I recently needed to uprez some footage from 160×120 to HD. I used the occasion to give Red Giant’s Instant HD a try-out. The results looked decent, but for comparison I also simply adjusted the motion settings in Final Cut Pro. Surprizingly, to me those results looked actually better.
A fun compilation of all those films that use the (non-existing) enhance function that is part of any science-fiction/tech-thriller/computer-action movie. Enjoy!
(via)
In the past months I have written about a number of upcoming exciting technologies, namely the ability to enhance video using high-res stills, a new lens that will allow you to chose the focus in post production and of course an on-line lens cleaning tool.
Video sensors have a lower contrast range than film, meaning how much darkness and highlights they can record. This manifests itself in blown out windows, and noisy shadows.
Video sensors also have the tendancy of getting an always increasing pixel count. 4k cameras are already being sold by the thousands, and next year will see 3k video cameras aimed at the mass market and professional cameras exceeding 5k resolutions. At the same time digital cinema maxes out at 4k resolution (with many cinemas opting for the more affordable 2k solution). Technically, it is possible to make 16k cameras. But isn’t that just overkill?
Well, some smart minds have come up with a novel concept. Rather than using the extra – but essentially unneeded – resolution as such, why not use it for something else, more useful. Why not cover every other pixel of the sensor with a tiny ND (neutral density) filter? That way one could extend the contrast ratio of that sensor by several stops. Thus yielding a higher contrast ratio than film.
This is exciting!
Robots are also on their way into our lives. One particular type of robot will be of great help for documentary film makers, and other shooters out in the wild. A robotic dog that acts as a mule.
BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.
Pretty much every web site nowadays has some video on it. Soon every company will have a presentation video, and manuals are getting pushed aside for instructional videos. And now, e-ink is taking a first leap into mainstream. Esquire will distribute 100.000 copies of its October magazine with an e-paper cover that includes moving type.
In other words: the demand for quality images increases; at the same time novel tools for their creation are added to our palette.
Exciting times, indeed.
Florian Andrei pointed me to a paper discussing a new approach to combining stills and video photography to get much better results. This leads to
Here is a video explaining the idea with examples
P.S. I do notice the irony that since my warning against posting on Vimeo I have only used Vimeo examples…
Found a great paper by Canon on lens theory, which also explains the common terminology used in lens construction. The paper also includes an extensive collection of graphs showing the optical resolution of all Canon lenses, both wide open and at F8.
Great resource if you have a Canon stills camera, or a Red One with the very soon forthcoming Birger mount (video link).
As a follow-up on my previous post, here is a bit more information about that truly mesmerizing Adobe research project, which proposes to build lenses that act as multiple lenses. This will enable the camera to take multiple pictures at once, shifting the job of setting focus from the Focus Puller to the post production process.
Take Several Shots at Once With multiple eyes—Adobe’s prototype has 19—the light-field camera is even more perceptive. Each of its lenses is faced with a prism set at a unique angle, so it can take 19 pictures simultaneously, with each capturing a different part of the scene in focus. Each image uses a piece of the sensor, so a 100-megapixel camera will yield 19 5.2-megapixel shots.
Fill in the Blanks But the process doesn’t stop there. Adobe software can analyze the 19 captured photos and from them generate thousands of intermediate images so that each shot seamlessly morphs into those adjacent. Then images are layered, like thin sections, producing a three-dimensional simulation of the scene in which every piece of it is in focus.
Paint in Your Focus Because a light-field photograph is dynamic—virtually three-dimensional—focus can be selectively painted in with a “focus brush,” allowing the photographer to bring details from both foreground and background into focus—something that’s currently impossible in a single photo. Or future online photo sites could let viewers manipulate a photo’s focus as they choose.
(Excerpt from PopSci.com.)
As a former Focus Puller I find this very exciting, as the technology proposes to give the director so much more freedom in post. Ultimately, it will help to tell the story, and that is what camerawork should be all about. But also from a technical side, it appears that the age-old connection between aperture and depth-of-field ceases to exist. I can only begin to imagine the plethora of new creative uses this lens throws towards us camerapeople.
In stills photography, resolution has quickly increased from a mere 250.000 pixel to two-digit megapixels. The video world has been much more conservative. Until a few years back, there was only SD, which has about 1/4 megapixels. HD is just now starting to catch on, which delivers roughtly between 3/4 and under 2 megapixels. But already now, some camera producers are pushing forward with 2k and even higher resolutions. But my guess is that 4k will only the beginning.After having gotten used to DVD quality, old VHS films are almost painful to watch. Looks like the same will happen to HD in the not-too-far future…
For an camera operator, the biggest handicap with the modern cameras are their viewfinders, which simply do not show all of the resolution that camera records. The Red One for example, shows the operator only a fraction of the total resolution. Which means that the operator can never be sure in critical focus situations. Now that Adobe Lens would relieve us from one worry.Now, for the career Focus Puller this does pose some trouble. That title might just fade out, and revert to “1st AC”. But I would suggest to learn more about the new workflows around digital acquisition, and I am sure there will always be enough work in the camera dep´t.
