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7D Test Shoot - NCAA Basketball

Jon Howe

Jon Howe

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Video Link: http://vimeo.com/8590599

I purchased a 7D to cover the interim from now until Scarlet comes out - encouraged by the stuff people like Philip Bloom (Recently consulted Lucasfilm on using 7D and 5DMKII for the Upcoming Red Tails and Star Wars TV show) and Shane Hurlbut (Terminator Salvation DP - who is also pushing 5D and 7D film production) have been doing lately.

I've been shooting sports for a few years now - I've shot basketball on a RED (beautiful - but very heavy and cumbersome) and HVX (looks pretty good - but lighter and more maneuverable).

I shot tonight's BYU vs. UNLV game with the 7D as kind of my first test as to it's capabilities. I took two lenses - the stock Canon 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS USM (shooting with IS on), and my wide lens - Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. Full manual. No camera support - completely handheld.

I'd have to say the results were pretty mixed. I shot warmups at 1080p24 and the majority of the game at 720p60. At 24p I shot with 1/60 shutter - ISO 320-400 at a f7. At 60p I shot 1/250 shutter, ISO 800 at f7. My scene file was set to super-flat (contrast at -2 clicks, sharpness at 0)

I have found that the 720p footage suffers heavily from aliasing and excessive moire. It's really disappointing - and to a large degree frustrating. I was also surprised at the frequency rolling shutter artifacts I came along. Probably the strangest thing that I encountered was how occasionally frames would change brightness from one second to the next - I'm attributing this to internal body heat issues (I had that warning indicator for ~the last 7 minutes of each half - I didn't shoot every play - mostly BYU on offense).

I've thrown together a quick smattering of examples at the top of this post. The video has no CC, transcoded from H.264 to ProRes422 for edit.

When there weren't any horizontal lines in the frame and the camera was behaving like it was supposed to, I was quite pleased with the results. But good results were so inconsistent that I'll have a hard time shooting another sporting event with it.

I was hoping that this would be a good interim cam for sports until May rolls around - but I think I may have to migrate back to my HVX when shooting events. I think the 7D will fare better doing interviews and less 'action-y' shooting. Still, I'm disappointed overall.

If any of you have insight into resolving any of the issues that I encountered, I'd love to hear what you have to say. And I'd also say for those who are thinking about a 7D to consider the types of shooting you'll be doing with it.
 
Wow... Tokina 11-16
 
Jon Howe said:
Probably the strangest thing that I encountered was how occasionally frames would change brightness from one second to the next ...
Click to expand...

Try setting "Auto Lighting Optimizer" to "Disable"

What this feature is supposed to do is give the shadows a bump in gain to help keep your image to the right of the histogram. See page 75 in the Canon 7D manual (English edition)

It might be great for stills, but for motion pictures its a disaster. The software often finds unstable states, so it hunts between them. Its triggered by the same situations that might make autofocus hunt, but this is not improved with better lenses. Its particularly bad when you are intentionally exposing for a dark frame.

A simple fix Canon could implement for motion would be for it to find a setting at the start of recording and stick to it- good or bad, its better than flickering shadows.

On some footage I shot for a feature I experienced this. The effect of this is very hard to see on the camera LCD, but its pretty easy to see on external monitors.

I got tricked on set, because I had monitors, well TV's really, with dynamic contrast- which does the same thing sometimes. I felt pretty stupid later, because my 1AC and gaffer both pointed it out to me on set and I explained about the monitor behavior instead of checking it out thoroughly.

When ingest reported the problem too, like a day later, I was already well and truly f$cked.

In trying to fix it I found that applying a curve to lift the darkest shadow regions will help, provided its early in your image processing chain. (So in Color that would be primary in, or your first secondary correction)

The thinking is that when Auto Lighting Optimizer (ALO) kicks in, it raises all your shadows. So, if you lift shadows in post, then when ALO is on there are fewer if any shadows to lift, so nothing happens. When ALO is off or working at a reduced setting, then your shadow adjustment kicks in. This can even out the effect. It does require a subtle touch though to find the right level of adjustment- which varies from shot to shot.

Hope that helps.
 
Alexander Ibrahim said:
Try setting "Auto Lighting Optimizer" to "Disable"

What this feature is supposed to do is give the shadows a bump in gain to help keep your image to the right of the histogram. See page 75 in the Canon 7D manual (English edition)

It might be great for stills, but for motion pictures its a disaster. The software often finds unstable states, so it hunts between them. Its triggered by the same situations that might make autofocus hunt, but this is not improved with better lenses. Its particularly bad when you are intentionally exposing for a dark frame.

A simple fix Canon could implement for motion would be for it to find a setting at the start of recording and stick to it- good or bad, its better than flickering shadows.

On some footage I shot for a feature I experienced this. The effect of this is very hard to see on the camera LCD, but its pretty easy to see on external monitors.

I got tricked on set, because I had monitors, well TV's really, with dynamic contrast- which does the same thing sometimes. I felt pretty stupid later, because my 1AC and gaffer both pointed it out to me on set and I explained about the monitor behavior instead of checking it out thoroughly.

When ingest reported the problem too, like a day later, I was already well and truly f$cked.

In trying to fix it I found that applying a curve to lift the darkest shadow regions will help, provided its early in your image processing chain. (So in Color that would be primary in, or your first secondary correction)

The thinking is that when Auto Lighting Optimizer (ALO) kicks in, it raises all your shadows. So, if you lift shadows in post, then when ALO is on there are fewer if any shadows to lift, so nothing happens. When ALO is off or working at a reduced setting, then your shadow adjustment kicks in. This can even out the effect. It does require a subtle touch though to find the right level of adjustment- which varies from shot to shot.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Brilliant info - and very hidden away + haven't read about that at all!!

great post - cheers for that ..! seen it on so many DSLR videos now that i think about it.
 
If the camera is overheating, why not have 2 x bodies and switch when one sensor heats up?

They are cheap enough.
 
Zaphod said:
If the camera is overheating, why not have 2 x bodies and switch when one sensor heats up?

They are cheap enough.
Click to expand...

I doubt its overheating.

I've run the camera on 16 hour days without overheating.

This camera can work.

Where you might see overheating is if you are running with the camera LCD all day. I haven't seen a problem with that either though, but the camera does get physically hotter that way.

For cinema/video work though I prefer an LCD connected over the HDMI.

Also, while I am on the topic of the 7D, the main issue with moire is that the camera's optical low pass filter (OLPF) is optimized for 18Mpixels. Makes sense, being as how this is a still camera first.

One solution is to use a slight softening filter. A touch of softness can do wonders. Another solution is to use a wider aperture and select your subject carefully. Some combination of these almost always eliminated moire at 1080p.

As noted aliasing is far stronger at 720p. The same idea should work, but you may have to use unacceptably strong filtration- I haven't tested.
 
@Alexander, thanks for so much useful info. Sharing your knowledge is really helping me out. I was doing some reading about Iscorama anamorphic adaptors the other day and I read that the stretch helped to eliminate some aliasing. I'm currently scouring the internet for a place to buy one (I kind of missed the boat on getting one early).

Have you had any experience with anamorphic adaptors?
 
Jon Howe said:
@Alexander, thanks for so much useful info. Sharing your knowledge is really helping me out. I was doing some reading about Iscorama anamorphic adaptors the other day and I read that the stretch helped to eliminate some aliasing. I'm currently scouring the internet for a place to buy one (I kind of missed the boat on getting one early).

Have you had any experience with anamorphic adaptors?
Click to expand...

Nope, I haven't shot in anamorphic at all.

I was thinking about shooting some Hawks on a RED until 4.5k became available. As it turns out I haven't even touched a RED camera since 4.5k came out. :(

To the extent that the anamorphic adapter does soften the image it can help with some of the aliasing and moire. Just be aware that while it may help in the horizontal direction, aliasing and moire will still be present in the vertical direction, and un-altered by a good anamorphic design.

In fact, on reflection, what I expect will happen with anamorphic is not that the lens will soften detail, but rather it will spread out the sensors sampling of detail. So, I expect you will still get aliasing and moire- but on larger frequency detail.

I don't know how to calculate it precisely for you, but I expect that features 1.33 x the horizontal dimensions of stuff that causes aliasing/moire on the "straight" 7D will show an issue with anamorphic lenses.

So, I wouldn't count on an anamorphic adapter really helping you out.
 
Alexander Ibrahim said:
Try setting "Auto Lighting Optimizer" to "Disable"

What this feature is supposed to do is give the shadows a bump in gain to help keep your image to the right of the histogram. See page 75 in the Canon 7D manual (English edition)

It might be great for stills, but for motion pictures its a disaster. The software often finds unstable states, so it hunts between them. Its triggered by the same situations that might make autofocus hunt, but this is not improved with better lenses. Its particularly bad when you are intentionally exposing for a dark frame.

A simple fix Canon could implement for motion would be for it to find a setting at the start of recording and stick to it- good or bad, its better than flickering shadows.

On some footage I shot for a feature I experienced this. The effect of this is very hard to see on the camera LCD, but its pretty easy to see on external monitors.

I got tricked on set, because I had monitors, well TV's really, with dynamic contrast- which does the same thing sometimes. I felt pretty stupid later, because my 1AC and gaffer both pointed it out to me on set and I explained about the monitor behavior instead of checking it out thoroughly.

When ingest reported the problem too, like a day later, I was already well and truly f$cked.

In trying to fix it I found that applying a curve to lift the darkest shadow regions will help, provided its early in your image processing chain. (So in Color that would be primary in, or your first secondary correction)

The thinking is that when Auto Lighting Optimizer (ALO) kicks in, it raises all your shadows. So, if you lift shadows in post, then when ALO is on there are fewer if any shadows to lift, so nothing happens. When ALO is off or working at a reduced setting, then your shadow adjustment kicks in. This can even out the effect. It does require a subtle touch though to find the right level of adjustment- which varies from shot to shot.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...


Thanks so much for the info, I couldn't figure out why the shadows kept flickering in some shots on a short film that I shot recently and I thought it was due to a kino flo bulb or something but this ALO sounds like the culprit. I tried speaking to a canon tech rep on the phone about it and they couldn't help me out other than to send in the camera, but I don't think I'll have to now.
 
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