Getting the most out of my Canon T6 1300D

[TheEngineer13]

Hi Everyone

I have owned the Canon T6 for about a month now and have been using it heavily for my Youtube channel. I feel that when shooting video it looks very soft compared to other channels even comparing raw footage to posted videos. I compiled some clips from a boat parade and would like to know what you think I could do to improve the quality of the video. All of these clips were filmed with an iso 100, shutter speed between 200 and 400 and with the 18 to 55mm lens, f/5.6. The shot of the draw bridge is out of focus I find that it hard to tell if a shot is in focus with the small screen, I am using manual focus for all these shots. 
 

 

 

In this video I think I got the quality a little better as I was shooting with f/9, shutter 1/60 and iso 1600. I guess I will need to get some lights to get it a little brighter 

 

Also all of the other videos after the camera unboxing are filmed with the T6 if you want a better idea of what I am able to do with closer focus. Just one thing about this post, please don't tell me to buy another camera as I don't have the money to get another one, I want to get the most with what I got. Let me know what you think I could do to get better quality. 

Thanks 

[xQubeZx]

The issue you experience with sharpness can be for a lot of reasons. A lot of YT people will use expensive canon L glass. Those will produce sharper shots than your kit lens. However for 1080p you could sharpen it up and fix a lot of it in post. 

 

Also, I'd buy a variable ND filter (I'd reccomend Syrps if you can find a step up ring to fit your lens.) This costs some money, yes, but it will allow you to shoot at a 180 degree shutter angle. Or in other words a 2x shutterspeed of your framerate. So if you shoot at 24fps you would want to film at 1/50 of a second. This gives a nice motion blur that people subconsious enjoy. Of course you can use what shutterspeed you want but this is a way to improve the looks imo. A variable ND will let you keep the shutterspeed that low of 1/50. You can buy a cheaper filter too but one in the 100USD range is prefferes as it will give the best result. (or more expensive id you can afford) 

 

Now, I'm not really shooting much video so I suck at color grading, noise reduction and sharpening of video. But I'd try to do something to sharpen the video in post and grade it carefully. 

 

For focus I'd maybe use AF in some situations as I belive the t6 has the Dual pixel AF right? 

 

If you can afford you could consider getting a field monitor to give you zebras, peaking and a sharper monitor which makes it a lot easier for you to MF. 

[.spider.]

44 minutes ago, xQubeZx said:

 A lot of YT people will use expensive canon L glass. Those will produce sharper shots than your kit lens. However for 1080p you could sharpen it up and fix a lot of it in post. 

 

Even the cheapest lens will be sharp enough for effective ~850p

[TheEngineer13]

I did buy a CP but it has not come in yet 

[xQubeZx]

15 hours ago, TheEngineer13 said:

I did buy a CP but it has not come in yet 

That won't cut it in brighg dailight if the intent is to be able to shoot at 1/50s. It will reduce glare but won't block enough sun. 

 

17 hours ago, .spider. said:

Even the cheapest lens will be sharp enough for effective ~850p

A sharper lens will always yeild a "sharper" end result imo. Even if its just 1080p. A more expensive lens will defentivly make a difference over a kit lens in sharpenss, flare, and contrast and so on. 

[.spider.]

2 hours ago, xQubeZx said:

 

A sharper lens will always yeild a "sharper" end result imo. 

That's against the law of physics

[xQubeZx]

23 minutes ago, .spider. said:

That's against the law of physics

Well I've own both a not so sharp kit lens and a few significantly sharper lenses and the sharper ones look a lot better when shooting 1080p video. 

 

Everything maybe doesn't have to do with resulotion and I think there is a good reason real production crews use lenses that costs in the 10000 instead of some cheap kit lenses. 

 

And you may need to do some more studying in physics, just saying. 

[.spider.]

3 hours ago, xQubeZx said:

Well I've own both a not so sharp kit lens and a few significantly sharper lenses and the sharper ones look a lot better when shooting 1080p video. 

 

Me too and there is zero difference

 

Everything maybe doesn't have to do with resulotion and I think there is a good reason real production crews use lenses that costs in the 10000 instead of some cheap kit lenses.

Yes because have cameras which actually record UHD and they also need very precise focus and so on.

And you may need to do some more studying in physics, just saying.

Why? I think you should.

[AkiraDaarkst]

On 7/27/2017 at 4:29 PM, TheEngineer13 said:

 

Well for a camera like the Canon 1300D, there could be several issues besides not having the "right" lenses.

• The camera has an 18MP sensor, perhaps the sensor resolution or however Canon has implemented video does not necessarily scale down well into nice looking 1080p footage.
• Using ISO 1600... using higher ISO can affect the quality of your video.  DSLRs tend to have lower native ISO than some high end video cameras.  On my FS7, the native ISO is 2000.
• Focusing issues, if you're judging what's in focus and what is not using either the viewfinder or tiny LCD monitor on the back of the camera... get a nice field monitor such as the new SmallHD Focus or something cheaper or more expensive (as you wish).  The minimum size I would ever use is a 5" screen.
• Low end or entry level DSLRs like the 1300D might not have better or higher end codecs or versions of codecs for video like the 5D and 1D line of cameras.  I don't think a camera like the 1300D offers an All-I or IPB versions of whatever codec it's using.  Probably comes with just the standard 24Mbps (give or take a few Mbps) H.264 codec.
• And finally of course... your skill and experience.