24p at higher and lower shutter speeds?

[Jason McDonald]

1/50 is what people say is the closest speed for 24p. I assume this involves the proper amount of motion blur (Correct me if I'm wrong). Is there more to it than that?

When in a dark situation where light is scarce and you need to open your aperture all the way and still not getting enough light and then bringing up the ISO and still want more light, would dropping the shutter speed really affect the quality of video, so long as what you are shooting isn't moving that fast? Would the opposite be true that when you shoot in brighter conditions and don't have a ND fader, that bringing up the shutter speed (To allow you to shoot with a shallow DOF) do much to the video? Under what circumstances would YOU see this be a problem?

I saw Stillmotion's test of the 3 Canon cameras (5Dii, 7D, 1Dmark4) and saw that in certain situations they had slowed down their shutter speed to 1/30th. I saw no real difference in video quality. Also reading some of their comments it seems they prefer having control over aperture and work at increasing, decreasing ISO/shutter speed more than they do aperture.

Anybody care to comment?

[Roberto Lanczos]

the 35mm cameras used in hollywood work at 24p 1/48th by default.
Even when directors have the option to play with shutter and aperture, the don't do it.

Under any circumstance you see anyone tweaking the cam here and there. All you do in hollywood is to tell what you wanna see in the frame. If it is too dark, the production department will add more lights... if it is to bright, then, more ND filters will come to play.

That's how it's done.
Unless you're shooting the next "Saving Private Ryan" or "Sin City".


You can do whatever you want... there is no rules to this thing.
don't be afraid to experiment.

But in case you want to know. Under any circumstance you should break
the 180° rule of shutter angle.

Hope that helps.

[Jason McDonald]

On a Hollywood setup, lights and framing and time and everything else is in their budget. When you're shooting a wedding or event where you don't have control over lighting, what do you do? Or if you don't have access to the lighting equipment Hollywood uses or are trying to do something on your own?

[Marty Hudzik]

In a low light situation going from 1/50 to 1/30 increases light and adds some additional motion blurring to moving images. It's not terrible but it is there.

However, going from a shutter speed of 1/50 to 1/70 looks more obvious. I shot some footage this weekend with my 7D outside in the bright sun and I had to stop down to f22 and increase shutter to 1/80....my iso was at 100. The footage looked razor sharp in the video mode but soft in the stills I shot. The video was odd looking because there was not much motion blur in the footage. Film has a natural blur and when we increase our shutter speed that goes away and looks....odd. Like Saving Private Ryan looked....which was a desired effect by Spielberg.

I found the outside footage at f22, S-1/80 and iso 100 looked sharp and clean. Maybe too sharp. Depth of field was so deep that kids sled riding and snow mounds 50 ft behind them were all in focus. I will be investing in a variable ND filter very soon it would appear.

Regardless I will go out on a limb and say the brain doesn't notice as big a difference between 1/50 and 1/30 as it does between 1/50 and 1/70. It is the same interval but for some reason we are trained to see the motion look of film and 1/70 doesn't have that look. 1/30 has a bit too much motion blur but our brains are accepting of it because at least it is there. 1/70 almost seems like there is none...I know there is but it's so subtle it gives the sense that there isn't.

[Burk Webb]

I'm kind of digging the fast shutter look. I'm a fan of the camera work of Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor who did the first Crank and Gamer. They tend to shoot action with pretty high shutter speeds. I really like that fast, strobey, kinetic look in some of their stuff.

It's all a matter of preference of course. The only way to find what works for you is to experiment.

[Brian Brown]

Marty, the softness you're seeing on the stills is the diffraction limits of the sensor. Higher f-stops will degrade the image rapidly. On the APS-C sensor, it's maybe f8 or so. The full-frame 5D2 can probably go down to f16. Teensy sensors like the 1/3" can start to degrade as little as f4.

You're right on: when outside, add some ND. Keeps the shutter at 180 and the aperture open.

[Bill Pryor]

As Burk noted, the high shutter speed is an effect and should be used as one. For normal shooting, you stay at 1/50 and use ND filters. A .9 will get you to the mid reanges of your lens under most bright outdoor conditions at 100 ISO, for gray overcast days a .6 might be necessary.

[Ken Glassing]

It's all a matter of preference of course. The only way to find what works for you is to experiment.[/QUOTE]

That's exactly right!
I use the 1/30th setting all the time in low light. I wish it had 1/20th! shutter
On film cameras there is the option of closing down the shutter, 90 degrees...45 degrees...ect...this is used all the time in action scenes to achieve a choppier look.
The cool thing about the 7d is that it can acheive this same effect by using the electronic shutter...here are the equivilents

270 = 1/32
180 = 1/48
178.8 =1/50
144 = 1/60
90 = 1/96
72 = 1/120
45 = 1/198
22.5 = 1/348
11 = 1/696
8.6 = 1/1000

[Jesse Haycraft]

Actually, in NTSC land it's a better idea to shoot 1/60 instead of 1/50 to avoid problems with certain kinds of artificial lights. 1/50 may be closer to the "film look" but the difference between that and 1/60 is minuscule and probably not worth the risk of experiencing the weird artifacts you can experience with 1/50 and certain lighting.

More info: Shutter Speed - 1/60 most of the time? - DVXuser.com -- The online community for filmmaking

[Jon Fairhurst]

By the same token, with the 5D2 at 30p in Europe, shoot at 1/60 in the daylight and 1/50 at night, also to avoid strobing with artificial lights. Once we get 24p in the 5D2, I'll shoot 1/50 in daylight and 1/60 under artificial lights here in the US.