Cadence Plugin

[HelsinkiZim]

Ok, so many comments by very knowledgeable community members sometimes illustrate that their preference for a particular camera is its film-like cadence, or movement. I often see comments suggesting rolling shutter helps achieve this.

Try as I might, I cannot nail down a description in my head that lets me know "ah, this camera has film-like motion cadence..".

Can someone explain to me why they feel this about a camera and what they are looking for? For example, I understand that some of you feel the micro cinema camera does a good job in this regard.

Also, form a tech standpoint, do you feel it is something that you could apply in post (if someone creates a good plugin for different cameras a-la filmconvert) to replicate the effect/  viewing experience?

I don't mind being spoken to like a five year old, but I would like to understand as I have never even touched a film camera in person.

[DBounce]

I'm no expert in this matter, but I can tell you how I perceive motion cadence. Most video cameras have a video like movement to the images they produce. The difference is similar to what is experienced when the frame rate is set to 30p vs 24p. But it's more than just frame rate. It also appears to have to do with shutter angle or shutter speed. The subtle differences in shutter speed can lead to a more video like motion cadence also. In all honesty, it is hard to describe, but fairly easy to spot when something is not right. 

[Liam]

There are plugins for rolling shutter and adding motion blur, yeah. But they aren't the best, and may not be exact where that special quality lies, and can't really be fine tuned in the right way for that anyway. I don't know of a plugin to take away motion blur, though that's kind of part if what goes on for faking high frame rates in newer tvs, so should be possible. Those effects also aren't great.. maybe a combination of those in perfected forms wayyy down the road could attempt to address the subtleties that might lead to this magic. but yeah, a camera with actual good cadence can still have rolling shutter and will still have something nice at any shutter speed.

Could be the transition between frames or the like spacing, making sure each frame lasts the same amount of time to fit perfectly in the frame rate. Some people shoot slightly lower shutter speeds in a compressed comera to maybe hide the poor frame transitions.

I've only felt like I noticed it a couple times, and it may have just been shot wrong, so I'm no pro. Would be nice to somehow see proof of this phenomenon

I've also heard some people preferring "motion" from a global shutter over a mechancical shutter or at least saying in theory it's better.. I kind of feel like this would be a case where film can be the benchmark, so that sounds wrong to me.. maybe it's all just a myth. Can probably only look up all the footage you can and see. I'd say it's not worth worrying too much over

[Michael Coffee]

Hmm - some seem to have it, some don't.. the standard for me is film, then Alexa's..  the impression I get from my Panasonics is that it almost seems to have artifacts similar to early video compression codecs.. jerky, stuttery, frame tearing .. maybe the higher bit rate codec is why the GH4 seems to do a little better than my gx7.. if the gx85 doesn't have more pleasing motion (this is all at 24p) I will be looking into external recorders, and also filming at 30p and twixtor/optical flow to 24p .. I'm already shooting at less than 180 shutter (1/40 at 24p) - it helps alot when usable for me. Global shutter camera's seem to help, but things like the BM cams, Canon's and even the Sony's just seem to have more filmic motion for me out of the box, however some cam's with really low rolling shutter like the NX1 in 1080p seem to have similar cadence issues to the Panasonics in the footage I've seen.. again the Panasonic's and Samsung's motion seems to be more together in 30p mode - I have been putting off experimenting 30p- 24p in post because I hate having to do another step! 

[User]

12 hours ago, HelsinkiZim said:

Ok, so many comments by very knowledgeable community members sometimes illustrate that their preference for a particular camera is its film-like cadence, or movement. I often see comments suggesting rolling shutter helps achieve this.

Try as I might, I cannot nail down a description in my head that lets me know "ah, this camera has film-like motion cadence..".

Can someone explain to me why they feel this about a camera and what they are looking for? For example, I understand that some of you feel the micro cinema camera does a good job in this regard.

Also, form a tech standpoint, do you feel it is something that you could apply in post (if someone creates a good plugin for different cameras a-la filmconvert) to replicate the effect/  viewing experience?

I don't mind being spoken to like a five year old, but I would like to understand as I have never even touched a film camera in person.

Maybe have a look at Ebrahim's post in this thread:

 

[Liam]

This is the most discussion there's been here on the topic if it helps you make sense of it

[User]

Thanks Liam.

[shijan]

There is Tessive TIME SHAPER app but seems it needs more than 60fps source to mimic film looking motion blur http://tessive.com/time-shaper-info/

[Oliver Daniel]

I perceive this attractive "motion candence" in cameras that shoot raw. Maybe because the image feels "complete" and compression takes away a lot of the motion anyway.

It's subjective but those of us with more than an eye can spot it.  

Then on top there's:

- 24/25p 180 degree shutter. 

- Fast shutter readout.

- High dynamic range (smoother roll of frames). 

Lovely cadence:  Alexa, RED, D16, BMCC (raw), Kinefinity, Varicam LT, Canon 5d ML

Medium Cadence: Canon C series, Sony F55, FS7 (only just), X5R. 

Poor Cadence: All Sony mirrorless, FS5, Panasonic GH and AF, any cheap mirrorless, GoPro, DJI X3 and X5. 

[HelsinkiZim]

Thanks Liam, will have look...

[Michael Coffee]

7 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

I perceive this attractive "motion candence" in cameras that shoot raw. Maybe because the image feels "complete" and compression takes away a lot of the motion anyway.

It's subjective but those of us with more than an eye can spot it.  

Then on top there's:

- 24/25p 180 degree shutter. 

- Fast shutter readout.

- High dynamic range (smoother roll of frames). 

Lovely cadence:  Alexa, RED, D16, BMCC (raw), Kinefinity, Varicam LT, Canon 5d ML

Medium Cadence: Canon C series, Sony F55, FS7 (only just), X5R. 

Poor Cadence: All Sony mirrorless, FS5, Panasonic GH and AF, any cheap mirrorless, GoPro, DJI X3 and X5. 

This is annoying. Please Panasonic Varicam team, fix the motion on the poor people cameras like GX85 - from what I've seen so far it still looks like gh series video like motion.. a little better perhaps, anyone think/seen or noticed if the GX85 has had a step in cadence aesthetic?

I don't know what it is but these cams don't seem to do 24p well - I feel like 24p on my GX7 sucks, and most Panasonic footage seems the same. Everytime I see almost any other cam, Canon, BM, etc it seems to be better at 24p. I feel like a phone could almost look nicer. It's not like Panasonic had anything to protect anyway, the serious cinema VariCam only came out like last year... just looking at gx85 24p now, it still looks like bad video to me. I just don't get it.. have they seen Alexa footage? Even Canon? C'mon Panasonic..

Even go pro's seem to shit on the Panasonic motion.. and I know it's not just me

 

 

[shijan]

To be clear i got answer from Tessive support.

Quote

 

Time Shaper gives very nice results in a 2:1 downconversion (48 to 24 fps).  For many applications, we do a 120->60fps downconversion, which is similar.  We have several shutter waveforms specifically designed for this situation.

Of course, with a higher rate (120 to 24), there’s a lot more data to work with, and the results can be better, but there’s quite a bit that can be done from 48 to 24fps.  As always, it works best with a 360-degree shutter to avoid gaps between frames.

 

So maybe will do some tests today with this plugin today. I also tested 60fps on BMMCC yesterday and there is a problem. When you shoot with 60fps/360shutter and then conform to 24 fps, the rolling shutter seems becames 2.5 times more stronger too. 

[shijan]

So i tested Time Shaper with 60 fps source exported to 24 fps. It works well as fx tool to gnerate a very dreamy and unusual motion blur. It works very well for changing shutter angle in post. But the basic filmic shutter modes are behave a little strange. The blur is blocky because there is not enough source framerate. And there is no way to get a normal amount of 180dergee looking blur. With different shutter modes i got only too blured image or too unblured. This may be caused by non integer framerate conversation 2.5x. Also some shutters produce wired dark (overcontrasted) egges on the blurred objects so they are not too usable in situations when object moves over clean background.

also got a useful tip for exr import name structure for this app., if someone confused with error on file import.

Quote

For my customers using EXR files, the naming standard has been to have a period (.) before the file number in the name (for example “someclipname.000043.exr”) That is not clear in the documentation, and in a future update it’ll be more forgiving of the numbering of the file.