Shooting 1280 vs 1920, which do you prioritize?

[Chris Westerstrom]

If you have an equal amount of shots in 1920 and 1280 slow mo, do you make your entire project in 1280 or 1920?

and if so, why?


So far, I have been making my 1920 25fps clips 1280, but most of my work has been predominantly for the web.

Is there any reason to do it the opposite way?

thanks

[Jeremy Pevar]

If you are shooting for the web, there is no real advantage to 1080p - you may as well shoot everything at 720p.

Good luck!

[Liam Hall]

Sorry Jeremy, that's poor advice. Particularly poor in regards to this camera which shoots very bad 720p and should be avoided at all costs - that is if quality is important to you.

[Jon Braeley]

Today the web is 720 but tomorrow it will be 1080p.....

Shoot in the highest resolution possible - always. You can never go back and shoot again. Storage is cheap.

In just 3 or 4 years 1080p will be like SD today.

My last 5 full length docs are all shot 1080p but delivered today in 720 .... I am still waiting for easy 1080p delivery but its not far now.

[Ted Ramasola]

Liam is correct. More than what the web is capable of, its what this camera is technically capable.

Its 720 is poorly implemented, unless you are doing slow motion in 60P, use 1080 at all times.


Then down scale your master after editing to whatever needs you have, 480 for dvd, etc.

If this were another camera, like the JVC HDxxx which I have, its ok with 720P since its very well implemented. But in this particular case, the canons, avoid 720P unless you have to use it for slomo work.

But even then, if the scene is not so complex, you can achieve amazing slo mo in post from 30P footage using twixtor.

[Jeremy Pevar]

I will defer to the folks with more experience shooting 720p. Nearly all of my hands on experience is shooting 1080p. My point though, in a broader sense, is to shoot in a format that matches your final delivery requirements. Anyway, I should have left comments regarding 720p to the folks with more practical experience in that department.

[Ryan Mast]

The first question to ask is, what are you delivering to?

If you're delivering to digital cinema via DCP or the like, your sequence should at least be 1920x1080 24p, but preferably 2k 24p. And you should be shooting 1080 24p.

For basic music videos, I typically deliver 1280x720 30p if they're going to the web or broadcast, but I shoot 1920x1080 30p on the DSLR to have a little more resolution to work with, and 1280x720 30p on the JVC HM700 because its noise processing is better at 720p.

[David Lavender]

Ryan, forgive my ignorance on this, but why do you shoot music videos at 30p and cinematic work at 24p? Can you direct me to a resource to read up on the advantages of shooting music videos at 30p? I shoot with a 7D, and I'm interested in maximizing its capabilities.

[Zach Love]

First I should note, unless you're trying to speak in code... say "720" instead of "1280" & "1080" instead of "1920." Video is always reference by vertical lines of resolution.

With the practice of a lot of video formats having non-square pixels, it is important to know the amount of in a particular format & the final display.

For instance: DVCPro HD (P2) records 1080x1280. Each of the 1280 horizontal pixels have an aspect ratio of 1:1.5 & which are stretched out to 1920 pixels in playback / editing.

For the 7D, or any DSLR, all video is going to have problems, when you take a great high resolution still camera & hack it with some add-on software 90% after the fact, you're not going to have the best down-rez video stream. If the 7D had a chip that was 1080x1920 or 1280x720, the video it recorded would be much better, but the stills would be lower-resolution than many cell phone cameras.

With most NLEs being able to down covert easily, I say shoot at the highest resolution possible. It is always much easier to subtract something you don't need than to add something you don't have.

BUT if you want to do something in slow motion, then shoot 720. Why? 60fps.

Import your 720p60 footage & tell your NLE that it is really 720p30 & everything you shoot is at a very smooth 50% slow motion speed w/o any software fakery. In short, beautiful

The rest of the time, shoot 1080.

[Jeremy Hughes]

I think Chris was asking what to post in, not shoot in. I'd post the project at 1080 and blow up the 720 footage to it. You've got issues either way but look into scaling it up for the project and then when you master do the upres in AE if you can. If I have to shoot overcrank on a smaller camera and you have access to something else, like an EX, use it. The 720 scales up much nicer.