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Focus is soft
I shot a corporate video with my DVX100A in 24p. I am looking at the footage and some of my stand-up shots are a little soft on the subject. I had the DVX in a manual focus and zoomed in all the way to focus on the eyes. Since the DVX use a digital focus lens, the back-focus adjustment shouldn’t be a issue. Any thoughts why it didn’t track focus?
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9 Replies
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did you bring a production monitor with you? That’s the only way to truly judge focus. If you did and it’s still not sharp your lens could be out of colimation. If not and you were shooting indoors it was not fully in focus when you shot.
Noah
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What was your iris set at? As you may know, a “wide-open” iris will reduce depth of field, resulting in soft focus……….
Please let us know what you find out.
Tim
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I find that the soft focus can sometime be the effect of the codec that is being recorded to tape. The DVX records a DV 4:1:1 signal. I have noticed that when shooting subjects a little wider the focus seems soft but I think that it is more a result of the codec and not the camera.
If you did have a production monitor on set you would have seen a pretty pristine picuture, but the tape will always seem softer and as Tony suggests if you are wide open, softer still.
David
Peace and Love 🙂
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I had a production monitor and it appeared to look sharp or in focus when I focused on the eyes. I didn’t look super close at my monitor for sharpness after I pulled out from the eyes. I was 10-12 away from the subject. I was trying to achive a shallow depth of field with the IRIS. Well, I will definetly play around with this issue to figure out if its my camera or me.
thanks,
Mark -
This would be a good test.
What is going to the monitor is not what is being recorded to tape. You are not seeing teh compressed version of the image.
So try this.
Look at the monitor, record 10-15 seconds. Rewind and look a the playback of the tape. Then you will see how much the codec softens the image.
David
Peace and Love 🙂
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I’ve been shooting with this cam for years and can say the image you get on a monitor as you shoot is pretty close to what’s being recorded. Never had a monitor-sharp shot look out of focus on the tape. So I’d shoot some chart tests and see what’s up because it sound like the camera needs repair.
Noah
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Noah’s advice is good. I have noticed that the wider shots can tend to soften out. You should also check if you ahve skin tone detail on as it can affect these things too.
David
Peace and Love 🙂
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Sorry if I mislead anyone, but I recorded the video to my hard drive via DV Rack. I don’t think compression is the issue. Since the sharper images are on the background. It’s either my lens/camera or me. I shoot video all day with a SX betacam. I do the standard zoom in and focus on the eyes, etc. But the digital lens/focus I am not use to working with. Maybe I was off…
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