DETAIL and noise, your opinion please

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

I used the warm scene file (a T.Dashwood recipe) which I believe is detail set to -3 (off the top of my head).

I'm not actually sure what the detail was set to for that scene file as those were my "beta" scene files for testing. I think I now have most of them set to -6.

As soon as I am happy with the second batch of scene files I will "publish" them here for everyone to download and play with. I still consider the second batch to be "a work in progress." I'm glad some people are using them as a starting point and then tweaking them. This is one of the coolest aspects of this generation of cameras.

[Jim Giberti]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

I agree. I wouldn't turn it off completely (unless you are doing a 35mm blowup - make sure you test first!!!)
MIN is as low as I would ever go, or the softness level may exceed what you can pull back by adding detail in post. Just make sure you are using a good HD monitor when establishing your ideal detail setting.
I've gone as high as +4 for high-contrast "bleach-bypass" style looks and as low as MIN for candlelit romantic scenes. My general suggested compromise setting is -6 or -7. You will still have enough edge enhancement that any image will look sharp, but not so much that it stands out as "video."

Well we spent a lot of time since my last post in the studio testing on a pair of HD monitors shooting some really varied material and lighting and I would have to say I was wrong and that a bit of sharpening does in fact help the HD100 in many/most situations.
I'm still wary of much more than the minimum...again depending on the subject material.
Straight lines and edges with contrast can very quickly get an outline with sharpening and raised highlights can become very digital pretty quickly.
But in two settings we've built in the last couple of days I've got detail set to minimum which seems analagous to judicious sharpening in PS Raw.
Anyway, I'm willing to eat a little crow in the name of better film making <g>.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Jim Giberti

Well we spent a lot of time since my last post in the studio testing on a pair of HD monitors shooting some really varied material and lighting and I would have to say I was wrong and that a bit of sharpening does in fact help the HD100 in many/most situations.
I'm still wary of much more than the minimum...again depending on the subject material.
Straight lines and edges with contrast can very quickly get an outline with sharpening and raised highlights can become very digital pretty quickly.
But in two settings we've built in the last couple of days I've got detail set to minimum which seems analagous to judicious sharpening in PS Raw.
Anyway, I'm willing to eat a little crow in the name of better film making <g>.

Don't worry, I won't say " I told ya " LOL.
Glad to know you are finding the settings to fit your needs with this camera. It's a great little piece of gear.

[Jim Giberti]

Originally Posted by Michael Maier

Don't worry, I won't say " I told ya " LOL.
Glad to know you are finding the settings to fit your needs with this camera. It's a great little piece of gear.

Well we really neeed to get it tweaked for a fairly challenging shoot. I'm leaving right now to shoot the last pre-Olympic warm ups...this one with Apollo Ono and the US team versus the Canadian team at the Olympic Center.

Not much chance for mistakes or technical issues and I'm alway a bit concerned about going on set or in the field with new technology so I did tons of testing and calibrating in advance.

I'll be back tomorrow with the footage and I'm really psyched to see how it looks in this type of fim making.

[Stephen L. Noe]

What framerate do you intend to use Jim?

[Jim Giberti]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

What framerate do you intend to use Jim?

Hey Stephen....just got back into town.
I shot 30/60.
With the up close speed skating action I wanted to minimize any panning issues.
I really want to get some time now to first see how it's all going to work in FCP...counting on that going well.
Second to get a couple of clips up online because holy shnikeys...it performed beautifully.
I'm sold.
I'll do a separate thread on this because there's a lot I'd like to talk about from how wonderful it was under faster than real time challenges and how virtually every aspect exceeded my cautious expectations.
Then there's the SSE issue and the low light handling that are great stories in and of themselves.
So it's definitely a keeper.
I was very seriously considering getting and XL-H1 in the next week and possibly keeping both with the JVC more the second camera if they matched well.
Fagedaboutit...I'm getting another HD100.
How did this thing stay under the radar for so long?

[Stephen L. Noe]

Jim,

I was going to suggest 480p60. I've had excellent results with that framerate and uprezzing to 1280x720 at very little cost to image quality.

Hope to see some footage on the Olympic coverage from you.