Questions about shooting with 24p on GH2 and GH1

[Jeff Harper]

I have a wedding today, and it would be perfect opportunity to try out 24p. I have questions about it.

Will the GH2 and the GH1 footage show up as 24p on the timeline? My videocamera shoots native 24p and I would like all footage to be the same frame rate without needing conversion needed prior to editing.

Secondly, how is low-light shooting affected when shooting in 24p when I'm accustomed to 720p or 1080i? I've read (in passing) that 24p is worse in low light, and I've also read that it is better.

If I do this today, there will be minimal panning, etc, but that's pretty much my style already.

Anything else to take into consideration prior to the shoot?

Cams are 2 GH2s, 1 GH1 and a Canon XA10.

[Stephen Daugherty]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

I have a wedding today, and it would be perfect opportunity to try out 24p. I have questions about it.

Will the GH2 and the GH1 footage show up as 24p on the timeline? My videocamera shoots native 24p and I would like all footage to be the same frame rate without needing conversion needed prior to editing.

Secondly, how is low-light shooting affected when shooting in 24p when I'm accustomed to 720p or 1080i? I've read (in passing) that 24p is worse in low light, and I've also read that it is better.

If I do this today, there will be minimal panning, etc, but that's pretty much my style already.

Anything else to take into consideration prior to the shoot?

Cams are 2 GH2s, 1 GH1 and a Canon XA10.

Jeff,

I think it depends a lot on your NLE if it will work correctly. When we were using Avid Media Composer our timeline was set to 23.976 fps which worked wonderfully for 23.976 and 24 but broke immediately when introducing 30 (we had a shot that was accidentally recorded incorrectly). In Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 though with a 23.976 timeline it has not bat an eye at any footage as long as that footage has a higher framerate than the timeline itself. I can't speak for other NLE's though.

I don't see how it would matter for low light shooting or for shooting movement. There may be some esoteric reason why it might alter the image a little bit but I doubt you could see the difference. You have to really try hard to introduce any kind of ugly rolling shutter.

Your mileage may vary though. We use two Nikon D7000's and two Panasonic GH2's all of which shoot 23.976 natively.

Hope that helps!

[Jim Forrest]

@Stephen....Do you have a preference between the Nikon D7000 and the Panasonic GH2?

[Stephen Daugherty]

Originally Posted by Jim Forrest

@Stephen....Do you have a preference between the Nikon D7000 and the Panasonic GH2?

Horses for courses. I like them both so I don't want to get into a nitpick war between them. If I could send one message to each manufacturer though it would be this:

Nikon - Can you please fix the firmware to allow me to change the aperture in live view mode? Everyone else can.

Panasonic - Your TV's are so good - so why is the screen on the GH2 so lousy?