Question about Sharpness!!

[Todd Terry]

Well, it’s hard to judge sharpness via YouTube, of course…

I can tell though that it might look a little soft. What about the raw footage though? Are you saying that the camera raw was soft as well?

I would think that with the RED that sharpness should never be an issue. Due to the slow-mo were you shooting RED 2K? What kind of lenses were you using?

Are your sure your focus was razor sharp on location? If you were shooting 4K with very fast lenses wide open with some longer primes your depth of field could literally be only an inch deep and nailing the shots would need a pretty darn good focus puller… but the shots that looked softish to me seemed to primarily be the shorter focal length shots.

Puzzling…

Of course though, if your camera raw was sharp, then it’s a post-production issue.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Grinner Hester]

man, it’s tough to say, lookin’ at a youtube clip. How’s in look in your studio? Is vimeo out of the question as far as online clippage? Were you happy with focus as you were looking at the raw footage?
You kept it uncompressed in post, right?
The clip you sent to youtube was cool?

[Fred Khoshtinat]

well,

The DOP used Nikon ZF Mount Zeiss Lenses
it was in 2K that the production house we were working with converted it into AVI uncompressed. And i used After Effects and Premiere afterwards

The Raw footage looks a soft as well.

you can switch to HD on youtube i think its clear enough or i may be paranoid about this issue!

[Fred Khoshtinat]

PS : im sure that the focus puller did a good job

[Todd Terry]

I’m not a RED user so this may be a dumb question… but does the camera/mount have a backfocus adjustment?

I ask, because I usually shoot PL mount cine lenses with either a P+S Technik Pro35 or Mini35 adapter. With those, there is a backfocus adjustment that must be spot-on or the footage will be soft no matter what you do. Fortunately, with my gear it’s easy to adjust once and then you generally never have to think about it again. Although I check it occasionally, I have never had to adjust it since the first time.

You can use a Seimen’s star chart…

good monitor to make sure you camera focus (and backfocus) is set up properly.

Did the footage look soft while you were shooting? Was it soft in the location monitor?

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Randy Lee]

I’ve seen it mentioned several times on Reduser that you should let the camera get up to operating temp before doing things such as backfocus adjustment, and then to double-check it if you switch into a radically different environment, e.g. from -20 degrees to inside of a warm building. That could be part of the cause of the problem.

Was any sharpening added in post? That could be all that you have to do to get it to the point that no one who doesn’t know would notice.

[Thomas Kist]

Great work in post! Where is this group based?
Why didn’t you shoot with a smaller sensor camera?
With all the greenscreen and post manipulation there is no D.o.F. effect at all.
I’m pretty sure in these circumstances a PDW 800 or F23 or Pana equivalent would have given you a much sharper image.
In 2K the Red is notoriously fuzzy.
Keep up the good work!

Thomas Kist
Freelance D.o.P
Amsterdam,The Netherlands
PDW-700,Letus ultimate,FCP 6
http://www.thomaskist.com

[Kerry Brown]

[Thomas Kist] “In 2K the Red is notoriously fuzzy.”

Really? Explain please.

KB