General HD question related to XHA1.

Neil G. Randall · April 7th, 2009, 05:15 AM

Thanks.

Yeah, I realise the A1 ain't no CineAlta (or Red even) and that the shots are unlit, so I don't expect production quality. My thinking was just that it was soft and flat.

Am continuing to test. Think I'll try the EOSLOOK preset on some flowers in sun - usually works when testing an SLR.

Ta,

NR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy Wong

They look fine to me, but I'll leave it up to the experts to comment.

Lines look a little jaggedy, but I think that's down to the compression of the stills. What I do see are chromatic abberations, particular around highlight areas. This does make the images appear "soft" as you describe. But I think this is down the limitations of sensors around the prosumer range. This is where skilled/controlled lighting become an important element in your production.

Battle Vaughan · April 7th, 2009, 02:19 PM

I know zip about Vegas workflow, so excuse me if I'm off base here --- questions about the setup window: You are shooting 1080-interlaced but the setup is progressive, no deinterlacing...I don't know how Vegas handles that but it sounds counter-intuitive...you have 8 bit pixels, which for all I know is the standard, but does it make a difference if it's 16-bit, say? You have a Gaussian motion blur selected, does this affect your rendering? And the "good" rendering sounds like it may be a lesser quality choice than might be available. Again, faik, this is the way Vegas is supposed to work, I'm just fishing for ideas here...
Re the samples I sent,
I would re-send my sd sample same size as the hdv but up-rezing in Photoshop just adds blurry pixels and would be misleading...suffice to say the res from the 1920x1080 looks WAY better than the 720x480 on the screen here....but (except for the dog clip, which looks a lot like SD) you obviously are in HDV mode... the eyeball photo looks very sharp here, thinking what you see looks a little mushy due to possibly a low contrast setting of some sort in the camera or Vegas, or some combination of the workflow setup giving you the same effect...my guess, I may be completely wrong....best wishes! /Battle Vaughan

Steve Sobodos · April 7th, 2009, 04:12 PM

I may be way off base but one thing I have had happen in outdoor taping - don't forget to keep the iris in the middle of the range. The camera doesn't tell you when it would be appropriate to add neutral density, it just closes the IRIS to the point that sharpness starts to suffer.

Just a thought . . .

Garrett Low · April 7th, 2009, 05:12 PM

Neil, set your full rendering quality to best and see if that changes the picture. If all you're doing in Vegas is screen capture via the app that setting will affect the quality. You should try rendering a short clip out and see if that is what you're expecting.

Garrett.

Neil G. Randall · April 10th, 2009, 06:22 AM

Weird - my notifications stopped!

Dunno if the NTSC version is different, but ours starts bleating on the display that it wants ND whenever it's too bright. Or am I confusing it with something else?

However, when you say 'in the middle of the range' are you talking about a theoretical sweet spot around f3.5-4.5? I always try to open up as much as possible to a) allow as much light in (avoiding grain), and b) give as shallow a DoF as the cam will allow. I use the NDs if necessary/if the camera asks.

Is there a range where sharpness/exposure is at the optimum setting? A kind of unity gain?

Thanks.

NR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Sobodos

I may be way off base but one thing I have had happen in outdoor taping - don't forget to keep the iris in the middle of the range. The camera doesn't tell you when it would be appropriate to add neutral density, it just closes the IRIS to the point that sharpness starts to suffer.

Just a thought . . .

Neil G. Randall · April 10th, 2009, 06:30 AM

Do you mean the rendering quality or the quality of the video in the preview window? For these screens, I've set the preview to Best/Full, but the rendering is Good, because I seem to remember reading about it only really being worth it for 10-Bit video - which I didn't think the A1 is. Sorry if I've got it wrong!

The other thing that strikes is whether the pixel format is correct (8-Bit). I set it to 32-Bit, floating point, and the PC ground to a halt. That's evidence enough for me!

I did shoot out a clip but it's too big for the monitor (pointless viewing at half/quarter size). I've nothing to view on HD, as we're not set up with burners/repro where I work.

I've got some new footage which looks a bit better, I think, so I'll get some more grabs up on Tue/Wed.

Thanks again,

NR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garrett Low

Neil, set your full rendering quality to best and see if that changes the picture. If all you're doing in Vegas is screen capture via the app that setting will affect the quality. You should try rendering a short clip out and see if that is what you're expecting.

Garrett.

Martin van der Poel · May 2nd, 2009, 10:43 PM

Hi Neil,
I upgraded from a GS400 to a XH A1s recently.
The picture of the XH A1s is much better than the GS400 especially in lower light conditions.
I notice that you are using the panalook preset, try it without any preset, as the preset might be wrong in some of the less obvious settings (I have done it and the picture looked black and white, instead of what I had in mind).
The picture of the XH A1s looks a bit flat in its standard form, but as it has not been manipulated is a better guide to what the camera can do.
In vegas make sue that the project settings match the clips, if in doubt go to the properties of the project and manually set the setting to match one of the M2T clips on your hard drive.
Regards,
Martin

Bryce Comer · May 3rd, 2009, 02:22 PM

Hi Neil,
At what focal lengths are you shooting? Are you trying to achieve a shallow depth of field in most of your shots? If so, it may well be worth considering the limitations of using a 1/3" camera. If most of the stuff you are shooting is on the wide end of the zoom range, then even though you are using larger apeture settings you will still get a pretty large depth of field. I would try to move the camera further away & zoom in more, framing the shot as you would at the wider end of the zoom but obviously from further away. You can then keep the aperture settings around the 3.5-4.5 where the picture will be at its sharpest, but give you the same or shallower depth of field as if you were at a larger aperture on a wide zoom setting. Use your focus assist aids to help get the focus spot on, on your subject. You can also manipulate your exposure by adjusting the frame rate to get exactly the f-stop you are after. If you are shooting in Manual mode, you shouldn't see the ND filter flashing in the screen when it is needed, as in the manual mode the camera presumes you already know when you want to use it, so won't give you the hint that it's needed.
Looking at your frame grabs, the sky looks pretty overcast & dull. That's great if you want nice even lighting, but you won't get good contrast in your shots. It also looks like the sun was pretty high in the sky, so that wouldn't help either creating very flat images with very little depth. Try to do your shooting earlier in the morning or late in the afternoon when the light is much nicer. There was also not too much in the way of colourful things in any of the shots, so i would expect the shots to look a little bland.
Try also to use manual focus if you can, it will give you way more control over what is & what isn't in focus. If you can't get a shallow depth of field due to lighting or space limitations, using auto focus may well have the camera focused on the background rather than on your subject. This may only be a slight difference in focal length, but may well have the subject in your shot looking soft.
Not sure i see too much in the way of grain in your frame grabs, so i won't comment on that.
Hope this gives you some stuff to play with & hopefully give you something more like what you are trying to achieve.
Regards,
Bryce

April 7th, 2009, 04:12 PM	#18
Steve Sobodos Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Lake Forest, CA Posts: 106	I may be way off base but one thing I have had happen in outdoor taping - don't forget to keep the iris in the middle of the range. The camera doesn't tell you when it would be appropriate to add neutral density, it just closes the IRIS to the point that sharpness starts to suffer. Just a thought . . . __________________ Canon XH A1, Sony HVR-MRC1, Premiere Pro 3.2.0, Matrox RT.X2 LE http://www.scsvideo.com

May 2nd, 2009, 10:43 PM	#22
Martin van der Poel Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 32	XH A1s picture quality Hi Neil, I upgraded from a GS400 to a XH A1s recently. The picture of the XH A1s is much better than the GS400 especially in lower light conditions. I notice that you are using the panalook preset, try it without any preset, as the preset might be wrong in some of the less obvious settings (I have done it and the picture looked black and white, instead of what I had in mind). The picture of the XH A1s looks a bit flat in its standard form, but as it has not been manipulated is a better guide to what the camera can do. In vegas make sue that the project settings match the clips, if in doubt go to the properties of the project and manually set the setting to match one of the M2T clips on your hard drive. Regards, Martin

May 3rd, 2009, 02:22 PM	#23
Bryce Comer Trustee Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Rossland, British Columbia Posts: 1,024	Hi Neil, At what focal lengths are you shooting? Are you trying to achieve a shallow depth of field in most of your shots? If so, it may well be worth considering the limitations of using a 1/3" camera. If most of the stuff you are shooting is on the wide end of the zoom range, then even though you are using larger apeture settings you will still get a pretty large depth of field. I would try to move the camera further away & zoom in more, framing the shot as you would at the wider end of the zoom but obviously from further away. You can then keep the aperture settings around the 3.5-4.5 where the picture will be at its sharpest, but give you the same or shallower depth of field as if you were at a larger aperture on a wide zoom setting. Use your focus assist aids to help get the focus spot on, on your subject. You can also manipulate your exposure by adjusting the frame rate to get exactly the f-stop you are after. If you are shooting in Manual mode, you shouldn't see the ND filter flashing in the screen when it is needed, as in the manual mode the camera presumes you already know when you want to use it, so won't give you the hint that it's needed. Looking at your frame grabs, the sky looks pretty overcast & dull. That's great if you want nice even lighting, but you won't get good contrast in your shots. It also looks like the sun was pretty high in the sky, so that wouldn't help either creating very flat images with very little depth. Try to do your shooting earlier in the morning or late in the afternoon when the light is much nicer. There was also not too much in the way of colourful things in any of the shots, so i would expect the shots to look a little bland. Try also to use manual focus if you can, it will give you way more control over what is & what isn't in focus. If you can't get a shallow depth of field due to lighting or space limitations, using auto focus may well have the camera focused on the background rather than on your subject. This may only be a slight difference in focal length, but may well have the subject in your shot looking soft. Not sure i see too much in the way of grain in your frame grabs, so i won't comment on that. Hope this gives you some stuff to play with & hopefully give you something more like what you are trying to achieve. Regards, Bryce __________________ There's never enough hours in the day!

April 7th, 2009, 02:19 PM	#17
Battle Vaughan Trustee Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Miami, FL USA Posts: 1,505	I know zip about Vegas workflow, so excuse me if I'm off base here --- questions about the setup window: You are shooting 1080-interlaced but the setup is progressive, no deinterlacing...I don't know how Vegas handles that but it sounds counter-intuitive...you have 8 bit pixels, which for all I know is the standard, but does it make a difference if it's 16-bit, say? You have a Gaussian motion blur selected, does this affect your rendering? And the "good" rendering sounds like it may be a lesser quality choice than might be available. Again, faik, this is the way Vegas is supposed to work, I'm just fishing for ideas here... Re the samples I sent, I would re-send my sd sample same size as the hdv but up-rezing in Photoshop just adds blurry pixels and would be misleading...suffice to say the res from the 1920x1080 looks WAY better than the 720x480 on the screen here....but (except for the dog clip, which looks a lot like SD) you obviously are in HDV mode... the eyeball photo looks very sharp here, thinking what you see looks a little mushy due to possibly a low contrast setting of some sort in the camera or Vegas, or some combination of the workflow setup giving you the same effect...my guess, I may be completely wrong....best wishes! /Battle Vaughan

April 7th, 2009, 05:12 PM	#19
Garrett Low Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Novato, CA Posts: 1,774	Neil, set your full rendering quality to best and see if that changes the picture. If all you're doing in Vegas is screen capture via the app that setting will affect the quality. You should try rendering a short clip out and see if that is what you're expecting. Garrett.