7 Tricks for SHARP & CRISP Videos!

first and foremost I would like to thank Squarespace for sponsoring today's video go to squarespace.com slash daniel shipper or use the code Daniel Shefford to get 10% off your first purchase [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to the channel everybody and welcome to a new tutorial which will hopefully help you make some better videos now in today's video we'll be going over a few little different tips and tricks for getting sharper footage or sharper looking footage now I will be using the word sharp or sharpness throughout this video very loosely but just keep in mind that all I mean by this is more detailed and punchy crispy-looking shots but I think you guys get the idea so here are seven tips for getting punchy err or crispy err looking videos when it comes to sharper or getting more detailed looking videos our first tip might seem a little bit counterintuitive tip number one is to eliminate the internal sharpening that your camera automatically adds to your videos and the reason we do this aside from internal sharpening just looking very cheap is that it can actually ruin the finer details within your shot so now that we have internal sharpening removed from our image completely what are some other ways we can get some more detailed looking footage for tip number two we'll be talking about what is known as the sweet spot what a lot of people don't know is that pretty much every lens has what is called a sharpest aperture or sweet spot for the longest time I always just use the lowest f-stop on my lens because I didn't know any better I thought that lets in the most light so therefore it's the best looking image you can get but little did I know that if you adjust your f-stop down by two or three stops this will give you the sharpest possible image out of that for example if the lens that you're using is an F 1.4 then you will get the sharpest possible image out of that lens if your f-stop is set between F 2.8 and F 4 now when it comes to aperture it's very easy to get all of the different stops confused whether that's full stops half stops one-third stops so if you're interested I'll have a full f-stop chart linked down below even if you don't necessarily want to stop down by two or three full stops just stopping down by a little bit whether that's a half stop or a few third stops can work wonders for broadening up that depth of field and getting more of your subject in focus now on to tip number three if you've got some cash that you're willing to spend or if you're looking into buying a new lens consider getting yourself a prime lens prime lenses for those of you who don't know our lenses that do not zoom and they have a fixed focal length now what is great about primes is that they tend to be a bit more affordable than zooms and they often have even better low-light capabilities for their given price and the kicker is that prime lenses are generally sharper than zoom lenses because they perform exceptionally well at their given focal length now if you're a Canon user you have tons of lens options out there to choose from ranging in all kinds of prices but for Sony users in Micro Four Thirds users I highly recommend picking up the Sigma 16 millimeter f1 point for now even though this lens is made for aps-c and Micro Four Thirds I still use it in crop mode on my Sony a7 3a full frame camera because I just love this lens I love the sharpness I love the quality I love the color the contrast the focus is great everything about it highly recommended now moving along to tip number four for getting sharper looking videos you should try and back light your subject back lighting doesn't literally make your video sharper but it can create the illusion of a sharper video because of the way backlighting can shape and enhance the outline of a subject for backlighting there is no need for any sort of expensive equipment you can simply use a floor lamp like I am in this shot or if you're filming some products you can use your phone's flashlight just out of frame to backlight it and that will give it that extra little pause now moving on tip number five might actually be the most effective tip of the whole bunch but you're gonna want to be careful as to when you're using it when getting that opening shot of the cooking sequence I noticed that the bag looked kind of blurry the shot was bothering me so much because in my head I wanted it to be tack sharp so you could see exactly what was written on the bag and I really wanted the subject and the focus to be as clear as possible and have it stand out from the background now here is the exact same shot after making one little change and notice how much sharper in detail the bag looks and the way I was able to do this was by breaking the 180 degree shutter rule what happened was the first shot I got was following the 180 degree shutter rule as it was captured using a shutter speed of 1 over 250 which is about one over double my frame rate of 120 frames per second following this rule gives you the most natural looking motion blur in your shots making them appear more realistic the problem in this case was that the speed at which the bag was being lifted out of the fridge was actually quick enough that there was too much motion blur so instead what I did was I used a shutter speed of one 500th of a second and if we put the freeze-frame side-by-side for comparison you can really see the difference in the amount of detail we get and here are a few other shots from the same sequence that also followed this technique [Music] so this is a scenario where it actually makes sense to break the rules and I only recommend doing this if there is a specific intention for it otherwise I would suggest that you stick with the 180 degree shutter rule for most of your shots as this will give you the most professional-looking videos so those were a few things that you can do in camera to get some more crispy looking footage but if after all of that you still want your videos to look sharper here is what you can do in post we interrupt this program to bring you a special report now before we get into our last two tips I would like to quickly tell you about my website Phil Mercier on my website is where both my viewers and potential clients can learn more about me see past examples of my work and get in touch with any questions or inquiries for a few years now I've been using Squarespace to build all of my websites long before they ever reached out to me and today they are offering my viewers 10% off your first purchase I feel like too many people nowadays are relying on Instagram and social media as the main way of attracting clients and showcasing their portfolio but if I'm being honest most of my serious inquiries come through my website through the contact submission form and one of the biggest advantages of using a website over social media for your business is that you can use search engine optimization to your advantage so that people who are actively looking for your creative services can actually find you so no matter what type of work you do or what kind of business you're running Squarespace has you covered because they have so many options layouts and templates to choose from so once again head over to squarespace.com slash daniel shipper or use the code Daniel shipper start your free trial today and get 10% off your first purchase tip number six is to use curves to create micro contrast in your shots similar to how you would use a clarity slider in Lightroom now at first using curves can be a little bit tricky but if you play around with the different parts of the curve you can make your subject copy and enhance those finer details in your image now if your footage still isn't looking sharp enough for you we can use tip number seven which is our last resort and that is to add in post now it's definitely not a great idea to go ahead and sharpen every single clip in your video but if there is a shot here and there that can use a little extra boost there's nothing wrong with adding a sharpened filter or effect and applying it with a low intensity to get that extra little crispness that you're looking for so those were our seven tips for getting sharper or more detailed looking footage I tried to keep them as practical as possible so that anyone can go out and give them a try but that is it for today's video thank you guys so much for watching follow me on instagram at Daniel dot Scheffer and as always I will see you guys in the next video [Music]

Channel: Daniel Schiffer

Views: 714,408

Keywords: how to make videos sharper, how to make videos higher quality, make videos more hd, how to get more detailed videos, how to get more detailed footage, how to record better videos, how to get high quallity footage, how to make footage sharper, how to make videos, sharper image

Id: zHT7H1XdAIM

Length: 8min 28sec (508 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 28 2019