of software to reassemble it into a movie.

It is possible that it will look sharper and less noisy if you output to 1080p or 720p, depending upon your needs. If you burn it to DVD, rather than Blu-Ray, then it will be more or less SD with non-square pixels. You might do better posting the file on the web for sharing. YouTube will introduce compression, so you might just want to let folks access your final video file directly from a web page.

 

[Jack Douglas]

GIF files are limited to 256 colors AFAIK. So they are not a good option for preserving subtleties of color.

If all the frames need approximately the same corrections, you can just open the video in Photoshop and process it more or less as you would a still image and then output the video into whatever playable format you like.

You can export the still images of all the frames and then batch process the corrections. Then you'd have a wide choice of software to reassemble it into a movie.

It is possible that it will look sharper and less noisy if you output to 1080p or 720p, depending upon your needs. If you burn it to DVD, rather than Blu-Ray, then it will be more or less SD with non-square pixels. You might do better posting the file on the web for sharing. YouTube will introduce compression, so you might just want to let folks access your final video file directly from a web page.

Thanks a lot for this. I suspected that the GIF was not ideal but I'm not knowledgeable on any of this so thought I should ask. So basically the GIF is quick and easy and serves the purpose of illustration but certainly doesn't do the best job.

So, to be clear is video editing strictly not going to allow frame by frame adjustments. In general that would seem obvious but in my case there might even be fewer than 1 second of 4K60 where the bird was captured fully - maybe 1/2 second. Here is one of the 4K30 clips of the male and one of the female - very frustratingly disappointing, since I could have done better but wasn't fully aware of the whole situation and couldn't go back again.

Jack

 

[stevelee]

Sure you can edit each frame if you like. But you need to take video into account. IOW, it would be easy to get funny effects if you do noticeably different things to each frame. Think about that if it is not obvious. Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, et. al. will let you use key frames and animate zooming in, fading in or out, spinning rotation, and dozens of other things. If you had strobe lighting going on, then you’d want to change exposure on the suddenly bright frames. Conversely, you can make much brighter a frame now and then. My assumption was that in a really short video, you would almost surely want to process the whole clip identically.

 

[stevelee]

A half a second at 60p would mean you have 30 frames. I would make my video a series of still frames of, say, one second each. You wind up with 30 seconds of super-slow motion.

But that’s up to you. Think about your finished product and then think backward on how to get there. I doubt you want a half-second or one second video. Or if you do, loop it.

 

[Jack Douglas]

A half a second at 60p would mean you have 30 frames. I would make my video a series of still frames of, say, one second each. You wind up with 30 seconds of super-slow motion.

But that’s up to you. Think about your finished product and then think backward on how to get there. I doubt you want a half-second or one second video. Or if you do, loop it.

Thanks again. I am beginning to understand what's at stake and yes, you are right, basically all frames will suffer more or less from the same shortcomings, except at one point when the bird landed I did alter the camera setting to try for more DOF, thus darkening the following frames. My biggest problem is my present lack of video knowledge so that means I've got to start really putting in serious effort. Life is busy on an acreage with large garden etc. Upside is never being bored!

Jack

 

[stevelee]

I have the feeling that it would have saved us both time if I had just edited the video for you instead of our writing these messages. But I don't know yet what you really want as a finished product (and perhaps you still don't exactly), and then there's the bit about teaching a man to fish, except I haven't really taught you, just made a few suggestions.

 

[Jack Douglas]

That's generous. It's similar to saying to a person, what would you like in your garden, when they've never had a garden before. So, yes I have to sort quite a bit out but at least I've gleaned a little information. I'll have more questions in due course. Thanks.

Jack