Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Messages - KarelBata

#1
General Chat / Re: 19Lights / GingerHDR gone forever?
January 04, 2016, 11:10:23 AM
Rather naughty that every trace of this software has disappeared after some folks went and bought it!

After some hunting around I've found a copy of the plug-in for After Effects on Mac (only) here http://www.mediafire.com/download/hv5wou2duc2vorw/GingerHDR-Beta-2012-02-01-mac.rar

The 2012 demo expiration has been removed. Put the plug in your AE plug-ins folder, and run the licence file. So far working on CS6 and CC2015 here. Should run on CS4! I think it runs in Premiere too.

If anyone starts using this again please post that you've done so here and we can maybe get a thread going exchanging tips.

Cheers!  ;)
#2
It depends on the effect you're after. At the moment the tools available don't really lend themselves to going for conventional high quality video - you're better off looking at your lenses, lighting, etc. Of course there are exceptions. But for the classic HDR look this will just about work. But it will mean a lot of work in post. And shooting on the London Underground didn't help me - it's very dark down there! So more noise to clean up. And you have to have a suitable script - just plonking this 'look' on to something that could just as easily be shot conventionally doesn't make a lot of sense.

Sync is an issue, so you have to shoot with minimal movement, particularly in the X axis. And no pans. No camera shake. That sounds restrictive. It is, but take a look at this  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVGAlOLLiJo Shot using two Canon 105s. There was a lead problem, so had to go non-sync. There appears to be a lot of movement, but nothing ever crosses the entire frame. It's all in the Z axis. You think carefully about what you're shooting.
#3
Ah - you mean open it in Photoshop?  ;D

I thought it was a bit big!

So what's the 'normal' data rate?

#5
This is getting mightily confusing.

SuperHans, I downloaded your file to, as you say, compare. But what exactly am I meant to compare it to? It looks good, but compared to what?

1%, As it happens I've posted and encoded a lot of video. A large file size, or bit rate, doesn't mean anything in itself. You're just playing a numbers game. Check out this graphic taken from http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Encoding-for-YouTube-How-to-Get-the-Best-Results-83876.aspx

#6
General Chat / Re: Why is my picture soft?
July 25, 2012, 06:54:32 PM
Both at 2.8.

I was in a hurry so I may have left one (or both) accidentally on auto-focus. But if it were a focus (or back focus, or lens mount) issue, wouldn't something in the foreground be in focus..?
#7
General Chat / Why is my picture soft?
July 25, 2012, 06:23:21 PM
I've got a pair of Canon 600Ds on loan from a college, I took a quick test shot using each before leaving them in a locker there overnight. They both have Canon EF 24mm lenses which were set at infinity. The metadata says the exposures were 1/2000 and 1/4000, so there's a stop difference.

Any ideas why is one is so much sharper than the other? I could take it back to stores and have a moan, but the place is about to close up for the summer and I'd rather fix the problem myself so I can hang on to them for the next six weeks. Any ideas?



#8
Sorry for late reply.

Yes Tired, 60fps HDR.

EVERY shot is a major production. Really hard to maintain quality between shots. Lots of re-shoots that are testing the patience of everyone involved (tip- always cast for patient actors!).

Another tip - if you're going to do this, import and interpret all footage as 60, then set the whole edit to 30. When you're finished extract the two 30fps streams, export as JPEGs and tone-map. Expect that part to take a very long time. A 5 minute film will create 18000 JPEGs. (that's about 100GB!) If Photomatix takes 10 seconds to batch process each frame, it will take... about 25 hours! And that's before you start tweaking things. Complete madness.  :o

Should look good though.

I'm using AE, Photomatix, some Red Giant tools, and may well finish in a Mistika.

Looking forward to the 3D tools available now in Speedgrade CS6 which I hope wil, uh, speed up the post.  ;D
#9
Feature Requests / Re: Running two cameras in sync?
July 25, 2012, 05:30:53 PM
Sorry for late reply.

There's a huge mythology surrounding supposed sync fixes that other folks have come up with. None of them work. If they did, everyone would be doing it! You think we haven't tried?  ;D

The use of a remote is completely hit and miss. I do a lot of time-lapse HDR 3D, and use a hard wired controller - with those 2.5mm connectors Leon mentioned. When the cameras are running their click-click-click cycles every few seconds I can hear a time lag between the two. And it keeps changing, with no discernible pattern. I don't see how an infra-red controller would be more accurate than my hard wired one using a Y cord. And to get the level of sync in the picture I posted above would need sub-frame accuracy.

However...

The guys here are very clever. ;)
#10
Interesting advice John (and everyone else).

I still don't see how an increase in bitrate or file size will automatically improve the picture quality. All you may be doing is recording the same thing but with more bits! Rather like transcoding HDR to a huge ProRes4444 file and thinking you've somehow improved the original.

I've also never heard of how changing the ISO changes the bitrate. How does that work? (See? I'm not a copmplete know-it-all  ;) )

I'm using a pair of 600s (I shoot video in stereo 3D) with Sandisk Extreme Pro cards. If I need sound I use an external Marantz PMD660 recorder. It's not sync, but it does the job, and I don't do long takes.
#11
It's normal. I use a 600D and record at 1.8X. You'll have to get used to it. I find I can watch about 5 seconds at a time. I'm not bothered, but I can see why you might be.

May I ask - do you see any difference with increasing the bit rate?

;)
#12
Share Your Photos / Re: 3D HDR
June 24, 2012, 07:39:22 PM
Thanks guys!  ;)  I'll certainly keep you posted.

I've been at this, bit by bit since February. I only get the cameras a few days a month, and what hasn't helped is the atrocious weather lately in the UK - like one town got a month's rain in a day last week! Floods in June..?  :-\

And of course there's figuring out a workflow. The way I'm going to this is keep the + and - together and not sperate them, edit then grade it as per normal (once for + and again for -), and only then seperate out the two streams and tone-map them in one go, seperating out bits that need different tone-map settings.  And the stereo tools in Speedgrade CS6 should be a great help.

So easy to get disorganised with a project like this and be driven completely mad!
#13
Forum and Website / Re: site width
June 24, 2012, 07:26:12 PM
Would also be good if pictures were resized to fit the forum window? Some forums do that. Maybe it's an option in your package you just have to switch on? Or an add-on of some sort? My pics at http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=1087.msg1509;topicseen#msg1509 get cropped.

Otherwise, great forum!
#14

QuoteThe Picture Style of choice for Vincent Laforet, Philip Bloom, Jason Wingrove, and many others.

http://prolost.com/flat

Thoughts?
#15
I assume it does, or the ML team wouldn't include it?  ???

I can't say that I've noticed any difference, but in the meantime I leave it on 1.8x just in case there's something good going on I can't see, but that has an influence further down the pipeline. I do a lot of manipulating in post and anything that increases quality is welcome.

Anyone able to comment?  :)
#16
Feature Requests / Running two cameras in sync?
June 24, 2012, 03:10:30 PM
Asked for this in the Vimeo forum, but it's worth keeping it going.

Sync-ing two cameras would be SO good for us working in 3D. It would cause a revolution. Seriously. We're currently stuck with huge cameras, or small ones with poor image quality. To be able to use a pair of DSLRs would be a game-changer.

I know there's several claims to be able to do it, but they don't really work. If they did, we'd all be doing it.  ;D

The kind of level of sync needed for good 3D is shown here:



This was using a pair of Canon 105s that allow genlock (but Canon didn't say how in the manual!  >:( )


Cheers!  ;)
#17
Share Your Videos / ML HDR video - work in progress
June 24, 2012, 02:28:21 PM
Just some test stills to show at the moment - there's a  LOT of post still to be done. What you see is just the starting point - HDR workflow ia real pig.

p.s It's all in 3D!  :o

My heartfelt hanks to the ML team for such a fantastic tool!  ;)













#18
Share Your Photos / Re: 3D HDR
June 24, 2012, 01:59:13 PM
Forgot to add:

2x 600D
+/-2EV
IA: 7ft and 4ft.
Photomatix
#19
Share Your Photos / 3D HDR
June 24, 2012, 01:55:24 PM
Stills from a video currently in production:





Gonna be awesome!  ;D
#20
I've just discovered the digital zoom capability on the 600. For those of us working with primes (like in 3D) this is fantastic. Suddenly you have an extra set of lenses!

(For those not in the know, this is not the same as cheaper digital zooms that zoom in electronically on an image, thus losing resolution. Normally in video mode the 600 records every third pixel across the chip. This can cause moire. With digital zoom on and set to 3X , the camera selects every pixel from a smaller chip area, reducing moire and also magnifying the image by 3.)

More info here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AixwZupTyeA

However this is limited to the one 3X setting. Would it possible to have an additional setting that scans every second pixel? A halfway house that would yield another effective focal length on a prime? That would be so great - three lenses in one prime!