David, Sony uses Canon's OIS technology.

Some types of OIS actually degrade the image a bit. This is so with some of the Pana's OIS, like with the MX300/0. In fact, Pana states this. As far as I know, Canon's and Sony's does not degrade the footage.

Mike, regarding your comment that GL2 does widesscreen the right way - does the GL2 create a full 720 x 480 image with and without the anamorphic lense? If so, why is the anamorphic lense a better solution?

<<<-- Originally posted by Mike Ostracky : When shooting in frame mode you can control everything, and that`s the beauty of film making - manual, the only way to go ;)

Anamorphic on GL2 (XM2) does widescreen "the right way" - it stretches it, it (luckily !) doesn`t letterbox the image - but still, the anamorphic lens is the best way to go.

On great majority of modern TV sets you have 16:9 button on remote to "unstretch" the picture - thus making it appear as it should, widescreen and without any resolution lost (which is noticable when letterboxing).

Hope that helps. -->>>

Hey Jerry,

Yes, GL2 (XM2) creates full resolution anamorphic widescreen image - but still, you loose some small percentage of resolution (the same you would loose by letterboxing) because that area is really cropped and whole image is than stretched.

The interesting part is that GL2`s widescreen produces suprisingly good looking images, far better than letterboxing or anything you could do in post - there was an article about it (with images), but I can`t remember the URL.

There is an interesting, pretty cheap way of doing great looking widescreen without anamorphic adapter (which is expensive) - wide angle adapter (WD-58h) + in camera widescreen mode = excellent image.

My meager two cents...
what they said- but if you want to add a "blurred" effect, why not shoot it and add the effect in post? I believe a "motion blur" filter will give you the desired effect. Not sure what you are editing with however.

good luck,

Jeff Patnaude

motion blur isn't really what you want to use....use gaussian blur, add a little glow and film grain, too.

De-interlace VS. Frame Mode
 

Is there a difference between De-interlacing in post production and filming in the Frame Mode?

It seems to me that de-interlacing on Final Cut Pro would achieve the same effect as filming in the Frame Mode on the GL2.

Any thoughts or experiences with this?

Thanks,
Dave

Yes, actually, there is a difference. Frame mode on Canon cameras such as the GL2 is, for most practical purposes, progressive mode shooting. That is, both fields are simultaneously produced from the scene in each frame of the video.

Software deinterlacing is a synthetic process that generates one field from the contents of the other in each frame.

This is not to say that all software deinterlacing is necessarily inferior to frame mode shooting from an aesthetic perspective. But it is never truly the same as progressive scene capture.

If you explore software deinterlacing more deeply you will soon discover that it comes in two varieties. The simplest (and least desirable) deinterlacing algorithms are those that simply copy one field directly to the other verbatim. The more sophisticated deinterlacers use proprietary algorithms to "intelligently" generate one field from the other field and from the contents of the previous and the next frames.

This is an easy matter to explore for yourself by experimenting with your GL2 and your NLE.

Have fun!

I thought that the pixel shift technique that the Canon uses is not "progressive", but so sort of in-camera de-interlace.

Either way, Ken's right that if you shoot true progressive, you're not going to get better in post. However, there are many ways to de-interlace, and adaptive, or smart deinterlacers like which are used in my Film Effects work extrememely well - Iv'e got some example pictures of 60i v 24p on my web site at:

http://www.nattress.com/BirdBrains/b...nsPictures.htm

Which shows how good software de-interlacing can be! It's certainly worth experimenting with the Canon's frame mode v software de-interlacing though.

Graeme

I've found that shooting without Frame Mode and rendering to Vegas's Progressive field order and 24fps turns out overall more film-like than frame mode alone. I've done many tests too.

I also tried Magic Bullet vs Vegas and I liked Vegas better.

I mean, let's say you edit the project in Vegas.....putting in everything you're going to do including effects/color corrections and stuff, then dump it back to dv format, or uncompessed, which is going to be a very large file, then you convert it to MB.

After that.... You pretty much have to output it uncompressed because in MB the dv/dvpro codec looked horrid for some reason. I figured it shouldn't be, like when you dump it from vegas to dv format, but it's not the same for some reason. You have to use MB in uncompressed, which sucks. Then it has to go back into Vegas so you can make a DVD NTSC/PAL movie out of that.

So I did some tests on both ways and using Vegas with 60fps to 24fps with effects looked great. Granted the mpeg2 encoder Vegas uses might not be THE BEST....you could always go with Procoder on it's highest setting, which will take forever, but should look the best you can get.

You might not notice on normal TV's, but in HDTV the mpeg2 encoder will show it's weaknesses.

That's my 2 cents.

Graeme: that's basically correct. But it isn't a true de-interlace
either. The timings are changed so that the full signal is recorded
at the same time basically. It doesn't use the full CCD array for
everytime since it isn't a progressive CCD array. This is where
the pixelshift technology comes into play. The downside is that
you loose (color) resolution but it basically is captured at one
point in time instead of two.

Progressive vs Frame Mode vs Progressive Shutter
 

Perhaps Rob can explain a little more about how the Frame mode works. I currently have an original Canon Optura which films in progressive and I use this to catch fleeting moments, capturing 640 x 480 stills in action shots.

Would the GL2 in frame mode give better resolution than my old optura in progressive mode? I realize GL2 has better low light sensitivity, but assume there is plenty of light. What is the trade off between frame mode and progressive scan?

Sony uses progressive shutter. Is this the same as Canon's frame mode?

How can you capture an entire 640 x480 frame at one point in time using an interlace sensor?

Progressive vs Frame Mode vs Progressive Shutter
 

I did some experiments comparing my Optura's progressive scan mode to deinterlaced interlace mode, using several different deinterlacers (Adobe Photoshop, iMovie, Image DV) and the progressive scan mode was always better.

I did find a thread that explained how frame mode in the GL2 has identical resolution to progressive scan using an interlace scanner(by scanning the green CCD of one field at the same point in time as the red and blue CCD scanning the second field). The picture resolution is maintained, but you lose some color resolution compared to true progressive scan.

I looks like I will work towards buying a GL2, unless a GL3 comes out soon.

I don't know why people complain about the "uselessness" of the two megapixel photo mode compared to just carying a separate digital camera. To my knowledge there are no digital camera offering a 20 X optical zoom

Does anyone know how Sony's progressive shutter works?

Article on progressive scan
 

For an excellent article on the various flavours of progressive scan you can check out Steve Mullen's article at:

http://videosystems.com/ar/video_progressive_need_know/

Yikes! The paper by Steve Mullen is very good, but if I understand the paper correctly, there are some significant compromises by using frame mode compared to progressive scan.

The good news is that 1) frame mode collects twice as much light (6 dB more sensitive) so it will have better low light sensitivity. and 2) there is no interlace artifacts because both fields are collected at the same time. The bad news is that the vertical resolution is deteriorated from 480 effective scan lines down to 320 because of summations. Partial RGB Elements from 3 rows are summed together to give the information of a single row, elements being delayed one row time or two row times so they all are from the same point in time.

According to the paper the 320 vertical resolution of frame mode is slightly worse than the effective vertical resolution of 360 for interlace video. Frame mode, though, has no loss of horizontal resolution because no deinterlacing is needed, but interlace video would suffer this loss. The deinterlacer then can recover it.

I guess the bottom line is progressive scan is best as long as you are not in a low light situation. After that, frame mode would probably be next best in quality if significant movement is present; otherwise deinterlaced interlaced video would be next best.

I hope Canon puts progressive scan back in their high end cameras.

I probably should have also mentioned that the reason interlace video has a vertical resolution of 360 instead of 480 is because, according to the article, interlace video also does summation of two rows to make one row in an effort to boost sensitivity by 6 dB. Frame mode uses parts of 3 rows, giving you the 320. This summation stuff is therefore used by both interlace and frame mode methods.

Whenever I use frame mode on a tripod with OIS on, the pans seem "smoother" than when OIS is off...... maybe its just me?

To shoot in FRAME mode?
 

Forgive me if this is a repeat topic, I did do some searching on google, but found the topic a bit confusing. Anyhow, I am just about to begin shooting a project on my new GL-2 (which is a fine piece of equipment). Anyhow, the final output of this project will be to DVD. I was wondering if it's considered better to shoot with FRAME mode or to shoot in regular video (interlaced) and then do the de-interlace in post. Does this give better results?

One more question, not quite sure exactly how FRAME mode works, but I am going to be shooting in a club (low light) is having this on going to decrease my shutter speed more than it should be?

Thanks a bunch!

Welcome Christopher,

Here are some threads that will help to get you started on this subject. Make a pot of coffee end enjoy!

Welcome to the boards! Give the search button up in the upper right a try.

I did a search for a "deinterlace frame" and here are a few relevent results:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...me+deinterlace
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...me+deinterlace

Give those a read and do that search (or whatever you feel will get you close to the info you're looking for) and you should be able to find what you're looking for. If not just ask again and someone should have some good info for you.

Cheers,
Brian

Do some tests yourself! If you set your camera in manual mode
you can easily see if you loose light when changing modes (since
this will be apparent).

DVD might benefit from a "progressive" like video stream, but with
any system, do some tests prior. Keep in mind that de-interlacing
in post adds to render time and other things. You cannot get the
same look through de-interlacing as you can with frame mode
because the material originates differently in that mode.

Which is BETTER solely depends on what look you are after and
which software you have available. Run some tests to see which
way you like.

Keep in mind that the best method for testing frame mode and
de-interlacing software is to do it with subjects moving in your
frame or your camera moving around. A still shot from a tripod
basically has no interlacing.

cam or frame mode for stills??
 

What give me a better image using the 1.7 M.P. camera in my GL2 or filming in frame mode and grab a frame and printing it ? If you were to convert a single frame to M.P. any idea what it would be?

Frame movie mode all the way for this one... for best results, just pickup a nice 3 mp camera, they're under 150 bucks at walmart.

I think the 1.7MP still would be better as its much bigger size than the Frame mode grabbed image. but with Frame mode you have heaps of stills to choose from.

I've used both and the 1.7mp is a better quality when printed to any size above 3".

After further review; you're correct the 1.7mp would work better for printing however with that amount of resolution you're really looking at small prints, IMHO 4x6 would be a problem and you may be very limited as to what you can do. For this again I suggest getting a kodak or similar 3mp cam, again they're cheap now.

For my work since I usually make slideshows of my projects for my customers, I usually shoot in Frame and do grabs for another sub-project or slide show.

I did not buy the GL2 to take photos with. BUT! after using the photo mode I think it takes damn good photos. I have a lot of outdoor photos of wildlife that a lot of my friends now use for wallpaper on desk tops. But I have not tried to grab any photo stills from the film yet. And not sure I know how to do that yet?

I don't know much about still cameras, but would you have the same type of zoom on a $150.00 3 meg pix camera as I do on my GL2? That would be hard for me to use a camera if it were less than my GL2 even tho it is only 1.7 mp. People think I have some big mp still camera that I take these photos with and they find it hard to belive that it is only 1.7

Steve

Depending on the software you are using to capture and edit your video, most if not all of them have an "export frame" option. I'm using Adobe premiere, and I just drag and drop the footage on the timeline. Then track to the frame that I want and select |file|, |export|, |frame|.

I use photoshop to manipulate.

See www.filekfilms.com/freudpics.html for some examples of frame mode with gl2 from actual footage.

GL2 1.7 vers Canon Camera 3.2
 

My friends and I both shot 10 photos of the same subject under same lighting conditions, I used my GL2 1.7 MP . He used Canon Power Shot 3.2MP digital camera.
There was no difference in color or detail when we printed them at 4x6 at local photofinsher. Infact my GL2 shots were sharper, could be the lens on the GL2 makes up for the lower MP's?

The photo mode on the GL2 have one exellent point: you can use its very amazing 20x zoom, white balance, manual exposure adjustments, you can also be able to manipulate with DOF... On the other hand there is one big negative thing: only 1.7mp.

So you can make an exellent photos but you will not be able to do anything with them because of limited 1.7mp.

I am asking myself, is there any solution or must I buy for example Nikon D 70 (cheaper models are not satisfying my expectations and needs).

Marko Zorec

Shutter speeds in Frame mode with GL2?
 

Hi all. New to the GL2 and looking for some tips.

What is the concensus for shutter speeds while in frame mode with the GL2?

My specific usage in question is for filming forward facing (road & scenery) driving sequences between 30-50mph. Usually in very bright, sunny conditions at very high altitude (8k-14k feet). Not that it should make any difference for shutter speed, but we're also using the 58H Wide Angle lens and no other filters.

Preliminary results look good with Tv 60, ND on, and possibly an AE Shift of +.25 to brighten the frame mode picture.

Our end product will be viewed on PC screens, so this is one reason for us to use frame mode (less post time by not deinterlacing).

Welcome Bryan,
In all modes, 1/60 is your native shutter speed for NTSC. That is, video will generally look best if you can shoot at that shutter speed. In fact it's not a bad idea just to assume that shutter speed is unchangeable from that number.

"However, if you’re locked off and the tripod is on an unsteady surface like a press platform or there is vibration from wind, etc., image stabilization can be very helpful."

from www.alanbarker.com

doesn't panasonic use a OIS&EIS combination?

Disadvantages to Frame Movie Mode?
 

Are there any?

There is a slight degradation of picture quality. You can test this for yourself by coupling the camera to a TV monitor and try switching from frame to normal. It can be quite acceptable however.
Here's a sequence I shot yesterday in frame mode with the Title Mix letterbox function enabled.
It's a big file, so you need ADSL ;-)
http://robindr.neptune.com?selectedalbum=robindr54027

Robin

Very pretty video, Robin. Reminds me of my trips to Ireland. I'm jealous that you folks in the British Isles have so many "scenic vistas" at your disposal!

You loose 25% of vertical resolution when using frame mode (horizontal resolution remain the same). But many folks, including me, prefer this softer look.

Jason,

Jason

The 25% resolution mentioned above, is accurate, and also overstated.There's a pretty good discussion of frame mode here (I should know, I wrote it):

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=27777

skip down to the bottom of the first page, and onto the second for the skinny on frame mode...or do a search on all of dvinfo...as this has been a hot topic for years....lots of discussion.

Barry

I just got my GL2 this week, and in my (thusfar limited) tests, Frame Mode has produced some noticably "jittery" video. Especially when panning, one can almost see the picture "jumping" between frames. Is this normal? Is there some setting I can change to smooth this out?

Congratulations on your new GL2, Joe!

>> Is this normal?
This is normal.

>>Is there some setting I can change to smooth this out?

Smoother, slower pans. A good tripod is your friend. When shooting with any camera in progressive-scan mode (like Frame mode) handle the camera like a film camera. That is, use deliberate, controlled motion. It's also best to keep your shutter speed at 1/60.

Search this forum for more info on Frame mode matters. It's a well-worn topic.