Today, I made some test recordings with my Pocket 2 for a poetry night I am going to film tomorrow. The circumstances required me to max the Pocket 2 zoom in at 4X in 1080p. After filming, I looked at the footage and did find it to be slighty crummy-looking with some small but noticeable (on a 32-inch FullHD TV and on a 22-inch computer display) pixelization and artefacts. Yet I am not sure if I have a chance to bring the camera closer to the performers to make the image quality better by reducing the amount of zoom needed for an appropriate image composition.

I have heard that it is possible to do some image sharpening in the post-processing, and was wondering how much that could possibly enhance the image quality. Or will it only make the image more artificial-looking?

This was on a reasonably well-lit interior, exposure value at 0.0, ISO value at MaxISO 800 setting, filming at 1080p25 and shutter speed being 1/50 (to eliminate the flickering in the footage caused by the fluorescent lighting).

Also, if anybody knows a handy tutorial for this in Davinci Resolve, would be glad to hear about it.

Any comments and feedback welcome!

This video may help you

DAFlys Posted at 4-17 22:34
This video may help you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SMzKnTQ9Kg

Thanks for that, looks like a very comprehensive and illustrative tutorial. Will try this if it turns out I need it. I did manage to get the camera closer and therefore managed to set it so I needed less digital zoom, so will have to see if the pixelization and artefact problem eased up. But needed it now or not, this is great to know for future needs.

HGDC84 Posted at 4-18 10:12
Thanks for that, looks like a very comprehensive and illustrative tutorial. Will try this if it turns out I need it. I did manage to get the camera closer and therefore managed to set it so I needed less digital zoom, so will have to see if the pixelization and artefact problem eased up. But needed it now or not, this is great to know for future needs.

Great

Did you hear any good poems?

DAFlys Posted at 4-18 23:44
Great

Did you hear any good poems?

Yes, I think the performers are quite talented (probably not including me, as I was one of the writers and readers as well )

There were poems about animals, times of the year, friendship and many similar topics. Quite philosophical ones at that.

HGDC84 Posted at 4-19 11:16
Yes, I think the performers are quite talented (probably not including me, as I was one of the writers and readers as well  )

There were poems about animals, times of the year, friendship and many similar topics. Quite philosophical ones at that.

I assume they were all in Finish?

DAFlys Posted at 4-19 22:48
I assume they were all in Finish?

Yes they were. I do believe that nothing would prevent the participants from writing in other languages though. I could ask about it from the course teacher the next time I'm in contact with her.

HGDC84 Posted at 4-20 07:57
Yes they were. I do believe that nothing would prevent the participants from writing in other languages though. I could ask about it from the course teacher the next time I'm in contact with her.

No need, I was just curious,   as some things dont always work in other languages like stand up comedy.  

DAFlys Posted at 4-20 21:54
No need, I was just curious,   as some things dont always work in other languages like stand up comedy.

I thought about asking the question for my own curiosity, so that's not any hassle for me. And you are right, for instance some wordplay is very hard if not downright impossible to translate to other languages.

I'm not sure if sharpening will help when there is already artifacts in the footage.

Montfrooij Posted at 4-28 00:17
I'm not sure if sharpening will help when there is already artifacts in the footage.

Thanks for the tip I'll have to bear that in my mind for further filming.

HGDC84 Posted at 4-28 09:06
Thanks for the tip  I'll have to bear that in my mind for further filming.

No problem at all!

800 ISO is extremely high and likely your issue. I imagine you got a ton of noise from that. I try to shoot everything at 100 of 200 ISO unless not possible to do anything else. Realize the Air 2S has 1" sensor but for 1000US it just isn't that great of a sensor. It is inherently noisy even at the best settings. If you actually think you will be making "cinematic" footage that would seamlessly cut together with let's say a Red camera or Alexa shooting 4K you will not. It does however have its purposes in social media and productions where quality image fidelity is more lenient. If I had to guess I would say your ISO is way too high to start. If you left your settings on auto you are also asking for a world of trouble as well. It would be tough to fix this footage if I am reading your problem correctly. Maybe take it to an actual Colorist at a faciility and see if it can be salvaged. Get them to do a pass with there noise correction and a first color pass them give the footage to editing and see if they can work with it. Not somebody with a laptop and Davinci Resolve free but a professional. All the best.

G-FLYBOY Posted at 10-10 05:05
800 ISO is extremely high and likely your issue. I imagine you got a ton of noise from that. I try to shoot everything at 100 of 200 ISO unless not possible to do anything else. Realize the Air 2S has 1" sensor but for 1000US it just isn't that great of a sensor. It is inherently noisy even at the best settings. If you actually think you will be making "cinematic" footage that would seamlessly cut together with let's say a Red camera or Alexa shooting 4K you will not. It does however have its purposes in social media and productions where quality image fidelity is more lenient. If I had to guess I would say your ISO is way too high to start. If you left your settings on auto you are also asking for a world of trouble as well. It would be tough to fix this footage if I am reading your problem correctly. Maybe take it to an actual Colorist at a faciility and see if it can be salvaged. Get them to do a pass with there noise correction and a first color pass them give the footage to editing and see if they can work with it. Not somebody with a laptop and Davinci Resolve free but a professional. All the best.

Thank you for the tips. Will be good to know this if I take more steps towards professional production. This was more of a hobby project though, so the image quality was not an absolutely critical factor in this. Just more of a curiosity thing to ask.

I usually tend to aim for the 100 or 200 ISO values, but often I find the surroundings to be too dark for those values, so often I have to ramp up the value if I want to stick to the 180 degree rule.

Currently, I don't have any Red or Alexa cameras, and I even don't aim for 4K, as my television and other equipment is not really suited for those specs, I tend to stick to 1080p. Most of my professional use of the camera will be exactly for computer, phone/tablet and social media use, I'm currently not aiming nor expecting neither professional television broadcasting nor cinema film quality.

A specialist certainly would know their stuff, but often that also tends to show in their billing. But I will keep your tips on my mind if my budget, equipment and workflow allows me to step it up later on.

Thanks for the insights.

Is it better to set sharpening to -2 for Mini4 pro and add sharpening post process

Cream17 Posted at 4-16 05:54
Is it better to set sharpening to -2 for Mini4 pro and add sharpening post process

Don't have a Mini 4 Pro myself, so unfortunately can't help you with this myself, sorry about that.