I just got a Sony PMW-EX3, sorta a noob on this camera. I switched it to 1080 24p mode and put a shutter speed of 1/60. but the video was laggy and shuttery. Umm did i over look something? here is the footage.

YouTube - WHATS WRONG WITH MY FOOTAGE?? SONY PMW-EX3 test on 24p mode (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JFhus2z9ZE)

also i think it might be my computer but i doubt it. im using a first gen MBP, pretty much the first mac book pro with an intel chip lol. its about 3 years old.

Anyways what is the best settings on this camera for 24p recording

You have to pan very slowly shooting 24p. An object should take 7 seconds or more to cross the screen (got that from Barry Green from another thread)

Turning the shutter speed down or off (switch on bottom front of camera) should also help a bit.

Is this a true statement:

The EX1/EX3 is one of the first cameras to shoot TRUE 24p? I've read about stuff like 24fsp that the "other cameras" use. (I'm probably way off on this)

When shooting 24p real time you should use a shutter speed of 1/48th of a second, or a shutter angle of 180 degrees and make sure that the shutter switch is on. For overcranking at 60 frames per second I set the shutter to 1/250th of a second which gives eliminates almost all of the motion blur. For overcranking HQ footage at 30 frames per second I use a shutter of 1/125th of a second. It keeps the motion smooth, but still eliminates a lot of the motion blur.

Patrick, I've never shot with that fast of a shutter in overcrank. I'm going to try it, but I've been under the impression that shooting at 24/60 overcrank, a shutter of 1/120 and for 24/48 1/96 basically doubling your frame rate. 1/250 seems really fast. Do you have any footage I can see? I would love to see it.

Every week people discover anew that 24p isn't what they thought it would be. The only reason 24fps exists in the film is is because of technical and cost limitations from over 80 years ago :) Early films where shot at 15-16fps, because that was the slowest you could run a projector and still get a decent sense of motion. When sound came along, 24fps was the slowest they could run and still get decent sound continuity. That's why old films seem to run fast, when they transferred old movies to newer sound stock to add a sound track they just ran them at 24fps

They ran as slow as they possibly could to save on film stock. The slow image fps still has reasonable motion because our eyes retained an after image from the bright image flashes in a darkened cinema. Now people are conditioned to the 24fps cadence and mentally associate it with cinema quality, and they want to use that in video.

This is all very well, but it brings a raft of technical issues relating to camera motion and subject motion that must be taken into account. All of this should be in the manual of every camera that does 24p, it would save people a lot of confusion and angst :)

The judder issue will always be there unless you accept longer exposures to create motion blur. 24p video shown on a normal TV in normal light just doesn't create the after image that fools the brain into seeing smoother motion, you have to fool it with motion blur. Many just accept the judder as part of the look. After a while you won't notice it, unless you look at some nice 60p.

Here's a handy list of panning rates you need to adhere to if you want your 24p shoots to look as film like as possible. Divide the 35mm focal lengths by 3.5 to get a rough 1/2" equivalent.

- Know How (http://www.gecko-cam.com/HTML/KNOW-HOW/panning-speed.htm)

The knowledge needed is in all the text books about shooting film; even those for amateurs. But I guess the latter are all out of print, long ago. Professional cinematographers' manuals might be a bit of overkill for many people (they aren't cheap) but they contain all that information that is recurring-ly asked on many forums. Such as depth of field, circles of confusion and panning speeds for different frame rates. You might have a look at the American Cinematographer Manual, which is very comprehensive (even includes video). There is also 'Samuelson's "Hands-on" Manual for Cinematographers'. Note that these aren't how-to texts, and contain information, formulas and tables that one needs on the job.
Once one understands the limitations of 24 fps, and the importance of disciplined camera handling (good thing at all frame rates), it isn't difficult to get excellent results (in terms of "judder etc). Remember to keep relative line-of-sight rates low. You can see that in the posted clip. Movement along the line of sight is fine, fast movement across the frame not good. The less the angle of the vector, the smoother the motion.

I'm someone else who hasn't read these technical manuals I'm afraid, so if those of you who have (or who, unlike me, just understand this stuff) will indulge me, I'd love to ask about frame rate. For someone who just wants to get great footage, and who doesn't want to have to time out my pans (or pan slowly), and who sometimes shoots out of the window of a passing car, etc., what SHOULD I be shooting? I've been shooting 24p, but I'll happily switch to something else (I was noticing all sorts of video 'tearing', but I was blaming it on my lcd display). I don't really care about a 'film' look.
Thanks for your advice. (Ijust need to make sure that Avid Media Composer, on a Mac, can handle it).
Malcolm

You might as well shoot 60i, which is a standard video format. This will give you the smoothest motion. If your display is progressive (e.g. computer) you may see some interlace artefacts, but most people don't notice them. It will be excellent on all interlaced displays.

thanks Serena. I'll give it a try after my current project (which, of all things, even though I'm in Canada, is in PAL, 30p).
Malcolm

thanks Serena. I'll give it a try after my current project (which, of all things, even though I'm in Canada, is in PAL, 30p).
Malcolm


30p is not PAL!
Worse, from what I hear it's none too easy to convert 30p to 25p

Patrick, I've never shot with that fast of a shutter in overcrank. I'm going to try it, but I've been under the impression that shooting at 24/60 overcrank, a shutter of 1/120 and for 24/48 1/96 basically doubling your frame rate. 1/250 seems really fast. Do you have any footage I can see? I would love to see it.
Sorry to be off topic with the thread title, but this is a short piece of some football action that I shot this past season. Most of the footage that I shot was overcranked at 60fps at a shutter of 1/250th, including this clip. I also shot some real time footage at 24fps with a shutter of 1/48th or 180 degrees.
Evidently the clip didn't attach. Dylan, I'll try to send you an e-mail with the clip attached

30p is not PAL!
Worse, from what I hear it's none too easy to convert 30p to 25p

Yes, if your video is to be used in 50Hz countries it would have been better to shoot 25P, 50i or 50P. The good thing is that most European/Australasian systems will also play 60i, so that offers you a fall-back solution.

Sorry everyone... it is 1080/25P, not 30. (the first bit was shot in Poland, so I'm continuing to shoot in the same format; will convert the whole project to NTSC when finished).
Malcolm

You can mix 50i with 25P easily enough, so if you need smoother motion/faster pans I'd suggest shooting that. Generally better to shoot in the same format (meaning frame rate) as required for distribution. Certainly I've rendered out to NTSC DVD from 50i and 25P avi (HD); I suspect you are referring to an HD format rather than NTSC?

Hi Serena,
The first part of this doc was shot in PAL, in Poland, on a Panasonic camera at 25P. I'm now shooting in Canada, NTSC territory, but I was advised to finish the project (various people suggested I finish shooting it with the same Panasonic, but that wasn't possible, so I'm using my EX-1) in PAL, 25P. After colour correction, it'll all get converted to NTSC, but as I understand it, maybe a PAL version will go to Poland. A bit convoluted I'm afraid.
To try to smooth out pans, I took down my Detail (in PP; again, on advice I got on this forum), but I lost my peaking, so I've stepped the Detail back up.
Are you saying I could try 50i, without running into problems with the 25P stuff I've already shot? I guess I should check to see if Avid Media Composer would be good with this.
Cheers, Malcolm

I can't answer for AVID, but Vegas Pro handles mixed formats well. The quickest thing would be to run a test. However probably better for this project to stay with 25P to maintain a uniform cadence. Otherwise viewers might notice the change from so-called "film look" to "video look".
On NTSC and PAL: Bob and I were being a bit pedantic insofar that PAL and NTSC are SD formats.