How sharp can you get this?
 

A brief clip of Short toed Eagle.

What player and/or screen shows this least fuzzy for you, please?

...trying again
 

sorry, here goes ...

Least fuzzy?

I played it in Windows Media Player 11 and there's a bit of a bouncing line/bar across the top few pixels. It doesn't seem blurry to me, but I think a stabilizer plugin/effect might help you out. It looks like the bird is moving around slightly within the frame the whole time, giving a blurring effect because you just can't follow it with your eyes well enough, but it's captured properly by the camera (I think).

Have you stabilized this already? I was wondering about the bouncing thing on the top. Also, the shape of the frame seems different than a standard frame, but maybe it's 4:3 PAL or something? I wasn't studying that part of it much, just an observation.

The footage is nice otherwise. :)

Eric

Hi guys.......
 

Something weird going on there.

Played it in Media Player, rubbed my eyes, played it again, then start/ stopped it about thirty or forty times during the run.

Some frames are almost clear and clean. Then you get a frame with the original image but a "ghost" image of same slightly removed. Then you get another with the original frame but the "ghost" is way removed.

Seems you get just about one of everything between the two different offsets.

Looks horrible. Add the stutter (well, it stutters on mine) not bad but noticeable.

Can't see this being a player/ screen issue. Looks like something went slightly awry in post.


CS

I'm gonna say bad stabilizer effect.. working sometimes, not working other times.

or on .mov file
 

same again for Qtime users, please

Brief, 4-letter or 5-letter words will not offend ... this is a sort of research of my methods & equipment

and again, sorry
 

here goes ...

Hmm, interesting...........
 

Well, still got the jumps (OIS maybe?) and still got the ghost images in the same frames, but it is more watchable.

So, what gives?


CS

It's almost like a final exam or something, so we're not getting any hints until everyone has turned in their answers. :)

Forgive me gentlemen.

I'm not being scientific here at all; I am being desperate. I do so much handheld flight footage ('cos I enjoy big bird flight) and it's difficult to keep steady focus that I end up hoping I got even one brief good snippet. So I keep on hoping that the "best" of my lousy footage may in fact look better on your screen or CRT monitor.

Perhaps the thread should have been entitled "Can ANYONE get this sharp?"
Then the answers, if any, could have been simply 2-letter word.

Thanks for your observations. I need them more than you may think, just to retain my sanity if not objectivity. And they do keep me trying harder ...

Okay Brendan,

Answer this question then. Does your camera have an Electronic Image Stabilizer on it? AKA EIS, aka SteadyShot, etc, etc. It keeps the image 'stabilized' but does so by reducing the amount of pixels in the image.

Think of a square, now put a smaller square inside it, say 50% the size of the outer one. Now as the large square moves around trying to contain the bird within it, the smaller square moves around quickly inside of it, trying to appear steady. The smaller box is the video that your camera records with an electronic stabilizer. The larger box is the actual frame size.

These EIS stabilizers can do a fair job on handheld shots of things that aren't zooomed in all the way. The problem is, it cuts your frame down in size and then will blow that back up to fill the frame size on tape, thereby reducing your resolution.

But there weird aspect ratio and pixel size of your video makes it look like it was either stabilized in software, or just cropped in software.

Give us some more details about how this was shot and edited and we can help you out. Most likely though, if you have an EIS on your camera, the best bet is to turn it off and do it in software. Another sure way to get smoother shots is a niiiice tripod head, but that may not be practical for your locations, or affordable.

Also, are you looking only to fix this footage, or for advice for future shots?

Again more information will give you more answers. :)
Eric

Hi Brendan............
 

May I make a suggestion? Or three?

Get a good tripod and head (I mean good!)

Turn OIS off.

Shoot HDV, 50i if available.

Keep away from the extreme zoom in.

Crop the final image (if shooting in HDV) to get the picture size required.

This will ameliorate the focus issue (tho' at the distances you're shooting that shouldn't be such an issue), cure the hiccups and also (tho' I still can't work out what that "ghost" is) fix that "soft and fuzzy look".

Hey, it can't make anything worse now, can it?


CS

An OIS (Optical) stabilizer should do just fine with this, and not reduce resolution. An EIS (Electronic) would cause visible problems because it alters the actual video image, rather than changing the lens angles with prisms and gyros (optical).

Hi Eric............
 

The reason for suggesting the "OIS off" is that, if shooting from a tripod and losing the target from the centre of the frame, it will "max out" and skip.

With that sort of target against a mono colour background, that's all an OIS can do.

But, at the end of the day, try it both ways and see which gives the best results.

CS

But a *true* optical stabilizer is controllable by vibration and not the image at all. An electronic one would have problems if it's trying to 'watch and adjust' and losing the subject, like an auto focus that continually hunts. A real optical stabilizer only senses movement of the camera and doesn't see anything happening in the lens. They uses gyros and prisms to stabilize the image, not image manipulation circuitry.