24p questions

[Kyle Prohaska]

Speaking of weddings, do any of you find anything on the Xl2 difficult during a wedding? It seems pretty bulky to by trying to use ona dance floor or w/e. Any input on this, ide appreciate. Also if you do use it for that and like it, waht accessories do you have/suggest. Other than batteries of coarse and UV lens lol.

-Kyle

[Allen McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by Kyle Prohaska

Speaking of weddings, do any of you find anything on the Xl2 difficult during a wedding? It seems pretty bulky to by trying to use ona dance floor or w/e. Any input on this, ide appreciate. Also if you do use it for that and like it, waht accessories do you have/suggest. Other than batteries of coarse and UV lens lol.

-Kyle

I'm used to working with much heavier equipment in my day job, so find the XL-2 a piece of cake. In fact I'd say it's a bit too light and I often find myself doing wobbly shots where I'd normally expect the camera to hold solid.

On the wedding dance floor, I tend to use the XL wide lens and a little pag-light on top with the diff filter applied. Keep the lens fully zoomed out and go for a walk amongst the dancers.

[Bryan Swaringen]

Hi guys, first time poster. Even though I do shoot in 24p for weddings I still am a little hesitant. I like to have some slow motion shots for the dances, flower pedals being thrown and a few other types of shots here and there. However, I'm not too comfortable doing slo-mo shots with 24p (feel free to shoot a tip this way if you got one ;), and I don't really like doing the whole 60i converted to 24p slo-mo. So if I want to do slo-mo, I usually do 60i because 30p looks too "in between." It looks like it's trying to do film and video at the same time and I just don't care for that look.
And on the 16:9 note, I ALWAYS shoot weddings in widescreen. My reason is because 10 years down the trail when a huge majority of people will have widescreen TVs I want my previous customers to be able to watch their wedding without being short and wide on the screen.
Just my opinion.

~Bryan

[Jarrod Whaley]

Originally Posted by Bryan Swaringen

I ALWAYS shoot weddings in widescreen. My reason is because 10 years down the trail when a huge majority of people will have widescreen TVs I want my previous customers to be able to watch their wedding without being short and wide on the screen.

Good point. Unfortunately, that seems to be how 99% of people with 16:9 TV's will sit and watch anything shot in 4:3, which is obviously still the majority of things on TV. It drives me crazy when I see people doing this. I want to strangle them. It's like they're too lazy to change one little menu setting, or else they'd rather watch Squat-O-Vision than have a pillarbox thing going on. It's completely maddening.

Sorry, that's off-topic I guess.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Jarrod Whaley

It drives me crazy when I see people doing this. I want to strangle them. It's like they're too lazy to change one little menu setting, or else they'd rather watch Squat-O-Vision than have a pillarbox thing going on.

As an owner of two HDTVs, I intentionally have them set to show everything widescreen because I like seeing the screen filled, even if it means the content gets stretched. On the better of the two TVs there's a "justification" mode which stretches the edges more than the middle in a way which makes the result look more natural.

In any case, agreed that widescreen TVs are the standard viewing format of the future, so I shoot and deliver everything widescreen now unless I think there's a good reason to do otherwise.

[Jarrod Whaley]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

I intentionally have them set to show everything widescreen because I like seeing the screen filled

Did you used to prefer horizontally-squished video or pan-n-scan over letterbox when you had a 4:3 TV? :)

Sorry, not trying to pick a fight, it's just a little pet peeve of mine.

[Allen McLaughlin]

Can I ask you US members what the uptake of 16:9 tv sets is like over there currently ? I've been working in 16:9 with the BBC for the vast majority of our domestic output for nearly ten years now, and there's scarely a 4:3 set to be found in the stores anymore.

I'm under the impression that the UK and Japan have the fastest 16:9 take up ? Just curious...

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Jarrod Whaley

Did you used to prefer horizontally-squished video or pan-n-scan over letterbox when you had a 4:3 TV?

An interesting question: on 4:3 TVs I prefer letterboxed widescreen movies over pan-and-scan cropping. For some reason pillarboxing on widescreen TVs bothers me more than letterboxing on widescreen TVs.

[Kevin Shaw]

Originally Posted by Allen McLaughlin

Can I ask you US members what the uptake of 16:9 tv sets is like over there currently ?

Where I live it's rare now for me to have a customer who doesn't own at least one widescreen HDTV, and I see people buying them almost every time we go to the local warehouse club store. Overall I think something like 20-25% of households in the U.S. own HDTVs and that percentage is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years.

[Peter Vaughn]

Hi everyone;

I'm really liking the look of my XL-2 on 24P, 16x 9....except when it comes to panning. I'm still getting the "stuttered" look on some pans, & increased gain.
I'm on manual settings, with the iris up, as well as the gain on -3db. Is there a trick to this to make the pans look smooth when played thru a JVC deck S-Video'd into an LCD screen? I have the vertical detail set to normal. Should I change it to low for 24P? Any help would be most appreciative.
Thanks;

Peter N. Vaughn

[Jarrod Whaley]

You just have to pan more slowly in 24p than you do at higher frame rates. That's just as true of film cameras as it is of video cameras.

As for the increased gain, I'm thinking what you're actually seeing is a slightly hotter exposure due to the fact that 24p allows a slower shutter speed. Are you shooting at 1/48?

Finally, switching to low vertical detail won't help with any of the things you describe. These things aren't detail issues, they're just things inherent to a frame rate of 24. You should really only decrease vertical detail if you have a lot of straight lines in the shot that give you "jaggies."

[Peter Vaughn]

Jarrod;

I'm actually trying to shoot at 1/75 shutter speed at 24P? Is that a good setting

[Richard Hunter]

Originally Posted by Peter Vaughn

I'm actually trying to shoot at 1/75 shutter speed at 24P? Is that a good setting

Hi Peter. Faster shutter speeds mean more time between exposures therefore more stuttering. The default for 24p is 1/48s so you could try that and see if it is good enough. Going to lower speeds such as 1/24s gives much smoother results but at the expense of motion blur (lots of it).

Panning to track a moving subject is one way to reduce the impact of stuttering. The background will still stutter but it is not so obvious unless you look for it.

Richard

[Peter Vaughn]

Richard,

Thanks for the info. Is the default setting for 30p 1/30? And what about for 60I. I don't know...
Thanks,


Peter Vaughn

[Jarrod Whaley]

Originally Posted by Peter Vaughn

Richard,

Thanks for the info. Is the default setting for 30p 1/30? And what about for 60I. I don't know...

I don't know about 60i, because I've never used it on this camera (no need). But the default for 30p is indeed 1/30. HOWEVER, 1/60 is actually a much better choice for most 30p footage. The motion blur at 1/30 is a little too extreme for 99% of the time.