Soccer match video- lens and grade testing

[Jay P. Kaley]

I went and shot a soccer friendly for the first time on LS300, a lens and log and grading test run for live sports, thought I'd share some video.

Shot in Jlog with a Canon 24-105. I always shoot action at 60p, but I shot some 24p to see what grimey looks like and I got some, actually a little scared by some of the noise in the blacks, but for now I wanted to see what 24p and 60p action shots looked like graded.

Here's 2 versions of the same video, the first video is graded "heavier" with an OSIRIS Fillm-style LUT and light color correction, the 2nd video is graded with the Leeming LUT One and light color correction.

The intro part with the drums is shot in 24p and graded with Osiris LUT on both videos, it's really noisy and has a grainy look for sure. The part after the team huddle is shot in 60p and the grading is different on both videos, one Osiris the other Leeming. In the middle there are a few 120fps slo-mo shots.

Also first time shooting live action with the Canon 24-105, some of the softness is on me, some of it is the lens full wide and unsharp log. I would probably sharpen it up or maybe shoot sports in cinema, I forgot to switch it up it's all log this time.

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My main concern was some noise I'm seeing in the blacks I haven't seen before, going to do some testing on that it has me a little worried. Otherwise I was pretty pleased with the Canon 24-105, need some more practice but with the prime zoom locked in tight I could get in there relatively close.

[Paul R Johnson]

That was 4K? I'm surprised by the softness and milky look. The view through the goal net looked subjectively better. With versions seem to be washed out and kind of hazy? On the screen here, the movement was all very jerky and not at all smooth, and many sections seemed to be blue - although some of the white shirts still looked white. If you hadn't said 4K, I'd have guessed 720p. In one shot, the hair around one of the girls heads was very clearly defined and looked more 4K, but as soon as the camera moved, the resolution just dropped. It didn't look like we see on the TV - the grading was wasted I think because of the strangeness of the initial image. Probably a youtube quirk, but it didn't flatter the images shot.

[Jay P. Kaley]

I really appreciate the input, I'm a little concerned. No it wasn't 4k, it was 1080p, but I agree with you it's soft and odd. The intro section is jerky movement because I shot it in 24p, was curious what it would look like. After the team huddle it changes to 60p and gets a little smoother. But I'm not loving it and don't think I can shoot games like this, may just have to use Rec709 or cinema, or my old 700.

The really clear images behind the net is a gopro. I don't know how much of the overall softness is me, the lens or the sensor.


Here's a video from last year on the HM700 at 720p, to me it looks much better. It's video-y, but it's really clear and catches the action.

HM700 soccer match-

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I'm concerned with the noise/bands in the blacks too, a little worried I might have a faulty sensor or something, seeing some weird stripes in the blacks sometimes when it's not even that dark. I'm worried.

[Lee Powell]

The Leeming LUT grade looks closer to REC 709 standard, which is its intended purpose.

WRT image softness, in J-Log1 mode, the LS300's built-in Sharpness filter is turned permanently OFF. I've found it essential to apply an Unsharp Mask filter to restore sharpness to all J-Log1 footage, settings around 50-100% enhancement and a 1-pixel radius. All digital cameras require sharpness enhancement to recover detail that is averaged out by the demosaicking filter used to convert the Bayer array into RGB pixels. The LS300's built-in Sharpness filter is highly adjustable and works very well in REC 709 mode. I don't understand why JVC disabled the Sharpness filter in J-Log1 mode, as it has nothing to do with the gamma profile and can be more accurately applied in-camera before H.264 compression.

[Jay P. Kaley]

Appreciate the input, I'm trying to figure this out.

I went and took another look at the video, one of the problems is I underexposed it, the waveforms on a lot of the original video was "smushed", very skinny in the middle of the scope. I was too worried about shooting the lens wide open that I stopped it all down too much i think, and didn't adjust white balance enough for the sun changes and shadows.

Anyway, I went back for another go at editing it, I had been experimenting a bit and used to many layers and some were out of order. I simplified it, tweaked the exposure, used the basic Jlog LUT and added a little bit of sharpening.

Here's the result, it's not great but looks better.

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My real concern remains all the noise, it doesn't seem like it should be there on a bright sunny day with no light issues.

[Lee Powell]

Good work on the regrade, though I think the gamma correction is a little too harsh. I like shadows to hit the black point at their deepest, but I prefer to keep faces above 50% gray. I'd recommend grading with tools that provide separate adjustment of overlapping shadow, midtone, and highlight regions, and avoid making corrections that affect the entire histogram. This allows you to shift the black level of the shadows down without darkening the faces by the same amount. Likewise with sunlit highlights, I prefer to flatten the hotspots while leaving the midtones bright.

I don't think the noise in these videos is excessive. When you switch the LS300 to J-Log1 mode, it automatically doubles your previous ISO setting. If you were shooting at ISO 400 in ITU 709 mode, you'll get ISO 800 when switching to J-Log1. You can, however, lower the ISO to 400 after switching to J-Log1 and save those settings for future use. That will minimize noise in the shadows and give you the widest possible dynamic range.

[Jay P. Kaley]

Thanks for the insight Lee, I agree the faces and wall are way too dark in a few of those shots, I'm not going to redo it again it's just a practice for testing, glad I got the feedback. I also think another thing I need to look at it is the monitor or the settings on the monitor that I'm using to edit, it looks much harsher on the laptop screen I'm using now. I did feel like I was moving the midtones around too much on the waveform, trying to eliminate that noise somehow is why, but it didn't look that harsh on that screen.

Good tip on lowering the 800 ISO in J-log, thanks that makes me feel better. That makes sense in excessive light, for some reason I thought it was locked in at 800 ISO for "log purposes", I wanted to turn that down if conditions called for it, in my mind it was too much gain for the conditions but I'm still getting accustomed to log.

I have an outdoor wedding coming up and I was thinking of 'running home to momma' and just shooting in 709 or cinema for safety, but I'm gonna move the ISO down and check that out.

[Jay P. Kaley]

Lee I decided to try what you said about the harsh gamma and adjusting the shadows mids and highs separately.

I made adjustments to the mids to pull out the faces, take a look and see if it looks like I'm going in the direction you were talking about. I know some of the color is still a little off, still learning how one adjustment still slightly affects the others and the overrall image, not trying to over do it.

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Thanks again for your time.

[Lee Powell]

Overall, it looks much more natural,I think you're on the right track. Here's a tip on matching the color balance of differently-exposed video clips: Adjust the saturation/vibrance of each clip first, before making changes to white balance or skin tones. Many of your clips show bright neon colors that are obviously over-saturated and need to be toned down to reduce the variation between clips. After that, I'd white balance the magenta tint out of the problematic clips, then match the color of the green lawn among all clips. Since these are mostly wide-angle action shots, skin tones are less important than maintaining consistent scenery.

[Jay P. Kaley]

Yep I was moving around the saturation dial late in the game trying to get the green field to pop better while keeping other pasts of the image looking right and kinda gave up on it.

The exposure and white balance was a bit out of whack in camera, sunny day with big moving clouds and large sections of shade on the field, lot of temps going on. Makes me consider just going auto 709 for sports and let the sensor handle it on the fly, it seems to do a pretty good job.

However I still wanna figure my way around color correcting a bit, I'm gonna try to match up the colors better on this video before i move on from it, I'm figuring it out as I go.

[Jay P. Kaley]

Hey Lee this video has been a learning experience for me, I made one more go at the grade and feel like I got the shots and field matching up better, or the differences don't jump out as much. .

Appreciate all your input, has been helpful thank you.

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I promise I won't post this video ever again! lol