SmallHD User Guide

Peaking

Updated on

Peaking essentially mimics an exaggerated 'sharpening' filter like you may find on a consumer TV - this effectively increases contrast on in-focus portions of your image while retaining full color unlike Focus Assist.  Because of its relatively benign effect on the image this makes it great to use in combination with other features.

Peaking - Overview

Focusing with Peaking is simple- just look at where edges are being highlighted more drastically than others and this gives an indication of where your focus is placed.

Apart from the effect not being as visible as with Focus Assist, getting focus with Peaking can be done very quickly if within a clear enough view of your monitor.

Because Peaking doesn't have an extremely pronounced overall effect, critical applications where you may not have as clear a view of the monitor may benefit when using Pixel Zoom or Focus Assist.

Because it only enhances edges to a certain degree and doesn't otherwise mess with the image, Peaking is very useful in combination with other tools and scopes.

Peaking - Settings

On

Enables/disables the Peaking tool. You can also enable or disable the tool by selecting it on the tool bar.  It will be Green when enabled  and Grey when disabled.

Intensity

Adjust the opacity of the edge highlighting effect - increase for a more visible 'halo' with which to focus.

Brightness/Contrast

Adjust the brightness/contrast of the image to feed the Peaking filter with an adequate (ie not a flat log signal) source, translating into a clearer view of what is in focus.  

Any active exposure tools will respond to changes in brightness and contrast made here unless "Ignore Look" has been applied on each exposure tool - we recommend leaving these checked so that you are making exposure judgements off your original footage.

Peaking - Quick Start

The main benefit of using Peaking to focus your shot is that due to its relatively low impact on the image, we can use multiple tools along with it on a single page.  in this example we'll add Peaking to a page that already has Frame Guides, a Look (3D LUT) file and the Zebra tool applied.

From any page, click the joystick or tap the screen to bring up ‘Add New Tool’ and navigate to Focus > Peaking and select to add it to the current page.

Once added you can edit the settings by navigating right when ‘Peaking’ is highlighted.

To make the effect more visible on footage, increase the intensity slider.

Press the Back button to get to a full screen view of your footage.

You can look at the white 'haloing' appearing around in-focus edges to determine where your focus plane is.  Pointing the camera at the ground, you can very clearly what area is in focus.

For tricky shots where you need to focus on a subject as they move toward or away from the camera, try using the ground as a reference point before shooting to get a feel for moving the lens, how far/how fast to turn etc.

If you want a similar but more pronounced effect with which to focus your shot, try Focus Assist

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