I notice halos--a tell-tale sign of unsharp masking--on my videos. I want to see what the capture would look like without it.

Have you tried turning the sharpness setting on the camera all the way down?

I did not see such a setting! Where on the menu is it?

I have an MX500. In camera mode, exposure set to manual -
menu->camera functions->advanced functions->picture adjust.
I have it set all the way down.
If you set exposure to auto it might ignore this setting but there is a workaround for that if you're interested.

Hey... how about that; I never saw that feature! So does it do any good? What setting do you use? I simply do not want any unnecessary filtering.

I have it all the way down all the time (I also have the colour set a fair way down) - I think it looks heaps better. The camera is effectively applying a filter to sharpen it, so all you are doing is removing that filter.

Do a few tests with different levels and play them back on a tv and see what you like.

Emre,

Here is a page I put together for the Picture Adjustments on the GS400, very similar to the DV953: http://www.matterofchance.com/gs400/

I think lately I have been using Color @ -3, Sharpness @ -3, Exposure @ 0, and Contrast @ -5.

Josh

I was trying to remember where I'd seen that info to refer to it, but I couldn't find the page, thanks.

An interesting thing about the sharpening, and you can see this in the images, is that it makes everything look like it's in focus. Now, these cameras already have incredibly deep depth of field, which is not very "film like." And the sharpening only makes this worse, making out-of-focus objects really sharp.

If you take a look at it, with sharpening down, I must admit, the picture looks pretty soft. That may be because I didn't have the focus on the guitars perfect. Having sharpening turned down will make it all the more important to get really accurate focus.

Hi Joshua,

I completely agree with you on this point.

Regards
Leigh

An interesting thing about the sharpening, and you can see this in the images, is that it makes everything look like it's in focus. Now, these cameras already have incredibly deep depth of field, which is not very "film like." And the sharpening only makes this worse, making out-of-focus objects really sharp.

If you take a look at it, with sharpening down, I must admit, the picture looks pretty soft. That may be because I didn't have the focus on the guitars perfect. Having sharpening turned down will make it all the more important to get really accurate focus.