Shutter Speed for Dance

[Greg Clark]

I have just completed two dance shows. One with 100 and the other with 60 shutter speed. Would it be a good idea to try higher shutter speed numbers?

[Tripp Woelfel]

Me thinks it depends. If it's classic ballroom dancing, the slower shutter speed will accentuate those slower, flowing moves. Anything more acrobatic like tap or jazz, you can run the shutter up some so the action looks more crisp. If for any reason you want to slow the footage in post, faster shutter speeds (1/120 or more) will make that look better.

Don't really run it up unless the moves border on gymnastics. It'll look too "sharp".

[Greg Clark]

Tripp your answer would also explain why when I capture photos from tape to SD at shutter speed 60 the photos are blurry\grainy compared to the photos from shutter speed 100 or greater.

[Tom Hardwick]

Greg, that doesn't compute. If you use the default shutter speed (1/60th in your case) the resultant footage will be less grainy than footage shot at 1/200th sec (say) simply because you probably won't be in the gain up area.

If you want to shoot flowing dance sequences, always shoot at the default shutter speed. If you think you want to export frames as stills for possible evaluation later, then higher shutter speeds will reduce motion (camera and subject) blur - but will mean you've had to use a wider aperture and possibly gain-up - depending on the light levels.

tom.

[Tripp Woelfel]

Tom's right about the grain. you might have had the gain up. A lot here, including me, shoot at -3db.

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick

If you think you want to export frames as stills for possible evaluation later, then higher shutter speeds will reduce motion (camera and subject) blur - but will mean you've had to use a wider aperture and possibly gain-up - depending on the light levels.

Well, maybe. Whatever you can do to keep the aperture near 4.x will keep you near the camera's optical sweet spot. This from several others here and elsewhere. If your subjects are well lit, you'll might need an ND to keep it in that range. With an ND a 1/60, you can bump the shutter speed to the point where you can lose the ND and keep a similar aperture. This will give you an equivalent optical look at the subject but of course the crispness of each frame will change.