Urgent -Out of Focus footage

[Joe Riggs]

Hello,

Would greatly appreciate help with this.

I have some out of focus footage that I shot on a DSLR, I set the frame,
zoomed in, focused, zoomed out, re-set the frame, then recorded.

To my horror, when I looked at the footage on my computer afterwards,
my subject is pretty soft. I can't understand why this happened, it must
have unfocussed on the way out (it was my first time using the camera but
camera and lens were set to manual focus)?

I wonder if there are any 3rd party plug ins that could help with this?

I'm going to need something stronger than the built in sharpening tools in most NLEs.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Joe Riggs

it must have unfocussed on the way out (it was my first time using the camera but camera and lens were set to manual focus)?

What do you mean by "on the way out" explicitly?

No plugin will help with this. Plan on rendering it out at a lower resolution (720p or even 480p) and a judicious use of the unsharp mask are all you can do.

[Joe Riggs]

"On the way out" - sorry, when I zoomed back out.

I know, it's the weirdest thing, I'll probably have to re shoot.

I think what happened is the lens was not parfocal and I was treating it like the good old 3 chip cameras.

[Gary Huff]

You cannot do that. I read your post wrong. I thought you had used the magnified focus assist.

DSLR lenses aren't, by and large, parafocal. You cannot do that. You set your focal length and then use magnified focus assist to check your focus. Anything else is a crap shoot.

[Joe Riggs]

Yup, trial by fire and I got burned this time.

[Jonathan Levin]

After you set focus, you may want to place a piece of gaffers tape on the lens to secure the focus ring.

[Gary Huff]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Levin

After you set focus, you may want to place a piece of gaffers tape on the lens to secure the focus ring.

That would seem to cause the focus ring to move just slightly as you put on the tape. If shooting wide open, even minute movement could put it out of focus. On top of that, what if you suddenly need to change focus quickly?

[Andrew Smith]

To really know how bad the focus is we need to see it. How about putting a clip of it up on YouTube and posting here?

Andrew

[Joe Riggs]

Thankfully, the shoot involved only one subject and once I understood the error we were able to re-shoot
right then and there, and this time in crystal clear focus!

[Jeff Pulera]

I shot some dance recitals last summer with a rented camera and manually re-focused constantly during events and it looked great on camera LCD as well as 7" LCD connected. Got home and checked in Premiere on 24" display and HORROR, it was ALL SOFT. Every minute of it. Three 2.5-hour shows!!!!! As I was constantly checking and tweaking focus, could not be user error all the time, not possible. Further testing next day revealed that camera was not capable of crystal-clear focus. Almost but just "not quite there".

In Adobe Premiere, the UNSHARP MASK was my savior. In my case, worked out just great, although each show took about 18 hours to render just the sharpening. But well worth it. Projects saves. And I did get a full refund on that faulty rental camera!

Glad you were able to correct. 15 years ago, an assistant shot second camera on a wedding ceremony and the entire thing was way out of focus, what a nightmare that was.

Thanks

Jeff

[Jim Andrada]

I've had this kind of issue when I forgot to recheck/reset back focus on my JVC after transporting it and setting it up.

[Warren Kawamoto]

If I'm shooting on DSLR, I always shoot with peaking on. Saves me every time.