Anti-Aliasing And Its Effect On HD Video

I have not personally been particularly interested in video production and thus have not even used the video capability of my Canon 5D MKII as of yet. However, I read a very interesting article that was referenced on the Outback Photo website about the effect of anti-aliasing filters on HD video obtained via the current generation of dSLRs.

The article, entitled "Aliasing" is by Barry Green and can be found here. I found two aspects of the article quite interesting. The first was the detailed general discussion about aliasing and the artifacts it can introduce and the second was the discussion related to the fact that the type of anti-aliasing filters appropriate for high resolution digital still images and video are quite different. When both types of imaging are combined in a single camera body a compromise must be made with regards to the anti-aliasing filter (and the compromise has rightly been made to sacrifice the optimum video anti-aliasing filter in order to have the appropriate anti-aliasing for still images).

Besides being a well-written and extremely interesting article, it is also chock-full of real life video examples. It makes for some fascinating and enlightening reading.

Swamp Oil

It doesn't occur all that frequently that I run across something involving nature photography that I have absolutely never heard of before in any way whatsoever. Recently, on several other blogs that I read, I was drawn to some gorgeous abstract images that, as it turned out, were photographs of swamp oil. Now here was something totally new to me, so I had to read on. I also thought it would be great information to share with others who might not be familiar with it.

First, though, take a look at these marvelous images by Mike Moats and Mark Graf, here and here . Reading their blog entries, one learns that the colors in the photographs are not able to be seen by the unaided eye, and that the light must be polarized in order to make the colors visible.

The shapes and colors in the images are caused by swamp oil, which apparently is an oil that seeps into water from decaying plant matter.

Never having heard of it, I certainly have never seen or photographed it, but it is something that I am definitely going to be keeping an eye open for in the future. It certainly makes for some intriguing photographs. Thanks to Mike and Mark for posting the information about this phenomenon. Check out their blogs called Mike Moats and Notes From The Woods.