Thrilled to bits with the new/old camera I have with 972p raw, I decided to push the envelope a bit so I've tried the crop mode. I was getting a reasonable number of frames at 1920x818 with a Lexar 1000x card. However, I have been disappointed with the lack of sharpness compared to some of the examples I've seen on Vimeo. It just occurred to me however - I use a VAF7D (which I highly recommend for the 1278x972 or standard formats) and my limited understanding of the filter is that it's designed specifically for the 7D system spitting out 1080p using the default Canon setup. Perhaps the filter is not agreeing with the crop mode? I'll test (probably next weekend) but I was wondering if anyone else had experience with this? It's not the lens - 17-55 2.8, which is nicely sharp as long as I get the focus right. Maybe it's just my rubbish skilz?
While I'm here (yes, yes, off topic again but I'm already adding to the noise with the stuff above) I've been sneaking in a few of the ACR basic adjustments again as I prefer what I can do with my images compared to the other tools I have. No flickering but the examples I've been working on haven't had significant changes in lighting throughout the shot. And I've been very moderate. I just haven't been happy with what I've been getting from Cineform Studio Prem (using matrix numbers from this forum), or Speedgrade, or Resolve Lite using RAWs or DNGs - so far. Again, could be user error. But there's something to be said for getting pleasing images with minimal effort/talent. Well, relatively minimal.