Recommendation for shooting scenery.
 

Believe it or not I have mostly only shot indoor stage lit footage with the EX1 in the year or so that I have owned it. Now I have a job to shoot scenery (with people in the footage).

Since that appears to be the most prevalent EX footage on Vimeo, I though that many of you probably shoot a lot of that and was wondering what you would recommend in terms of mode.

End product will be an HD DVD and some SD DVDs.

My thought was HQ 1080i/60 to avoid the motion artifacts. Or do you think I should shoot progressive and limit the motion? Any other settings I should consider for best results?

I edit with Sony Vegas.

Thanks for the input.

John

You might want to check out some of the filters that are available. I like the Tiffen filters. They have a wide variety, depending on the effect you are looking for:
Filter Page

I'm assuming meant to say "End product will be an BluRay..." ?

No, he wants an HD DVD and an SD DVD. That part's easy.

But does anyone have any input for the questions I asked??

I will be shooting starting tomorrow.

Thanks,

John

Well,

Since no one has offered an opinion, I think that maybe I will shoot scenery and people involving panning at HQ 1080i/60 and also try some non-motion scenery shooting using Progressive. Then compare the two. I can always deinterlace or interlace later when I edit and render. My guess is that both will look the same anyway. No one method clearly better looking than the other.

I'll post my results. Perhaps it can help someone else at a future date.

John

John,

I never shoot interlaced because I don't like the way it looks. I shoot 1080/30P 99% of the time and I have not changed my way of shooting one bit from the old days of Betacam and other 60i formats. I've never seen motion artifacts with the EX footage. If motion was a problem, you'd see it in the air show fotoage I posted on Vimeo a few weeks ago.

I think you're anticpating a problem that does not exist. Maybe that's why there haven't been too many people stepping forward with tips. There really aren't any tips to share. Just keep doing whatever you've been doing.

De-Interlaced 60i footage will look slightly soft compared to 30P footage as the spacial resolution of 60i is lower than 30P, plus de-interlacing will tend to soften it a little more especially if there is lots of motion.

Thanks Alister,

Maybe then I will shoot 1080/30p and watch the motion.

Much appreciated.

John

It's not a huge difference, but it is there. I shoot all of my own material progressive, it's so much easier to handle in post. Given that just about every new monitor or TV sold for the last 2 years has been a progressive device I really cant see the point in shooting interlace any more.

It seems daft to produce an interlace DVD only for it to then be shown on an LCD or Plasma TV that bob de-interlaces the signal or de-interlaces it in some other way in order to display it. Even then you often end up with interlace artifacts.

Alister, I couldn't agree more. Interlaced is out.

I would have no reservation whatsoever towards the above statement, Alister - were it not for one little thing:

- apart from 24p (and all framerates of 720p), only interlaced streams are accepted by both DVD and BD specification.

Having said that, I shoot 100% progressive, as well. But I can't help feeling a little uneasy when rendering out my video streams from Vegas for DVD Architect to use in my DVD's or BD's... I'm assuming what I get when rendering 1080/25p into 1080/50i is really 25PsF, and no true interlacing (in terms of field time offset) takes place - but I have witnessed the dreadful combing in motion once or twice in such DVD/BD compliant streams!

I shoot 100% progressive because I produce documentary DVDs that people will play in their homes on 1080p blu ray players and 1080p Hi Def televisions.

I understand the primary reason for shooting 1080i is because that's the signal you'll get through your cable. (yes i is supposedly good for fast motion as well)

Piotr,

Do you find that Vegas gets the field order wrong sometimes when it renders? Some have alluded to this on the Vegas forums.

John

It also handles low light the best because it has two fields.

John

John,

I guess what Vegas might be getting wrong is not so much field order (for true PsF this should not matter), but the field dominance.