DSLR video help / advice - why is focus off in this studio video - Canon 5d M3

Hello,

I was hoping somebody could quickly give me an idea why the video I recently shot in studio did not come out clear and sharp.

Here is a quick little clip:


I'm a photographer who has recently started working a bit in video. I've got a lot to learn; but I was shooting video in my studio the other day figuring I could set up my portrait studio for video.

I slapped my head when I realized that the modeling lights on my strobes would not be served very well as continuous lighting as I had thought.

It was a trial shoot and I still worked to get this done. I cranked up the ISO a bit and opened up the aperture. I wasn't sure how the rules of shutter speed effected the video though.

I took some test photo's at around 2.8 1600 ISO at between 80-125th/sec and it seemed to come out well enough. I figured the 2.8 was enough DOF and the 1600 ISO would be good enough quality on the Canon 5D M3.

I believe the video was at 1920x1080 in Raw I believe and it looks like 30 fps. The output was a mov file even though I expect a raw. I think the size is enough and possibly the fps?

Did the high ISO effect this video or was the 2.8 too shallow a DOF for video (but okay enough for photo). She wasn't moving that much forward and backward. Or does the shutter effect video and there is a minimum shutter speed I should be using for video. I figured the shutter wouldn't have much effect and the FPS setting was the more important aspect here.

Sorry for the newbie video inquiry, but I figured the answer to this was rather simple. I'm guessing I maybe needed an f/8 for greater DOF (which I would have preferred but was unable due to lighting).

The clip was a quick edit I did in Go Pro studio of the .MOV file and adjusted white balance and sharpened a little bit.

The next time I shoot in a brighter studio; what is an ideal setting for a basic shoot like this?
Thanks so much for your time and info!
Micah

veeco5150 said:

Hello,

I was hoping somebody could quickly give me an idea why the video I recently shot in studio did not come out clear and sharp.

Click to expand...

Looks like you focused on her boobs rather than on her eyes, and used too wide an aperture for the shot.

Thanks...but looks like that is soft...ahem...out of focus as well. It was focused directly on the eye and confirmed from stills. If you think it is aperture, I was stuck at 2.8 which was not preferable, but I would have assumed that the DOF would have still been greater than a few inches.

Set your shutter to 50 and select 24fps when recording.

This will allow more light yo enter the sensor, therefore making F8 a viable option.

Your ISO should be low if your using some good lights.

Cheers.

Thank you for that! Great to have a starting point to begin my video work. So 30FPS was most likely too fast for lower lights? I did not want to take the shutter down to 50th because I was worried about motion blur (photo mindset that I guess does not translate the same way to video). The lights were pretty dim sadly (photo settings at 2.4, 1/80th ISO 1600) so I wasn't sure which area to sacrifice to make due with lights...grainy ISO or short DOF...at least now I know not to worry about the shutter as much.

Yes, you will have some motion blur, but we have been accustomed to it

thanks to cinema, where they have used the same standard for decades.

If you're doing video similar to what you showed above,

that 24fps motion cadence will not detract from the content.

so you think that it is simply my depth of field that is causing the video to be far from tack sharp? If it is aperture, I did focus directly on the face first, so even if it is a shallow DOF wouldn't there still be a good part of this video in tack sharp focus?

This video was shot with with an 85mm L at 2.4/2.8 which I figured would still be enough DOF for some parts of this to be tack sharp.

veeco5150 said:

Thanks...but looks like that is soft...ahem...out of focus as well. It was focused directly on the eye and confirmed from stills. If you think it is aperture, I was stuck at 2.8 which was not preferable, but I would have assumed that the DOF would have still been greater than a few inches.

Click to expand...

Parts of her shirt, especially in the front of her face, seem to be less out of focus than her eyes. Which means your focus point has been somewhere in front of her face.

You're using a 85mm lens at F:2,8 with a full frame camera, which means she doesn't have to move much for her eyes to be out of the thin layer of focus. Simple as that.

You're shooting in a studio setup, for crying out loud. So use light to sculpt your subject and your frame, with proper settings in your camera. Using something like ISO 1600 with a telephoto lens (almost) wide open in a controlled studio environment doesn't make much sense.

Even if you can shoot like that doesn't mean you should. Don't try to ape the silly looking videos by clueless hipsters in YouTube.

veeco5150 said:

So 30FPS was most likely too fast for lower lights? I did not want to take the shutter down to 50th because I was worried about motion blur

Click to expand...

Motion blur has nothing to do with your issue here. If you're shooting in 30fps set your shutter speed at 1/60, (1/50 for 24fps) and then leave it there.

Just add more light when necessary and then practise, practise, practise. Until you nail it.

veeco5150 said:

so you think that it is simply my depth of field that is causing the video to be far from tack sharp? If it is aperture, I did focus directly on the face first, so even if it is a shallow DOF wouldn't there still be a good part of this video in tack sharp focus?

This video was shot with with an 85mm L at 2.4/2.8 which I figured would still be enough DOF for some parts of this to be tack sharp.

Click to expand...

Yes but don't forget that f/2.8 on a full frame sensor at that focal length is still a very shallow depth of field and that people do move; they're not static. So even a movement of 7-8cm forwards or backwards from the original point of focus can visibly make the image look softer. Best option then would be to increase the shutter speed as the others have mentioned and close down the aperture a bit.

Yes, that's probably the main culprit.

Stop down to F8 or F5.6. You'll have lots of light at 24fps and your shutter set to 50.

Thanks for taking the time for the detailed response. As mentioned it is a photo studio and not set up for video. It was my mistake that I made and did not realize until I started setting up for my first video shoot there...realizing that my strobes would not put out the continuous light that I had planned to use. So rather than calling the whole thing off, I worked to make due with what I had and it was all strobes and fluorescent light. With no ability to add light (as I would have had I been shooting stills) I had to manipulate other factors.

It sounds like it certainly was DOF then. Although when looking at DOF charts for an 85mm at 2.8 at 12 feet away, it still should give me a 1 foot plane of focus. I was shooting between 1600 and 3200 and figured I could get away with app and bring the ISO down a touch.

Looks like I chose poorly and should have cranked the ISO higher and used a smaller app.

It's a lesson learned though and I'm looking forward to the next shoot (in a new studio)! Plenty of helpful info here to make sure it doesn't happen again

than you! Definite settings I'll be starting off with next time as a base.

Unfortunately I was limited to using only modeling lights from strobes. Not enough...but if I had started with your settings mentioned above, it would have been much better

spot on thank you!

veeco5150 said:

So rather than calling the whole thing off, I worked to make due with what I had and it was all strobes and fluorescent light.

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I was not "scolding" you for trying to salvage a shoot. Nothing wrong with that per se, and surely you made the right call in that situation. I was only speaking in general, based on the look of the clip.

veeco5150 said:

It sounds like it certainly was DOF then.

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Actually, it was your focus being off. The shallow depth of field just made it worse, more visible.

Had the focus been on the eyes of the girl the clip would have looked better, almost okay. Provided that she didn't move her head more than an inch or so, or at all.

But of course she'll move, so better to use an appropriate lens and aperture for each shot and for each subject. With enough light.

Apart from subject movement there are other reasons to do so, too, but that's another story for another topic.

veeco5150 said:

Although when looking at DOF charts

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Charts schmarts. Use your own eyes and practise. Anticipate and leave enough wiggle room for the talent. Case in point, your clip above.

veeco5150 said:

it still should give me a 1 foot plane of focus.

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A lively model can easily move back and forth a foot or more without even moving his/her feet.

Besides that, maybe the model took a subtle step back before you hit record without your even noticing it. Practising and double checking your focus is never a bad idea, as we can see. Regardless of the aperture in use. Go ahead and practise with different lenses, too.

veeco5150 said:

It's a lesson learned though and I'm looking forward to the next shoot (in a new studio)!

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Indeed. Shoot, watch, adjust, rinse and repeat. Good luck for the next shoot.

thx...has been a very good lesson in video shooting! Looking forward to cracking at it again!

veeco5150 said:

Thanks for taking the time for the detailed response. As mentioned it is a photo studio and not set up for video. It was my mistake that I made and did not realize until I started setting up for my first video shoot there...realizing that my strobes would not put out the continuous light that I had planned to use. So rather than calling the whole thing off, I worked to make due with what I had and it was all strobes and fluorescent light. With no ability to add light (as I would have had I been shooting stills) I had to manipulate other factors.

It sounds like it certainly was DOF then. Although when looking at DOF charts for an 85mm at 2.8 at 12 feet away, it still should give me a 1 foot plane of focus. I was shooting between 1600 and 3200 and figured I could get away with app and bring the ISO down a touch.

Looks like I chose poorly and should have cranked the ISO higher and used a smaller app.

It's a lesson learned though and I'm looking forward to the next shoot (in a new studio)! Plenty of helpful info here to make sure it doesn't happen again

Click to expand...

.

A slow shutter speed will induce motion blur, and she is moving her head around quite a bit in the video. And that is where the softness is showing up.

What was your shutter speed? Are you positive your were shooting 1080/30p? Make sure you shoot at 30p, not 24p. And try a shutter speed of 1/60th, or even 1/80th of a second.

The video also looks a bit overexposed, to my eyes.

.

F/2.8 is really shallow on FF, as others have mentioned, looks like your subject's face is a little behind the plane of focus. I rarely shoot people wider than F/4 just because its tough to keep them in focus - people always move and just a few inches can easily ruin a shot. I'm not saying it can't be done because I've also shot interviews at F/1.4 for a look, but I was using an external monitor and constantly adjusting focus.

You also need to sharpen anything out of a 5d3 in post, its a beautiful image but its not the sharpest image around. Google what others are doing with your editor of choice to find a starting point. It makes a big difference.

Good luck and with practice you'll get the hang of it really quickly. Also as others have mentioned, your shutter speed needs to be double your framerate. Lenses with longer focus throws make it easier to maintain focus as you can make smaller adjustments.

Almost positive it was 1080 and 30p....can't see how to read the actual video data in LR though but I basically set up a test photo to make sure it was sharp in the eyes/face and it was 2.0 1/125 at ISO 1600...I noticed it was soft and though that it was better to increase shutter speed rather than ISO and Ap. Even the shallow DOF at 2.0, from this distance, I thought should have had more sharpness throughout some parts of the frame than is shown here. So I thought I needed to bump up shutter speed.

I tried to get my exposure correct for a blown background for a photo first (or as close as possible) and then figured I'd use those settings.

Even at 2.0, as she moved back and forth I figured I'd see more times during the video where there was still at least 6" of tack sharpness.

Thank you so much for the advice and affirmation.

It really does seem like it comes down to a real life/on the job learning experience in DOF. I've had plenty of this experience in stills, but with the constant movement in video; I guess it is far more critical and noticeable throughout a period of time.

And the frame rate to shutter speed info is priceless. I was doing a google search on all of this minutes before the shoot to try to rectify. I only wish I had heard all of this amazing advice beforehand.....I just figured I'd wing it and come out on top. It wasn't bad, but not anywhere near as good as I had expected; and now I know why.

thx so much!

Just to add what others have said, you need more light. For interviews I use two LED light panels which give me f8 at a low ISO.

Set shutter speed to twice the frame rate.

Use a wider angle lens to minimise depth of field problems.

And use a lapel mic to get rid of the echo.

Good luck.