In Camera Lens Correction

[PaulClements]

In Camera Lens Correction, is this possible do you think, maybe as a software feature?

Basically you have a setting on your camera, which you set to "Move/Zoom-Off", effectively telling the camera that whilst this is set you will not be zooming in or out on any part of the shot or moving the camera at all.

You then stick on a lens that breathes take the lens to its narrowist point of breathing and select "Mark" on the camera.

The camera then identifies the edges and shapes in the picture and enlarges and reshapes the viewing area as you pull focus so that the objects stay in the same place and no breathing appears to occur.

On shots where there is camera movement or zooming the breathing would not be as noticable anyway and so even though the above method would only work for those stationary shots where focus is pulled alot, it would still serve to irradicate a great deal of breathing.

You could maybe choose a manual crop, reshape and resize in camera or export the animated mask to be used in your NLE along with the RAW files.

I'm probably missing something here that would make this impossible but it seemed like a fun idea, if this has been brought up before then I must've missed it and apologise! :)

[PaulClements]

Second thoughts perhaps you would have to set a second mark at the widest the lens breathes so that the camera could work out the range from each end of the focal points, it could then reference everything in the picture so that any movement at the edges wouldn't upset the objects so much because typically there will always be at least one of the original reference points.

[Ace]

The panasonic HVX200 actually does this by physically moving the sensor back and forth to avoid breathing in the inbuilt lens. But in their case this was done so for economical reasons.. i.e so that they could install cheaper lens technology.

Evins lens tests have shown that breathing is not that big of an issue with some of the Nikkors so I think the whole breathing issue is one of things thats overstressed.

[PaulClements]

Perhaps Acehole, then again when we strap the lenses to red it might exacerbate the breathing issue, which looks small from a still pov but during action shots suffers???

[Ace]

Perhaps Acehole, then again when we strap the lenses to red it might exacerbate the breathing issue, which looks small from a still pov but during action shots suffers???

Im not quite sure what you mean, im referring to the breathing tests done by evin through animated gifs.. they arent still images. Unless you mean strictly at 24fps.

[PaulClements]

The breath tests albeit animated are only 3 frames, it doesn't show the entire breath of the lens from widest to narrowest and everything inbetween, they also only show a particular length of shot, other shots might have something closer and something more distant, Evin's work is great and I'm grateful, all I'm saying is until we see them working on RedOne we won't know entirely how well they work as sets. All I'm saying is that when you see the breathing in motion it might seem slightly more apparent. I'm probably wrong though :). Fact is though there are cine lenses that breath and the nikon lenses will still vary in the ammount they breath. If it was finite it still might be noticable that a different lens has been used and therefore create a disparity between two shots.

[Ace]

I think judging by the 3 frames on some of the Nikons, it should be fine..Or at least I hopeso :) Evin also mentioned that Panavisions own lenses are sometimes converted Nikons, so thats saying alot. I do think some lenses have ridiculous breathing problems however. But the soloution for me is simple, I wont be using them for shallow dof shots.

[PaulClements]

Fair enough, I just thought it might be a nice little software idea. Seems like one of those things that someone with enough aptitude could do and would be a very usable feature, iradicating the need to edit such shots in post.

[Finner]

Evins lens tests have shown that breathing is not that big of an issue with some of the Nikkors so I think the whole breathing issue is one of things thats overstressed.


If what you are shooting is for TV the breathing won't be that big an issue. But the breathing tests Evan did were on fairly close up shots. From what I saw the breathing shown by the 50mm and up nikons would appear very big on a movie screen.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I think Evin's breathing tests are pretty good and show what we need to know for each lens. Breathing varies from one lens to another too and must be rather subjective. I thought the breathing in the 17-35mm isn't all that bad, in fact, this lens does very well considering it's a still lens. Obviously a lot has to do with the focal length and we see a lot more breathing on the longer lenses. The 35mm is OK, but in my experience (which seems to be in agreement with several online reviews) is that the 17-35mm lens is superior to most, if not all, the Nikkor primes that fall in that range. We start to see noticeably more breathing with the 50mm Nikkor... The 135mm breathes terribly.

[Zakaree Sandberg]

would the average viewer notice a breathing issue?

[Evin Grant]

Not if the movie is good. Normal movie goers don't even notice the cinematography unless the story sucks!
But even then breathing is not what they see. It's what we see.:shiftyph34r:

[wshultz]

I watched a tutorial by the guy who wrote AE Studio 7 techniques and he actually put a little breathing in on an artificial rack focus in AE to sell the shot.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

If you're that obsessed over the quality of your lens... BUY A GOOD LENS!

The alternative is to do a 2+ point 2d stabilization in post. Then maintain scale. This assumes of course that you have a couple of good in focus track points through the whole focus shift, unlikely and time consuming.

I recommend this because doing this in camera does one thing automatically: exclude you from using RAW recording. 4k Uncompressed Fun!

[Alexander Nikishin]

The breathing issue is just something Red/Nikkor shooters and clients are going to have to get used to or bite the bullet and pay up for some Cooke or Zeiss lens.

As shooters, it's not our problem, we will offer the Nikkor set and make sure the client is aware of the issue. If the producer can't affor an upgrade, then they get what they payed for.

Should we as cinematographers pay out the a** for some Ultra primes? No! The production should rent them.

I think we should stop worrying about whether or not we can afford a set of cine lens that won't breathe as much, after all in any production that takes itself seriously, there is a budget set forth that allows for the rental of such things.

Heck they should feel lucky enough that they're able to hire a cinematographer who OWNS A RED and not have to rent it! Red will be very much so in demand in the production world. Remember, the ball is in our court!

[PaulClements]

I think people misunderstood me. I wasn't really bothered about whether breathing is good or bad, or a question of which type or quality of lens to use or not. The fact was simply that breathing exists in many lenses, cine or slr, and I thought maybe it was something that if so desired could be amended in camera at capture, rather than a long process of manual removal in post. If the animated mask was created as seperate to the RAW footage then it wouldn't necessarily effect your shots should it go wrong or you simply choose to not use it in post. I guess it's not something that's entirely feasible or desirable, I just though that breathing lenses was quite a big concern to alot of people here is all... nevermind then :)