I've recently shot some office-based work at a shutter speed of 1/50th in order to produce a film-like effect.

However, my post production people say that there's no need to shoot at that speed because they can apply filters to give a film effect.

My question is: do I need to worry about the shutter speed when shooting in well-lit offices (ie, not fast cars, or slow mo., or anything where the shutter speed is an issue)?

If I don't need to worry about shutter speed, would anyone stop me using the Automatic setting on the XHA1?

If you're shooting at 25 frames per second (in PAL country) then 1/50 is the standard shutter speed you should use. If you shoot at a slower speed, you will get some strobing and blurring, which is annoying.

Faster speeds will cause strobing, slower speeds will cause motion blur. Fast speeds are useful if you need to grab sharp stills from action video, or if you want to apply slo-mo without seeing too much motion blur.

Thanks for your answers. What if I don't shoot at 25 fps?

Thanks for your answers. What if I don't shoot at 25 fps?

Your only options are 25F and 50i, and both work well with 1/50s shutter speed.

Richard