Terrible light/quality when taking videos?

I love shooting MTB (mountain biking) videos and everytime I shoot the video just looks awful and amateur compared to those pro videos where everything is just perfect, im using a nice setup, a canon 7d, a tokina 11-16 and a canon 70-200 F4 is, but no matter what i shoot it doesnt have that pro looking quality, and after some color correction it looks even more ridicoulous, is it me? someone please help!

Do you have any samples you could share?

There are various ways in which you can make your footage look more professional. The first is to make sure your camera is stable - camera shake often makes footage look very amateur and awful. So, shoot on a tripod, or a steadycam, or use IS on your lens wherever possible.

Secondly, make sure your camera's set up correctly for video. You don't have the same latitude when shooting video as you do when shooting Raw photos so you need to make sure your exposure is as good as possible - too overexposed and you'll blow the highlights, too underexposed and it'll look dark and drab, and if you correct in post you'll get noise.

Also consider your picture style - I tend to use a Neutral picture style with contrast and sharpness turned all the way down, but some people go for a much flatter picture style to give them more dynamic range, but this requires you to grade your footage later. Make sure your white balance is good too.

Another thing to think about is what shutter speed to use. 24fps footage with a 1/48 shutter will give you a more filmic look, but you'll probably want a much faster framerate when shooting sports.

Just some ideas to throw at you.

Did you try the digital video forum?

Can't answer your question, but after only very few videos with my 7d, I can see much difference between them. Some are really nice (IQ speaking) while other are very low quality, even with the same lenses. Total newbie here, so maybe it's about the light, aperture, or AF? I also used different free software!

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One more thing to mention: shooting in good light will make all the difference in the world.

JoYork wrote in post #16249642
Another thing to think about is what shutter speed to use. 24fps footage with a 1/48 shutter will give you a more filmic look, but you'll probably want a much faster framerate when shooting sports.

As a video noobie I understand and agree with the first point. But I really need an explantion as to why sports need a fast SS - doesn't that make everything look jerky?

Well there a couple of main decisions the OP will need to make concerning the framerate and the shutter speed, and these will depend on the type of look/feel he's going for. The first is the framerate - 24fps is regarded as giving a Hollywood film look, 30fps is used for most television broadcasts, and 60fps can be useful if you want to slow the footage down to 24fps or 30fps for dramatic effect.

Then there's the shutter speed. Usually it's based on doubling the framerate, so if you shoot 24fps then you need a 1/48 shutter speed, 30fps needs 1/60th shutter speed, and so on. This creates a certain amount of motion blur which we, as viewers, have become used to. But it's not uncommon to see much faster shutter speeds being used in videos nowadays - BBC's Top Gear often use Go Pro cameras in their footage and they usually have a much faster shutter speed resulting in less motion blur and a slightly choppier looking video as a result.

The action sequences in Saving Private Ryan (and also the island scenes in the TV show Arrow) are also shot with a much faster shutter speed, which conveys a feeling of frantic action. They could have shot the footage with a shutter speed of 1/48, but the resulting effect would be quite different.

JoYork wrote in post #16250364
Well there a couple of main decisions the OP will need to make concerning the framerate and the shutter speed, and these will depend on the type of look/feel he's going for. The first is the framerate - 24fps is regarded as giving a Hollywood film look, 30fps is used for most television broadcasts, and 60fps can be useful if you want to slow the footage down to 24fps or 30fps for dramatic effect.

Then there's the shutter speed. Usually it's based on doubling the framerate, so if you shoot 24fps then you need a 1/48 shutter speed, 30fps needs 1/60th shutter speed, and so on. This creates a certain amount of motion blur which we, as viewers, have become used to. But it's not uncommon to see much faster shutter speeds being used in videos nowadays - BBC's Top Gear often use Go Pro cameras in their footage and they usually have a much faster shutter speed resulting in less motion blur and a slightly choppier looking video as a result.

The action sequences in Saving Private Ryan (and also the island scenes in the TV show Arrow) are also shot with a much faster shutter speed, which conveys a feeling of frantic action. They could have shot the footage with a shutter speed of 1/48, but the resulting effect would be quite different.

This is good info. The biggest red flag I see in the OP's post (or actually don't see) is shooting DSLR video outdoors requires an ND filter to achieve the proper shutter speeds, and reasonable aperture settings. The rookie mistake is to ignore the shutter rule and bump it way up like we can with stills which will look terrible. The other mistake made if the shutter speed is correct is to close down the aperture (generally all the way to f22) which will also look terrible.
Then there's the question of stabilization. It i required in some way, shape or form unless you are going for the handheld look which is actually a technique that requires practice so the audience doesn't throw up. A lot of the handheld look on TV today is shoulder mounted cameras or steadicam used in a particular way.
Having files get worse in post means over-processing. Much like shooting a jpg still and trying to pull shadow detail or knock down highlights...it just doesn't work that well. Correct exposure is critical to DSLR footage looking good.

Try to pm user Liam Mullany. He has shot mountain biking with a 7d and does some great stuff. Maybe you can get some tips to help you out.

Ex: http://vimeo.com/26092​142