what do you guys prefer, 30 or 60? i personally do not like the 60 look, as it is too video-looking. i do love the 30p...i shoot with XH A1, but don't like the motion jerking for movement. i may switch to the 60. just curious what you guys choose and if any clients have actually chosen one over the other.
Steve

30F for me, just be careful when panning side to side, the slower the less of judder.

60i

-better low light performance in 60i
-much better looking slow mo
-no need to worry about choppy pans (I've got enough to think about on the wedding day)

60 - much cleaner look for me and slow-mos are much nicer

60i

-better low light performance in 60i
-much better looking slow mo
-no need to worry about choppy pans (I've got enough to think about on the wedding day)

On the Canon XHA1 there are different considerations:
-Better low light in 30F
-Slightly lower resolution on 30F
-If you are shooting for someone else, they might not be able to use 30F (60i is universal).

I choose to use 30F for my weddings. I post montages on the internet and progressive eliminates the jaggies. I also do frame grabs from the video and interlaced is not good for that.

shoot with 60i and deinterlace when I export them for the wedding.
for interviews or other stuff, I shoot in 30p.
Working fine with me.

JJ

I shoot 720 50P. Great for the slow mo sequences as well. Shoot 25P or 24P and slow it down and you get a mess of judder.

I shoot 720 50P. Great for the slow mo sequences as well. Shoot 25P or 24P and slow it down and you get a mess of judder.

50p? not 50i? I'm guessing that's like shooting 60p in the states. I've never shot at 60p. Do you edit that in a 25p timeline? Does that make everything slow motion already?

He probably meant 50i, not 50p. 50i is for PAL, 60i is NTSC for us here in the states.

I use the EX1 and shoot 720/50p shutter off. Looks great downconverted for SD and slow-mo looks good.
Give it a go

I always used to shoot 60 but am now shooting 24p on the A1. If you like the look of 30, why not shoot 24? With either of them, it's just a matter of learning how to shoot a little differently and knowing what kinds of shots work and don't work. Once you get that down it looks amazing!

...If you like the look of 30, why not shoot 24?....
Because I want to keep the extra 6 frames a second :P it's just a bit smoother :)

Because I want to keep the extra 6 frames a second :P it's just a bit smoother :)

haha good point!

I'm shooting my first wedding at 24f at the end of this month. I shot trash your dress sessions in 24f and came out quite good, but I'm still a bit worried about shooting a wedding at this frame rate. Any of you guys have good advice, tips or things i should be careful about when shooting a weeding at 24f?

I'll be using a tripods, glidetrack & merlin for this gig.

Thank you.

I'm shooting my first wedding at 24f at the end of this month. I shot trash your dress sessions in 24f and came out quite good, but I'm still a bit worried about shooting a wedding at this frame rate. Any of you guys have good advice, tips or things i should be careful about when shooting a weeding at 24f?

I'll be using a tripods, glidetrack & merlin for this gig.

Thank you.


Just make sure you're moving the glidetrack fairly slow just as you would if you were panning on a tripod. As far as the merlin, really try to keep your subject of the shot the focus of the shot. If the subject stays framed the same in the shot when moving, you'll be drawn to that as opposed to watching that background or other things moving with a bit of jitter. Especially with 24, you don't have nearly as much room to fly by and around things without getting a lot of jitter and breaking up. I keep everything a little slower and much more controlled and it looks great! I'm fairly new to using 24 but it doesn't take long to know what doesn't work :-)

Matt

Thanks Matt for the few pointers. I'll need to be conscious when shooting with the various gear.

Do you have a recent clip that you shot in 24f? wouldn't mind checking out what type of shots you accomplished with fluidity.

Thanks Matt for the few pointers. I'll need to be conscious when shooting with the various gear.

Do you have a recent clip that you shot in 24f? wouldn't mind checking out what type of shots you accomplished with fluidity.

Yes. This clip was all 24 and the only shot that looked a little jittery on tv was the pan that you see in the salon. I typically don't use any pans but ended up doing that for this edit so any pans I do in the future will be a little slower.

Hannah + Jimmie opening segment MEDIAINNOVATIONS CINEMATOGRAPHY BLOG (http://mediainnovationsblog.com/2009/02/22/hannah-jimmie-opening-segment/)

Thanks Matt, it helps me build confidence when i see other people's work done using 24f.

Very nice piece BTW.

I use the EX1 and shoot 720/50p shutter off. Looks great downconverted for SD and slow-mo looks good.
Give it a go

Correct Simon. I meant 720 50P. I don't shoot interlaced. Ever.

wow...I'm surprised...I thought most people shot in 24f...not so I guess...even more surprised that people shoot 60i. Does anyone mix frame rates? It seems to me that perhaps I would like to use 60i for "flying" shots but would prefer 24 or 30 for most the stationary stuff. would this look bad on output? I guess I should try it and find out but was wondering if anyone has experience doing this....

I shoot 24p and it come out great. check out my latest highlight

Imperial Video Production and Motion Graphics (http://www.imperial-videoblog.com)

what do you guys prefer, 30 or 60? i personally do not like the 60 look, as it is too video-looking.

Steve - it's not you, it's them. You've got to please the client, and a young couple might be choosing you because you 'get film that looks so natural' or somesuch. And generally 50i (for us in PAL land) gives the cleanest, smoothest footage that we can muck about with in post should we want to.

I'm with Craig's three points on this one, the thinking being that this couple in all probability have never been 'properly' filmed before and certainly never seen themselves smoothly edited into a beginning, middle and end movie. So now they get the chance to see themselves in a very romantic light – beautifully framed and centre stage of their day. I'm not sure that many of my couples would appreciate the finer points of progressive and so on, but I'm quite sure my 'video look' is a look they've not seen themselves in before.

tom.

I shoot 60i with no regrets. With the amount of running around in shooting wedding videos, I have no desire to worry about motion judder and bad slomo.

And it's not like any clients are demanding 24p. Most of them have no idea what it is...

I would never shoot a wedding on 24 or 25P. You are asking for problems.

I know this is probably a dumb question...but after reading these posts I thought I would try shooting with my XHA1 set on 60i. I got home and looked at the results and am not very happy...everytime people move or there is motion in the shot the edges get jagged. Do I need to deinterlace or something? I am using a firestore and am viewing the quicktime files it creates. I just got a HV20 to use as a back up b roll cam and was planning on shooting 60i with the A1 to make matching the footage easier, but the test results weren't very impressive. I assume there is a setting I am missing since I really like a lot of the work I have seen of people on here who are shooting 60i. Any tips would be appreciated...
Andy

I know this is probably a dumb question...but after reading these posts I thought I would try shooting with my XHA1 set on 60i. I got home and looked at the results and am not very happy...everytime people move or there is motion in the shot the edges get jagged. Do I need to deinterlace or something? I am using a firestore and am viewing the quicktime files it creates. I just got a HV20 to use as a back up b roll cam and was planning on shooting 60i with the A1 to make matching the footage easier, but the test results weren't very impressive. I assume there is a setting I am missing since I really like a lot of the work I have seen of people on here who are shooting 60i. Any tips would be appreciated...
Andy

If you are seeing this with 60i, make sure your shutter speed is set to 1/60. Anything less (or slower , 1/30) will give that jagged or ghosting look even with 60i.

I know this is probably a dumb question...but after reading these posts I thought I would try shooting with my XHA1 set on 60i. I got home and looked at the results and am not very happy...everytime people move or there is motion in the shot the edges get jagged. Do I need to deinterlace or something? I am using a firestore and am viewing the quicktime files it creates. I just got a HV20 to use as a back up b roll cam and was planning on shooting 60i with the A1 to make matching the footage easier, but the test results weren't very impressive. I assume there is a setting I am missing since I really like a lot of the work I have seen of people on here who are shooting 60i. Any tips would be appreciated...
Andy
Hey Andy,
Just stick with 30F for today since your use to that. You can always deinterlace the hv20 footage to match it. There will be resolution lost but if you use it as a safety cam it will work perfect. I'll see if I can send you a link showing it in action. The best feature of 60i is being able to get smooth slow motion. Also there is no judder with that frame rate. If your not using it for slow motion and don't like the look of 60i, 30P/F is great as it's between 60i and 24P. You know that already though. :)

Monday- Sounds like good advice...that is what I came to last night after reading posts until the early am :-) Also, I realized that the jagged edges are probably because I was viewing the footage on an LCD computer monitor, so if I understand things correctly (cross my fingers here) it might have something to do with that. Reading another post it sounded like LCD monitors only display progressive images...which is different from TV's. I look forward to growing into the equipment I have and understand how/why to shoot at the different framerates. So far the advice I have gleaned from the board points to:

Action stuff (sports):60i
Weddingish:30p/f
Feature filmish stuff:24f/p

I know there are lots of variations on this and it is personal taste/choice, but for a while I think I will concentrate on these settings. I really appreciate this board and all the information that is shared...learning is probably my favorite part of this endeavour.

...So far the advice I have gleaned from the board points to:

Action stuff (sports):60i
Weddingish:30p/f
Feature filmish stuff:24f/p


Hey Andrew,
How did your shoot go? What did you end up doing? Just to clarify there are many companies I know that use 24P successfully for their wedding films. In the end it's just what your more comfortable with. You definitely have the right idea above.

Monday

Monday-
Just got back from the shoot...and I'll be interested to see how the footage looks. I ended up going 30f like you suggested. I'll be interested to see how the HV20 stuff mixes in. Now that I am sitting here I think I may have left it on 24p. Hopefully I won't need it much. For audio I plugged an iriver into the church's sound board and then had a backup wireless system on the groom going direct into my cam. Unfortunately there was a loose connection or something on the church's officiant mic causing it to cut in and out. The sound guy thought it was my wireless interfering (although we had checked it at the rehearsal) and asked me to shut my mic down...which was a bummer because it was the only mic functioning at that point. When he figured out it wasn't me he let me turn it back on...so hopefully I can blend something together. Anyways, thanks for the encouragement and thanks for asking about the shoot. Everytime I do this I am reminded how difficult non-repeatable events are!! Also, probably like every person on the learning curve I look at those ahead of me and get jealous...I want to do amazing shots etc, but for now I guess the basics will have to suffice :) I'll post a highlights in the next week or two and send you the link for your thoughts. Thanks,
Andy

He probably meant 50i, not 50p. 50i is for PAL, 60i is NTSC for us here in the states.

50P and 60P are available frame rates in 720P.

Everytime I do this I am reminded how difficult non-repeatable events are

A good line Andy, a good line.

50P and 60P are available frame rates in 720P.

Yes 720P50. No interlaced rubbish (IMO progressive is no much better) and enough frames to do excellent slo-mo. 50% slo-mo is 25P which some are advocating shooting at. Why? Shoot 50P and you have much more to play with.

Guys,
Unless you have HVX200 or EX1 which let you do 60p the slow mo is only smooth in 60i which you have to de-interlace. Or put it on 30p, like on mine XHA1, and slow it down only 80% to work in 24p timeline. The cinema effect is only achieved in 24p timeline, which most of us want. My question is, how do you switch between the speeds. When do you know you won't need a slow-mo and want to record only normal speed. In other words, do you switch between frame rate, let say 24p and 30p, or 60i during wedding?

The cinema effect is only achieved in 24p timeline, which most of us want.

True, the cinema look is 24 or 25P, but do you want to shoot weddings in 24P? I shot a wedding last year in 25P ( PAL land) and had a complaint that the fotage "looked jittery". Of course there was nothng I could do about it after the event.

Most brides don't care for "the cinema look". They want to see nice video of their wedding.

Shooting slo-mo in HDV means the resolution of the pictures is reduced (though not in the EX1) though for some situations that don't need the full HDV quality this is not a problem. Unfortunately audio cannot be recorded while in this slo-mo mode. That being so I will say that I use the softening effect of post-production slow-motion to good effect in my wedding films and there's no way round it at my price level.

When I get the groom to twirl his bride around I'll often add to the softening effect of the slo-mo by intentionally adding motion blur (a Canopus real-time filter). On top of that I can cut and paste the clip to the video track above, reduce its transparency and moving it out of sync by a couple of frames - all adding to the romantic softening.

Another effective technique is to vary the rate of slow-motion, and this is best decided upon during the edit. A twirl looks very effective if it starts off at normal speed, sine waves smoothly down to 20% and then back up to normal speed as her feet touch down. Shooting everything normally lets you decide later what scenes should be have their speed varied and by what amount, and for run 'n' gun shooting this is really the only option. You also get to capture the sounds made at the time - quite important I find.

tom.

Tom, good points but by shooting 50P at nrmal speed, you can do slo-mo easily in post without jitter, and still have the audio. (though obviously if you slow the footage by 50% the sound will be as well so it needs to be adjusted)

If you shoot at 24P there is no way on earth you can use it for slo-mo. 50% will be 12 FPS, which will look dreadful.

I don't ever do slo-mo in camera at a wedding. There's no need to with 50P anyway.