Messages

26

Camera-specific Development / Re: Canon 7D Mark II

« on: November 07, 2014, 07:38:30 PM »

I'm really interested in the 7D mkii also - looking to upgrade body finally and kind of stuck inbetween getting a 7d mkii or just springing a few hundred extra and getting a used 5d iii. Magic Lantern is playing a big part of my decision making process although I've heard extremely good reviews about the 7d mkii so far 

27

Modules Development / Re: Dual ISO - massive dynamic range improvement (dual_iso.mo)

« on: April 22, 2014, 12:27:33 AM »

Just wanted to share - I used Dual ISO mode outdoors today on a real-estate shoot where you were under a lot of big large oak trees (lots of shadows and dark areas) but the sky was a beautiful bright blue out, and the pictures just came out, so, so awesome. The dynamic range has always been my #1 complaint of my T3i and this seriously has fixed it. Its not over processed looking or anything, it just works awesome.

Not a technical response given the nature of this thread but just wanted to say thank you x9999999 

28

Shoot Preparation / Re: Dialing in focus for distances / Soft images

« on: April 20, 2014, 06:22:27 PM »

Here is a perfect example of what I'm talking about,

at the 2:33-2:37 mark, pause it, and you'll see how there is no detail in anything, its sorta "muddy". In many other shots though, its quite good.

Is that a focus issue, or lack of available bit-rate?

That video was done with the same hardware I have basically, and that is almost an exact representation I keep running into...

29

Shoot Preparation / Re: Dialing in focus for distances / Soft images

« on: April 20, 2014, 05:36:53 PM »

Thanks, I'll check those out.

I'm possibly getting into uncharted territory now - but is there a way to basically take the raw capability, and use JPGs instead? Surely that would save a lot of bandwidth, and you'd have a whole lot higher resolution to work with you could scale down to 1920x1080 and perhaps capture the additional detail that way? Poor man's raw sort of? I know there is the shutter lock open option, perhaps I will experiment some more with this myself, I know there isn't enough bandwidth to take 18mp 30 frames per second, but even if you scaled the images down to say 2400x something, It might be an improvement over the stock video encoding?

I'm just really unhappy with the quality in the wider angle shots, and I'm glad to hear this may be a technical limitation moreso than my videography capabilities (which I had been trying to resolve...lol)

30

Shoot Preparation / Re: Dialing in focus for distances / Soft images

« on: April 18, 2014, 11:21:57 PM »

So...can I achieve similar sharpness with my camera in post, or in setup? Its hard to imagine its even possible looking at the clips off the camera. Is there any sort of an inbetween mode for h264 besides raw where I can get a better bit rate that'll preserve stuff a bit more perhaps?

The explanation about there being more data in wider shots and therefore not allowing to capture as much details as close ups makes a lot of sense, but I'd like to learn how to mitigate that as much as possible...

31

Shoot Preparation / Dialing in focus for distances / Soft images

« on: January 16, 2014, 06:02:50 PM »

I've played around with magic lantern for about a year now and have had awesome success recording up close, shallow depth of field stuff using it on my T3i, imagery that just makes my jaw drop its so good 

The problem is, for some reason, I still seem to be completely unable to dial in the focus on a broad, wide area. Lets say instead of zooming in and focusing on a specific few leaves of a tree, I want to get the whole branch, or the whole thing maybe after I've backed off 50ft or so. I've tried dialing in with magic zoom and set it to as close as I can get it, but it never looks good on a monitor...Much more like something from a late 90's miniDV than the awesome footage I can make it do up close.

Example; I want to setup in a yard and just capture the trees around a house moving in the wind gently, birds flying around, etc. and it just looks plumb terrible in post. General settings would be 1/60 as recommended iso100-200 and Aperture no less than f8, which I would think would give me a pretty wide depth of field, if that is the problem. I've tried this with a few different lens, 18-55 kit lens, 10-22, and the 50 1.8 and I have the same problem with all of them, so I know its an operator error, just not sure what it is. Especially frustrating since I can get such awesome footage up close - my GoPro's make much clearer footage at these distances somehow.

Do I need to go wider on the aperture? I can post some clips if that' be of assistance.