My T3i problems are fixed with MAGIC LANTERN. I ALWAYS use the focus patterns AND the zoomed in focus box to back it up, the but the focus patterns - little blinky dots in the sharpest focus area - keeps me in focus every time. Next, Magic Lantern also has the ZOOM IN focus box which can be set to "line up the sliced middle" or "lower bar turns green when focused. VERY handy tools, especially since my raw eye site is not as good as it used to be. Last not least on focus, Magic Lantern has some automated stuff I have not messed with yet. Like preset follow focus which could be really handy for me doing solo stuff: Stetup my start point, end point for focus pull, and the speed, hit go and IT does it on it's own! I think. I hope to mess with that more.
Lack of autofocus confused and hurt me for a bit too, but then I grasped why auto focus doesn't work. It doesn't focus on what YOU want to focus on. Which is why film crews have a focus guy standing there pulling focus for the camera. Auto is fine for run and gun, half the time, but putting effort into focus really pays off in the end if you are doing something a little more upscale. When I run and gun with DSLR, I leave the focus on auto and press the focus button when I need to fix it. Yes, it screw up focus for a couple seconds and makes that winding sound on video, but I could edit that out if needed, and is easier than trying to monitor focus constantly, manaully.
Far as caputre goes, Prolost and Cinestyle (or FLAATT or that other one) profiles are your friends in video.
Zooming can be done I guess it depends on the lens... my zooms change aperture when I zoom, but if done quickly it is not as noticeable AND you can correct gain in post at each stop change.
All in all, I doubt I'd buy another Canon for my video shooting... with the Panasonic LOOKING like much higher resolution (due to canon's faked pixel counting system) and Black Magic actually delivering cinema shots for $3000, I don't see a point to canon's full frame yet probably still lieing about REAL pixel count in the final video cameras.
Steadicam: I cheaped out and got an Opteka Merlin clone style thing and I love it. It's not vest wearable full arm system, just a handheld, but is solid, fun, light and makes very decent footage. Yeah it's not the top contender but I could afford it, it's easy to balance, built solid, lots of fine adjustments, and delivers exactly what I wanted.
wwwjd,
My videos are all pre-planned (such as in the snow vids). When there's too much light, you can't apply the "shutter should be double the frame rate" rule unfortunately. So you don't get a smooth-looking motion such as the water drops and the the rotation of the wheels of that car for example (that's what I meant by "filmic look", but maybe I am not using the right words).
I didn't do any color-correcting in those two videos. And they were shot at full-HD, 24fps, with the (0,-4,-2,0) parameters (flat). But again, because there was too much light, I couldn't set the shutter speed to double the frame rate to get the "filmic look" (smooth motion,bokeh, etc). So I ended up having to raise the shutter speed much higher than than 1/50s (closest to double the frame rate for the T3i). The only remedy to this problem is getting an ND filter in order to keep the aperture the same (for bokeh) and decrease the shutter speed so that it's as close as possible or equal to 1/50s.
Yes, I do know about changing the aperture using the Av button and the dial, but it's not something you should do in the middle of filming (I know you don't). Like I said, I pre-plan my shoots.
You're right about Magic Lantern. It's already installed in the card but I haven't read the manual yet. I must learn about it before using it.
Focusing: I never use AF. I do it manually, all the time. In my opinion, the best feature of the T3i is the ability to magnify the image digitally (up to 10X) for perfect pre-focusing. Like I said previsouly, it's practically impossible to get the perfect focus using the LCD or even the LCD viewfinder I have.
I did do a some color treatement and sharpening as a test and got this. Unfortunately, it takes forever for my computer to do it. Rendering 10 secondes worth of vid is okay (like in this test), but it would take hours for a long video
By the way, both vids I posted above were shot through glass, so I'm sure it would have looked a lot better if I was shooting outside.
Color correction and sharpening: before & after:
Note: the "before" is stabilized using youtube's stabilization plug-in. The "after" is the original footage (with the actual shaking). I just color-corrected it according to my taste and added the letterboxing (I cropped the 1080 pixels to about 920).
Thank you.
I liked the original shaking too. I think I'm getting too obsessed about stabilzation. And it does look kinda robotic indeed. The natural motion of the camera by hand looks more natural, more dynamic (assuming there's minial shaking of course). I am thinking about getting this stabilizer (it's the cheapest I could find, about $80) and see if it does a decent job.
http://www.glidegear.net/syl-3000-camera-stabilize
But even if it does a good job, I know in advance using such device will raise a whole new set of issues. I can think of two already:
1. Not being able to focus manually using one hand while the other is holding the cam on the device. The slightest touch with the left hand will destabilize it.
2. A side effect of 1: how the hell is one going to keep a subject in focus while doing street shooting for example, or recording a public event, etc, if the subject is also in motion. The only trick I can think of (assuming there's enough light of course) is to use a very high F number to make sure the subject will be in focus at all times. But that means everything else will also be in focus, which may not be what one is looking for.
But I need it either way. At least it will reduce the shaking when I am doing static shots such as in the video test above.
I will eventually use Magic Lantern's focusing (the focus dots) and see how the result compares to the focusing when using the 600D's onboard's 5X and 10X digital magnification. I think you should at least test the latter. It's splendid. It magnifies the image anywhere you want the focus frame to be, with great precision
Yep... gotta plan the shots with these hand held stabilizers. I've done some minor focusing why "flying" the cam, but yes, that creates a bump. BUT, sometimes, just holding the focus in one hand and the stabilizer in the other is STILL smoother than going full hand held... or I just really suck at hand held.
I think you will enjoy your Glide stabilizer. They are not rocket science - you could build your own... it is all in the patience to learn to balance it, and practice using it. I get decent results even without patience
That one seems as good as the rest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QydmCWyi4Ro
I went for one with more adusters up top for more flexibility - but it is just many more adjustments to make hahahaha. Yours you could add fine weight to like washers to REALLY dial in balance, mine, not so easy.
That footage is great but notice the cropping to. I haven't used Vegas Stabilize much yet, but previous version was not good. I have 11 and 12 pro now, but haven't needed much stabilizing yet. Actually been ADDING a lot of shake or sublte movements with a plugin.
Bernard wrote:Computer History Museum shares original Adobe Photoshop source code
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istory-Museum-shares-original-Photoshop-code
Photoshop revolutionized the world of imagery. Amazing how far they've come
I am probably using 5% of what today's version has to offer, and would probably only know 10% of the museum version, lol.
I kinda promised before that I would only post a "treated" 600D pic if I also show the original so that other people see the difference.
So here's one. Taken a couple of months ago at a friend's house.
Pet portaiture is kind of difficult, so I used continuous shooting and chose the sharpest photo after viewing them.
Lens: Canon EF 50mm f1.8
Aperture: F/1.8
Shutter: 1/3
ISO: 400
White balance: auto
Exposure mode: manual
Original:
Edited:
Loving that fireplace shot. But the cat doesn't look to happy about having his photo taken
Magic Lantern DOES have a ton of stuff in it. Very intimidating to me when I first loaded it up. So, I cherry picked the parts I wanted to learn and am SLOWLY looking in to other parts it does, as needed. Which is not often. But I use the parts I do use, constantly. Seems to add stuff that Canon's $3500 camera has, so I am pleased.
Cropmarks are the best in my lil world. I'm shooting everything 2.40:1 so the included one is perfect. Other work arounds I did was to take a picture of a picture of other aspects so I can SEE it in the LCD. yeah, I was lazy and didn't download the other crop marks for 16:9 etc, but they are out there somewhere.
Sounds like you know how to MAKE them, that's awesome.
I like the extended ISOs I guess 160 320 etc are CLEANER than the canon defaults at the 100s... weird.
I also depend heavily on Zebras, audio meters, histogram on screen (yeah Canon has that too, but I like ML's better), gonna play with bit rate and follow/rack focus and settings beyond canons's limits soon, I have movie logging on but rarely reference it...
oh and I LOVE the display of the MM of the lens, F settings, shutter, ISO and WB number at the bottom! So handy
And don't forget the "Auto White Balance" tune up which silly Canon left off altogter: point at white (Or grey card??) and hit go and it calibrates. LOVE that. Love the lantern. hahahahah
Anyway, shooting a 20 second thingy for a contest tomorrow weather permitting. Using CINESTYLE, will post pics if it happens
Lastly, I've had filming just STOP occasionally. Not sure if it was ML or just the camera overused. Anyway, ML restarts recording, and this seemed to happen within the first 5 seconds, so I never lost anything critical. I'd say this has happened to me maybe 1 every 200 starts usually on a well used day - when these overheat they stop and cool down, maybe that is it.
right-o! I use the ML Crop in the view finder, than an overlay in vegas. Works perfect for me.
Just finished a GREULLING two hour video shoot today with T3i. Edit isn't happening for a couple weeks, but I pulled some stills with basic correction from the video. Actually came out better than I was expecting. These camera's aren't that bad.
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