Need advice for Club shoot

[Andrew Klokow]

Hey everyone!
I will be shooting a club promo video next week and i needed some advice. The place is not the biggest but the excitement is crazy and its packed with tons of people.
Since its a low light situation and people will be jumping around all over the place, will i get any benefit of recording in 30p vs 24p. I still want to the film look i just wasn't sure what i should film in. Ive always done 24.

This is a sample of what i want the video to look/feel like.. he says he records in 30p, but im not sure if he takes it into a 30p timeline or 24

EPR 139 (12th Planet & NiT GriT) on Vimeo

Gear will be
Magic Lantern
50mm 1.8
Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8

Thanks everyone for the help! Any advice on the subject would be greatly appreciated

-Andrew

[Gianni Paolella]

Nice girls, nice light, but I did not see difference to shoot here with the DSLR or normal Videocamera
Where is all the benefit you have shooting with different lens?...everybody with e camera is able to shoot it.
Sorry but this is my opinion....24 or 30 is the same for this kind of shooting!!

[Don Rumsey]

I've shot several club videos. I've used T2i and 60D with 18-55 kit lens and 50mm 1.8. I've come out with very similar results with just that. Shot at 24 p set at 60. The flares from the multi colored lights and lasers can be fun to capture as well.

[John Wiley]

Watch out for stobe lights... they'll look terrible with the rolling shutter shutter on the DSLR's.

24p or 30p won't matter, so shoot for whatever your intended/preferred output will be.

[Paul Digges]

Andrew. Here's my footage straight out of camera with no grading of a basically identical scenario to Jon's.

Borgore Drops Scary Monsters (Live @ Marquee) on Vimeo

Settings were 1080p24 1600ISO 1/30 2.8 on a 16-35 F2.8L with a 60D.

If you want to get a little less motion blur you can set to 3200ISO and crank the shutter up to 1/60 or 1/100 if there's really adequate lighting.

Cut on a 1080p24 timeline.

EDIT: I also know one of his set-ups to achieve that look is a Tokina 11-16 With a Bescor LED light. He rocks a T2i. I guess you can kinda see some of that from his Vimeo profile picture, but one of my friends had a conversation with him about his work as well.

[Jon Fairhurst]

For indoor lighting, use 1/60 or 1/120 in North America and 60 Hz countries. Use 1/50 or 1/100 in 50 Hz countries.

[Paul Digges]

Jon, does this mean because it matches up with the cycle of most conventional lighting fixtures?

Most of these venues/stages are all lit by either LEDs now or arc-type lamp powered units or are powered by 208v current, so I'm not even sure that would technically apply. Obviously though a club isn't your traditional indoor lighting scenario by any means.

I would imagine any quality gain you'd achieve by using faster shutter speeds is from just a sharper picture with less motion blur. I totally agree that the faster shutter is nicer, but I'm just curious to see if you could elaborate more on your statement?

[Jon Fairhurst]

Yeah, I was assuming 50 or 60 Hz lighting and the need to avoid flicker. Normally one would shoot at 1/50 or 1/60, but if you want a more frenetic look, a higher shutter speed might be a valid artistic choice - assuming that there is enough light and/or your lenses are fast enough. 1/100 and 1/120 also avoid flicker under 50 and 60 Hz lights, respectively.

(The reason for that is that lamps make light during both the positive and negative swings of the sine wave, so it dims twice per cycle. So the flicker frequency is twice the power frequency.)

Anyway, if the club has long-persistence lights and/or is running a different frequency current, this may not apply.

One thing that's unfortunate is that no shutter speed will solve the rolling shutter strobe problem. According to tests that I did long ago on the 5D2 (before the 24p firmware), the rolling shutter speed was independent of the shutter duration.

[Paul Digges]

Cool, yeah I've got experience with setting these style lighting systems up on a corporate level and they are all over the spectrum of light sources and what not. I've generally been happier running the higher ISO to have a faster shutter so maybe there actually is a benefit to running it that way.

[Stephen Hill]

Is there a maximum ISO that you guys would stick too when shooting in low light conditions like a club ? I am shooting in a nightclub tomorrow night and I really want to avoid noise in my video.

[Paul Digges]

I never go higher than 3200. 6400 is way too noisy on these cameras. 3200 is usable. I think for the majority of the show I shot last night I was at 2250 or whatever the midpoint between 1600-3200 is. I ended up cranking it up to 3200 when I had my 10-22 on as it's F3.5-4.5. But any 2.8 lens you can easily get away with 1600 1/30th if the venue's lighting is worth half a damn.

I rocked an LED light for the first time last night. A friend's budget Opteka one, but it put out plenty of light so it worked out pretty well. Maybe that's something you could consider as well. The crowd didn't mind the light either, most of them love the camera. Definitely want to play around with it more on the next gig.

[Stephen Hill]

I have an LED toplight for tonight. I am taking all my lenses and I have hired a 50mm 1.4. I already have a Sigma 30mm 1.4 so I should be ok in the low light. Really looking forward to it now :)

Also, what white balance should I be setting ? I am taking a 60D, 7D and 5D mkII so I want to be consistent across the 3 cameras. (soz for the thread hijack Andrew)

[Paul Digges]

Hmm, sorry I didn't get to this soon enough. But we run AWB on our cameras. My partner shoots with a T2i and myself a 60D and we've never had many white balance issues.

With that said, when you use the light, I've heard of some guys running the cams on "Daylight" white balance to warm up the blue/green tint usually associated with LED lights.

[Stephen Hill]

In the end I left everything in AWB. The 5D seemed to give a blue tinge to lips on all footage shot in one area of the club (unsurprisingly next to a bar with a blue neon light!) but I can easily fix this if needed. On the whole I was very happy with the results from the Canon 50mm 1.4 and the Sigma 50mm 1.4. I also threw on my Tokina 11-16 at 2.8 for while but results weren't good. At this point I started using an LED toplight.........Wow! I didn't expect it to give such a nice effect but shooting people dancing with this on was a joy. I shot mostly at 24p but did a fair bit at 60p too. The 24p footage was shot a mixture of shutter, either 50 or 100. The combo of 24p, LED toplight, 30mm or 11-16mm lens and shutter @ 100 was perfect for capturing dance floor energy.
I'm flying out on my honeymoon in a couple of weeks and I plan to do the cut while I am away. The club promoter was happy with this so once I have submitted the promo to him I will share here.

[Paul Digges]

The Tokina and an LED light are basically how Jon Zombie up there makes all his videos look so good. That and he's got his grading techniques dialed in. Glad to hear it went well on your first outing. I've shot about 6 Dubstep shows now and learn something new every time.

I shot one in 60P and honestly don't think I really cared for how the footage came out. For the club stuff 60-100 on the shutter at 1080p24 seems to be my favorite look.