Undoing the Wide angle lens effect?

B.Verlik wrote on 10/23/2013, 1:23 PM

Probably wasting my time asking, but.....
I have to use a wide angle lense in my house to get the whole room. (0.5 lens) Watching the video, the roof and floor lines sort of have the shape of a football. Any magical, quick formulas to stretch the left and right sides of the screen, from top to bottom a little so it looks straighter without too much damage, using the tools in Vegas??? I have a budget of zero.

Comments

Kimberly wrote on 10/23/2013, 1:51 PM

NewBlue has an FX called "Lens Correction" and within that is a "Reduce Fisheye" preset. You can find it in their Video Essentials II pack, or in their Starter Pack if you have Titler Pro I or II (not sure which one).

NB has recently unbundled their Video Essentials products so that you can buy each FX individually. You might be able to trial it first if you don't already have it with Titler Pro.

WillemT wrote on 10/23/2013, 2:04 PM

GML Undistorter is free.

It works on individual pictures but has a batch convert feature. You export an image sequence from Vegas and then "undistort" the images using GML Undistorter followed by re-importing the new sequence.

A bit more effort but the price is right and it works well.

Get it here

Willem.

johnmeyer wrote on 10/23/2013, 5:05 PM

I posted in this thread:

Convert 4:3 footage to 16:9 in a smart way

about how to warp video using nothing but Vegas. You can read that thread and see how it is done. I still have the project files for my example posted here:

Non-linear stretch test.zip

You'd have to figure out how to create your stretch mask, which may not be easy. However, if you have a horizon or some other video or photo which has horizontal and vertical lines that have been warped, you may be able to import this into your photo editing program and use that to create a template.

However, the free software ideas already posted sound like a much better way to go.

P.S. You can always export your video as a series of still images and then use the batch capability in your favorite photo editing software. Most photo editing software programs contain a lens correction feature.

musicvid10 wrote on 10/23/2013, 5:33 PM

Perspective Pilot (was on GAOTD last week) works pure magic with stills.
I wonder how well it would work on an image sequence.

ushere wrote on 10/23/2013, 5:42 PM

could always throw it at ps (using cs6) and use adobes lens correct...

Mrkrng wrote on 10/23/2013, 6:10 PM

The Sony deform tool does a pretty good job of this.

PeterDuke wrote on 10/23/2013, 6:57 PM

I have used extra wide angle lenses with still cameras and tried correcting the barrel distortion, but have come to the conclusion that extra wide views are unnatural, and therefore the best correction will be a compromise.

I have taken close up shots of the facades of tall buildings, which involves tilting the camera up somewhat. Fully correcting barrel distortion results in triangular shaped buildings, with pedestrians at the sides leaning inwards in an unnatural way. If you leave some barrel distortion, the pedestrians and bottoms of the side walls will be more vertical and therefore more natural looking.

You can widen the top and/or narrow the bottom to correct the triangular look, but if the facade has depth to it, the third dimension will become distorted in another way (round towers will appear elliptical, etc).

If your camera is pointing straight ahead (a less common situation for me) then you should remove all the barrel distortion,

PeterWright wrote on 10/23/2013, 7:29 PM

ProDrenalin by ProDad does this too, and very well - it comes with many presets, and you can create and save your own.

altarvic wrote on 10/23/2013, 11:55 PM

as well as proDAD Defishr

relaxvideo wrote on 10/24/2013, 12:33 AM

I think the best is the free barrel distrorsion plugin for the free virtualdub. I use it instead of newbluefx.

B.Verlik wrote on 10/24/2013, 12:56 PM

Thanks for all the replies. Now it looks like I have some testing to do.
Again... Thank you!!!