is it better to lower the sharpnes in camera? or post?
 

ive read that you should lower the cameras sharpness/detail in the camera to have more of a film look. but wouldn't it be better to do it in post?

I'd definitely keep it in post for any blurries. Especially as you can't sharpen something back up.

Andrew

Likewise... Keep the stuff shot by the camera as pristine as possible, then manipulate to your hearts content in post.

Especially if you decide the "settings" are not what you wanted.... saves doing a reshoot..

Ben

Seeing as in-camera sharpness is *adding* sharpness, not *removing* blurriness, I would recommend shooting with no sharpness in-camera and sharpening in post as needed. Most NLEs have better tools for sharpening than cameras do anyhow.

It's best to test this with your tools and workflow, and find out what method works best in your situation, rather than relying on an internet answer from someone unaware of your camera, shooting situation, post tools.

Good Luck!

You can't soften in post. You certainly add soft glows etc in post, but that doesn't 'soften' the image as such. If your camera has its sharpness setting up at default or higher then it will add in edge enhancement 'halos'. You cannot get rid of these easily.

Contrary to what Andrew Smith said you *can* sharpen things back up in post using the unsharp mask filter. If your video already has detail enhancement in the image then you can't get rid of it. But if you start off with your camera detail set lower then it is much easier to add sharpness.

Remember, when you lower the detail setting on your camera you are not getting rid of actual detail. The detail level will be the same. All you are doing is reducing the amount of detail enhancement, which basically works by adding cartoon like lines around everything increasing the apparent contrast of edges. On the flip side, if you soften in post then you will almost certainly be getting rid of actual detail.

Reducing the detail level on the camera also has many benefits. For one thing it will make things a lot easier on the recording codec, especially for HDV cameras. The second is that by reducing the amount of high frequency edges in the picture you will minimise the effect of 'judder' from using framerates like 24p.

Yeah, that Andrew Smith bloke has one of those smarmy Matrox X.100 real-time editing systems with Premiere and as a consequence he lives totally within what the Matrox real-time filters have. That silly git forgot about even looking through Premiere's native filter sets!

:-)

Andrew

If the sharpness setting makes no real difference to detail why could an FX-7 i had record more of test card lines the higher the setting was,ie quite noticable between 0 and 7.

You would need to post the chart here for me to see. However what you are probably seeing is just the result of the extra contrast between detail as a result of the detail setting.

When you adjust the detail setting you cannot add extra detail over and beyond what the chip is capturing. That is impossible I'm afraid.