[OBSOLETE] Raw deflickering for timelapse

Started by a1ex, September 04, 2012, 09:33:54 PM

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Malcolm Debono

Quote from: scrax on September 09, 2012, 08:40:04 PM
theuy also read exif data so why have another file?

EXIF data is read-only and shows values that were used at the moment that a photo was taken (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, WB, etc.). XMP files contain much more info, and they are read/write. All the settings available in ACR (Adobe Camera RAW) such as highlights, shadows, noise reduction, colour shifts, etc. can be saved and read from the XMP.
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leandroprz

Regarding the XMP files, I don't know if you are aware of this, Alex, but what people is asking for, is something similar to what LRTimelapse does.

a1ex

What do you mean? LRTimelapse has a huge feature list and they say it already does almost perfect deflickering.

jayhas

Here is my test using the script default on a short bramped timelapse at sunset. AE renders of scripted, original and Sapphire plugin flicker remove.



Thanks a1ex for letting me try the script. It works really well. Like others have mentioned here XMP output will be great. I don't have any knowledge of coding or programming so have no idea how easy or difficult it is to implement. No matter what thanks for ML.

Nick

Quote from: a1ex on September 10, 2012, 06:42:31 AM
What do you mean? LRTimelapse has a huge feature list and they say it already does almost perfect deflickering.

Far from it really according to my experience :/

dan.g

Quote from: Nick on September 10, 2012, 12:01:52 PM
Far from it really according to my experience :/

I second that. But then again, it might be that I didn't really get the grip of LRTimelapse. Best thing one can do is to adjust manually every single RAW file, but this is close to a nightmare. And if you aren't a pro obsessed with details, it hardly justifies the time spent on this procedure.

I'm still trying to run the script that Alex provided to us; unfortunately it freezed my PC earlier this morning. Gonna give it a second try before buying a better PC in a couple of months.

btw Nick, nice timelapse, even if it's more or less a technology preview. Can't wait to see some nice footage from you! Also, nice sunset Jayhas!
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a1ex

XMP confirmed to be working, update coming soon :)

Nick

Quote from: a1ex on September 10, 2012, 09:12:16 PM
XMP confirmed to be working, update coming soon :)

Great :D looking forward to testing this.

leandroprz

Quote from: a1ex on September 10, 2012, 06:42:31 AM
What do you mean? LRTimelapse has a huge feature list and they say it already does almost perfect deflickering.

I mean the writing to the XMP file, LRTimelapse does that to every RAW file. But from my experience, LRT is not really great at deflickering, I mainly use it for ramping exposures/WB.

I have a shot I'd like to deflicker with your script. Please send me the GUI tool so I can test it.

Edit:
Quote from: a1ex on September 10, 2012, 09:12:16 PM
XMP confirmed to be working, update coming soon :)
Great!

Malcolm Debono

Quote from: a1ex on September 10, 2012, 09:12:16 PM
XMP confirmed to be working, update coming soon :)

Cool! Looking forward to it :)
Wedding & event cinematographer
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Malcolm Debono

Quick test I shot yesterday:



The deflickered version is definitely much better, although you can still see when the ramping took place. Next time I will also use the turn-lens trick to reduce flicker caused by EF lens.
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leandroprz



This was shot in Av. It did a pretty good job considering the crazy amount of flicker. I guess a second pass will get rid of all the flicker.

a1ex

I smell some incompatibility with Av mode. Keep the RAW footage for this, it's a good test subject.

leandroprz

Quote from: a1ex on September 12, 2012, 06:43:38 PM
I smell some incompatibility with Av mode. Keep the RAW footage for this, it's a good test subject.
Don't worry, I never delete my RAWs.

I tried everything to save that footage. Finally I got rid of the flicker using LRTimelapse + Donald Graft's deflicker plugin for Virtual Dub, the second one did the magic.

TheJuice

Small question before I test : Will it work with Small raw files (half res) ?

a1ex


TheJuice

Quote from: a1ex on September 29, 2012, 05:06:44 PM
Of course.
Ok thanks. I asked because a famous software I use (DxO) does not support those files afaik.

Roman

I had a play with this the other night, worked nicely but my footage was a little shoddy, need to give it another run. :)

Just some general thoughts about bulb ramping/post process correction...

In my mind it seems that how your eye/brain expects to perceive brightness transitions isnt (necesarily) consistent with having the whole scene sampled.

For example,

Lets say you are shooting a timelapse that has 50% foreground items, 50% background hills and sky.

Lets say that where you are standing, there is no cloud cover overhead, consistent lighting conditions of foreground items.
The only change to foreground item brightness occurs with the reducing natural sunlight or whatever.
However in the background of what you are shooting, there are rolling clouds causing rapid variations in brightness to the sky in that portion of your shot.

When the clouds dissapear and it's bright sky, the brightness of the sky causes exposure compensation to the foreground, despite no fluctuating lighting changes actually occuring there.
And vice versa.

The visual impact is an exposure 'wobble' to foreground items which was not present in reality, and a single foreground items flicker event across many frames that is impossible to compensate for when sampling the whole frame.

What I think would work well to eliminate this would to have two groups of RAW files to work from initially.

Folder A contains images to sample from
Folder B contains images to apply correction to
Folder C contains output images

In folder A, you edit the images so that they no longer contain the 'unstable' portions, for example you could crop out the sky, or mask out areas perhaps so it only samples from the foreground or areas where you want the stability in ramping.
Then you run the script, so something like:

FolderA\Image1.CR2 - checks exposure etc of cropped image (foreground items only)
FolderB\Image1.CR2 - applies brightness settings across to the whole scene contained in this file
FolderC\Image1.JPG - the output file

So you should be able to eliminate the 'long' flicker events quite easily I'd imagine.

The video thats a few posts above with the mountain with the clouds rolling overhead is an example of where I think the above methodology would perhaps work great, if you sampled from only the bottom half of the shot for exposure correction.

a1ex

Right - my solution for these cases would be to crop the input images, so clouds are not included in exposure metering. Or, adjust the percentile a bit, like in ML bulb ramping.

Currently it's not easy to change the percentile - you can get 25% and 75% quite easy with two median calls, but for arbitrary percentiles - this needs to be written from scratch.

Roman

Yep for sure.

I'm sure there'll be some software kicking around that can do a batch crop of RAW files. :)

I might take a timelapse where this scenario is likely, and then try run your program against a set of full and cropped RAW files and compare results to see if it would give useful results.

Roman

One question.

My understanding of RAW format is that it effectively captures all ISO levels.

However when you are setting up your shot and previewing it, the ISO you've selected adjusts the brightness of the preview shot at least.

So if you were shooting a RAW picture at ISO 100 it'll show you that you need a longer exposure than if you were at ISO 800 (And the bramp jumps ISO too in order to pick a shorter exposure again)

Is it better to aim for exposure time etc to suit ISO 800 (for example) as your end result, to give you more room to move it 'up or down' in post or are you always better off aiming for as lower an ISO as possible?

And if so, is it possible to lock it to say ISO 100 if you're shooting a timelapse in RAW so it adjusts exposure time only?

ilguercio

Captures all ISO?
What do you mean?
???
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Roman

If you shoot a (for example) 12 second long exposure at F8 in RAW,

My understanding is that whether you shoot at ISO 100 or ISO 800, all of the same information is captured in the file, as ISO is a digital gain/amplification that is applied some time after the RAW data is captured... So can be done in post.

Although, I probably need to read up on it a bit more to get a better understanding.

ilguercio

Quote from: Roman on October 04, 2012, 08:32:50 PM
If you shoot a (for example) 12 second long exposure at F8 in RAW,

My understanding is that whether you shoot at ISO 100 or ISO 800, all of the same information is captured in the file, as ISO is a digital gain/amplification that is applied some time after the RAW data is captured... So can be done in post.

Although, I probably need to read up on it a bit more to get a better understanding.
ISO can't be changed in post, what are you talking about?
???
The "normal" ISO of a camera are generated by amplifying the signal, just like you amplify the sound of an instrument.
The digital ISO are obtained in camera, that's it.
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nanomad

He's half right, sort of.

Analog ISO can't be obtained in post processing.
Sometimes you can obtain the same effect of digitally pulled/pushed ISO in post processing altough the in-camera ISO settings is usually better as it is applied before raw / jpeg processing
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