How do I enhance/correct waterfall footage?

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Yes, it's somewhat relevant however most of it is over my head and tech speak.

BTW, I own a Canon A1s so you are close . . . . ( but no cigar!)

Kind Regards

[magillagorilla]

Gents:

I think my thread has been officially hijacked!

Enjoy yourselves.

HA! You've been a member here for a while. Don't you know this is how it works?

Back to your question. This may be obvious, but make sure you aren't creeping in to the "digital zoom" area while shooting. That produces blocky crap. I have digital zoom disabled on my camera.

Also when you crank your tripod all the way up it becomes susceptible to unwanted movement by ground shaking or wind. Even a slight breeze can cause the camera to wobble. A good field trick is to hook your camera bag around the tripod so that it hangs in the center of the 3 legs. The weight helps stabelize the camera, assuming your bag has some heft, mine does.

I find myself shooting 30p most of the time. I get crisp edges but it gets shuttery during high motion. A real 60p camera is the best bet. The camera's optics, sensor and processor have more to do with image clarity than the frame rate. If your sensor and lens are good you should have artifact free progressive frames. The frame rate should only impact temporal smoothness, in a perfect world, but codecs and sensors are not perfect.

My DSLR produces the cleanist video I have ever seen even at 24fps but.... it sucks at autofocus, manual zoom is jerky and panning causes jellow frames. There is no perfect solution in the sub $1500 camera range.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Hi MagillaGorilla,

Nice to hear from you and get back on the topic!

Actually, I may well have another chance to get it "right" (or at least hopefully improve) as i'm returning to a place called Diana's Baths in North Conway NH. If you are curious enough look it up on the net. Wonderful photo and video ops there. I may bring a Canon Vixia
HFS 20 which is AVCHD full frame as well as the A1s to increase my chances.

I truly wish I had a 60p machine. That day will eventually arrive.

You may well be right. Normally I rely on the 20x zoom lens. Not definitely sure at this very moment if it even has digital zoom.

Thanks for you input.

[edDV]

Youtube is full of examples of how not to shoot water at Diana Falls. Have yet to find one where a tripod is used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5JoPDS5mQk

Here is one with tripod, 720 30p and all vertical motion including two jumpers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zvdDIl26Cs

This one uses more creative camera angles and much better exposure. Late afternoon light.
http://vimeo.com/22370622
But alas, poor deinterlace. Key issue is the water is shaded (no blown out whites) but sun is on jumper contrasting him from the background. Levels are near perfect.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

edDV:

I had already seen the first one you linked at U-Tube which in no sense of the word does this scenic spot justice!

If you had the opportunity to get the full panoramic widefield view I think you'd enjoy it.

The "Baths" are basically a series of drops in stages and levels.

The last 2 links were not Diana's Baths however I see your points.

This day and age there are a lot of people with DSLR's or cheaper handheld cams who do not know how to use them.

What program was your screenshot from?

[edDV]

The last 2 links were not Diana's Baths however I see your points.

This day and age there are a lot of people with DSLR's or cheaper handheld cams who do not know how to use them.

What program was your screenshot from?

The first of the two clearly is labeled "Diana Falls".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zvdDIl26Cs

The last was what Vimeo gave for a "Diana Falls" search but is relevant that technique trumps camera.

The screen cap was simply Windows print screen pasted to Windows Paint. The program capped was Vegas Pro 10. Vimeo FLV loaded directly which surprised me.

PS: Diana Falls is now on my NH todo list. I'm still craving another "Red's Eats" lobster roll over in Wiscasset, ME. When in those parts, I rent a car.
http://www.roadfood.com/reviews/overview.aspx?refid=2959

[magillagorilla]

Interlaced video was invented by the devil. It's gunna take me years to sort out all the 24/30p recorded in 60i footage I have. The sooner I can get my grubby hands on a real 60p camcorder the better.

The best bet for a shot like this is a very stable tripod. If you start creeping in to the 20x optical zoom range the slightest vibration is going to cause pixels to jitter. On a tight zoom, it's best to get your shot lined up, hit record and don't touch the camera. Try the stabilazation weights on the tripod I suggested. This technique is very effective in reducing vibration.

Also for shooting water try using a circular polorized filter. It will cut down on glare. For outdoor bright daylight stacking a CP and UV filter can do wonders.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Thanks for the additional tips.

I noticed that the closer I zoom in the more "garbage" is produced.

Can your get a circular polarized filter for an semi-pro camcorder like the A1s?

The A1S offers ND filters which helps some.

I definitely need one for my Nikon DSLR!

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Ed DV:

A suggestion once you make it to North Conway.

A mile or two down the road from Diana's Baths is Echo State Park. There's a steep but short road that takes one up to a high sort to tabletop plateau which provides scenic vistas in all directions. It contains overlooks called Cathedral Ledge, Humphries Ledge and Whitehorse Ledge.

It's a rock climbers mecca and has cliffs which fall off sharply.

They rise or drop-off steeply depending upon from what perspective one is looking.

Maybe I'll report back in next week on any results.

[magillagorilla]

Just figure out the mm thread size of your lens then search Amazon for it. Like 27mm filter, 32mm filter.... ect. As long as your lens is threaded there should be a CPL filter to fit. I'd stay in the mid-low range price. Some are $9 but you can spend $200 if you want. I've tested several and don't really see a difference above the $40 mark. The UV filter for my camcorder is a Poloroid and was $6. It does fine.

[Canon GL-2 Guy]

Which CPL filter did you settle on and are you happy with it?

I'm not working right now, so if I can make an improvement for a modest cost I'd like to explore it.

Thank you.

[magillagorilla]

The CPL I use was for my DSLR. It helps with video and stills in in both very bright sunlight and overcast. Keep in mind that you may gain a stop of two on your apature usign a CPL. It shouldn't matter in direct sunlight, you'll have enough light so that a lower shutter spped will not impact the quality. Just remember to take it off for dim lighting shoots. The CPL for my DSLR is a Hoya.

For my camcorder I plan to get a Poloroid CPL. They are very inexpensive. There is a visible difference between some of the $40 "super" CPLs and the $10 jobs, but I'm on a budget. Frankly when a CPL is neede the cheap one is better than using nothing. As far as my camcoder goes I've been really happy with the Poloroid UV filter. It's also a practical way to keep crap off of your lens.

Just another note: The only filters I use are UV and CPL because they help remove unwanted elements from the image. You should avoid using filters that add distortion, like color filters and effect filters like star filters. These things can all be done in post production.

[edDV]

Interlaced video was invented by the devil.

You just need to understand interlace video. It will be with us for years to come.

[jagabo]

Interlaced video was invented by the devil.

You just need to understand interlace video. It will be with us for years to come.

It was still invented by the devil. It should have been eliminated from HDTV. With MPEG2 and h.264 encoding it's no longer necessary.

[magillagorilla]

Interlaced video was invented by the devil.

You just need to understand interlace video. It will be with us for years to come.

Just like the devil

I understand interlace, and I also dislike it. It's cheating. Back in SD days it was needed to squeeze more temporal information in to a limited bandwidth. It's just plain unnecessary in HD. Why not do 720 and 1080 in 60p and stop chopping up frames in to fields?

Computer monitors are progressive, because it looks better. Well except my Atari 800 monitor.

[edDV]

As Spock would say, interlace was and is logical. If not why would all the broadcast, computer nerd and political advocates re-evaluate during the grand alliance and conclude that interlace was the way to go for ATSC HDTV but also allowed for 720p at the insistence of ABC. They did go for square pixels (for the future).

The DVB side was more frugal and went for both interlace and non-square pixels again (following DVD) but did allow square pixels. Camcorder manufacturers did the same.

[edDV]

Interlaced video was invented by the devil.

You just need to understand interlace video. It will be with us for years to come.

Just like the devil

I understand interlace, and I also dislike it. It's cheating. Back in SD days it was needed to squeeze more temporal information in to a limited bandwidth.

Same today. ATSC delivers 19 Mbps from the existing 6 MHz wide channels. That is good for (pick one)

1280x720 60p
1920x1080 24p
1920x1080 60i

Those are the MPeg2 ATSC choices for the primary channel along with 704x480 24p/60i/60p. The secondary channels can be anything they like. So a station could broadcast one 704x480 60i channel at 2 mb/s and broadcast anything they want in the remaining 17 Mb/s. That isn't to say the home ATSC tuners could receive it.

[jagabo]

24p material would require less bitrate as 24p or 60p (exact duplicate frames cost almost nothing in MPEG 2 and h.264 encoding) than as 30i. Frame rate conversion from 24p to 60p at the TV is trivial given that the broadcasts are digital. The same goes for scaling. In my opinion they should have defined two resolutions 1920x1080 and 1280x720, and two or three frame rates 24p, 30p and 60p. For true 60p material the broadcaster could just choose to go with 1080p60 if the allocated bitrate was sufficient for the material, otherwise step down to 720p60. 30i was just broadcasters going with what they knew, still thinking in analog terms. If HDTV broadcast was analog interlaced video would make sense.

[edDV]

24p material would require less bitrate as 24p or 60p (exact duplicate frames cost almost nothing in MPEG 2 and h.264 encoding) than as 30i. Frame rate conversion from 24p to 60p at the TV is trivial given that the broadcasts are digital.

I agree but it won't happen under ATSC 1.0.

I'll start a new thread so we can discuss advanced ATSC and ATSC 2.0 tuner progress.

The same goes for scaling. In my opinion they should have defined two resolutions 1920x1080 and 1280x720, and two or three frame rates 24p, 30p and 60p. For true 60p material the broadcaster could just choose to go with 1080p60 if the allocated bitrate was sufficient for the material, otherwise step down to 720p60. 30i was just broadcasters going with what they knew, still thinking in analog terms. If HDTV broadcast was analog interlaced video would make sense.

For ATSC 1.0 it was determined that 1920x1080 60p MPeg2 was not feasible for first generation tuners. Hence 1080i and 720p. Although 1080 24p is allowed, no TV station has risked a 24p channel fearing tuner issues.

Since then h.264 has been approved for new services. The primary channel shall remain MPeg2 under current rules for backwards compatibility. I'll do some more research and start a new thread for discussing advanced ATSC.