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Camera Tracking footage with shallow DOF?
I’ve been trying to apply CameraTracker to some footage and it’s been giving me poor results.
It’s a slow dolly along a surface shot and I need to apply an animated layer to that surface. It was shot very close up with a fairly shallow depth of field, and I suspect that’s the source of my problem.
I’ve got it to solve for camera, but I don’t think it solves correctly. I try create nulls along the surface defined by the tracking points. For some of the footage the surface is curved rather than flat. I’ve got some footage where the surface is flat and the camera is moving in a straight line, which looks like it should be good, but I’m pretty sure the angle or distance is wrong, because if I try to create a null using points on that surface, the vanishing points clearly don’t match those of the surface.
I tried manually applying a cornerpin, but the results were even worse with that.
Can anyone suggest other strategies I should try?
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5 Replies
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Have you tried stabilizing with MochaAE first? Mocha’s tracker works differently than point tracking (I haven’t used Camera Tracker yet so I’m not certain how it holds up against MochaAE.) Depending on your shot, this could help stabilize some of the more extreme camera bumps and might help the camera tracker come up with a better solution….
Ben Unguren
Motion Graphics & Editing
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I think you’re right, Ryan. The shallow DOF is your problem. Generally this type of effect is done with a motion control camera. You shoot a pass with target points all in focus (or as close as possible), and lit fully. Then you shoot a pass with the lighting and DOF where you want it. Since it’s motion control, you can duplicate as many passes as you want – highlight passes, shadow passes, etc.. Then you do your track to the fully lit, wide DOF version, and use the data in the final beauty shot.
Otherwise, I’d say you’re in for some hand keyframing.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
Very good points Joe but alas, more often than not, budgets just don’t stretch that far. My thoughts are to treat the our of focus areas as moving objects, ie, to be masked/matted out from Camera Tracker’s solve routine.
Depending on what was actually shot, there is a good possibility that inserted elements can be finessed into place from areas that were part of the solve into masked/matted out areas.
HTH
RoRKIntensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer -
Any advice on the hand keyframing? Like I said, it’s a dolly shot, so it’s moving in a straight line. I know the lens was 105mm, the camera was approximately 16 inches from the surface it was shooting.
So in theory I’ve got a lot to work with but I don’t really know where to start using those real-life measurements to match the camera position in AE.
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With Camera Tracker, a good solve is defined as one with a projection error of less than 1. If your solves are higher then what you need to do is to refine your solves.
You may also want to embed a low rez version of your video in your next post so that folks here can have a look at what you’re working with.
HTH
RoRKIntensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer
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