need help: The EX3 and shooting Slo-Mo

[William Griffin]

I have a shoot next month and I need to shoot golfers doing their golf swing in slo mo...so what is the best setting for this on the EX3 as I have not shot in S&Q before? the client just wants a slo mo look as I know that, there are several settings to pick from ...but I need one that will work .

thanks

Bill Griffin
dp/cameraman

[Charles Newcomb]

You'll have to shoot in 720P, 30fps overcanked to 60fps is good; 24fps overcranked to 60 fps will give you even more slow motion. But don't forget you won't have audio.

[Olof Ekbergh]

You can also shoot in 720 60P and then conform it to 24 or 29.97 or whatever later. This way you do get audio.

Shoot with a 180 degree shutter or 1/120 sec for normal video look.

You could experiment with faster speed shutter for clearer freeze stills, but the video will look choppy when played back.

Do some experimenting to make sure you get the look you want. Play with it in post as well, you may well be able to slow it even more there.

A golf swing is very fast, to get real clean slomo you may want to rent a special camera, if the budget allows.

[William Griffin]

why would I get another camera when I am trying to rent this one to the client.....and I dont need freeze shots...I don't need normal video look I need a slo mo look...so you have any other suggestions?

Bill Griffin
DP/Cameraman

[Luben Izov]

Originally Posted by William Griffin

why would I get another camera when I am trying to rent this one to the client.....and I dont need freeze shots...I don't need normal video look I need a slo mo look...so you have any other suggestions?

Bill Griffin
DP/Cameraman

Hi William,
Based on your "informational" question, you got what you asked for.
I don't know why you are jumping like that on Olof, but let's face it - Olof got you the best possible solution for audio and video shot together, rather then recording audio on external devise separately for your upcoming slo mo look ;-)! If you don't need audio, well, their is only one way with EX3, Charles describes it very well in his post!
Good luck with the shoot...
BTW if you manage to convince your client for more then EX3, the options are much more... all depend of what the final artistic slo mo look would be desired... with golf club tracing clearly the swing, blurry but clearly enough to see the club and so on and so on. You can not possibly be able to see the ball get hit with EX3 if you are going to chase the swing unless you are on a wide shot. Wide shot?! the slo mo is not that effective as close up would be....
have fun, it would be nice to see the final result
Luben

[Olof Ekbergh]

The EX cams do slomo very well. It is really good at making street scenes with pedestrians look cool or waves in the water etc.

But if you want really spectacular slomo like you have probably seen of bullets through apples or close analyses of athletes moves. You need more than 60fps.

I was just making this point. And I gave you a few pointers on how to use the EX3 for slomo. Just don't expect miracles. That is why I was trying to make your expectations realistic. And I would definitely spend some time experimenting before the shoot, unless you have tried this before.

I did not mean to insult your choice of cameras.

[William Griffin]

I am not jumping on Olof, I just want to get the money back that I have put into my EX3 buy.....and the client tells me that the budget is real small.......so I have to make the EX3 work for this shoot.

BillG

[Chris Medico]

If you are tied to that camera your answer is above. Shoot 60fps and put it in a 24fps timeline.

Shoot straight 720p60 if you need to keep the sound or use the overcrank @ 60fps with the camera set to 24.

A golf club near ball contact will be traveling at about 125 feet per second. So at 60fps each frame of video will show the club head moving about 2 feet. There will only be a frame or two the club will even be in the picture depending on how you frame it up.

Then there is how you want the shot to look. How much blur do you want? To stop a club and give a reasonable crisp shot it needs to move no more than 1/4" in a frame. If we do the math there that means you need a shutter speed of 1/6000. Meaning the club will travel 1/4" in 1/6000th of a second.

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to achieve the look you are after.

[Derek Reich]

Not to rain too much on your parade here, William.... (because I do understand the need to work your own gear) but there is something else to consider. A golf club is a very linear object.... and a linear object in motion (particularly fast motion) MAY exhibit some odd 'bending' due to the rolling shutter employed in the EX. This would be much more obvious in slow motion.... I would recommend trying a test before your shoot to make sure the end result does not look like your golfer is using a rubber club.
Just a thought-

[William Griffin]

Ok guys....let me explain..all the client wants is a shot of each player "doing their swing"....its just a shot
that will last about 3 to 4 seconds....just to show the start , then will dip into another normal shot of them....it's a "art" shot. It will be a wide shot to start, so very high speed is not needed to show the ball. This is from the client as of today.

I again to thank everyone for their comments, but I do think we got off track a bit as this is a XDCAM EX group and how to use the camera.

thanks again to everyone........................

[Steve Pond]

Hey William, I'll just add that I use the EX3 for a lot of slow-motion footage. Without getting into whether or not it's suited, it's what you have and you need to make the best of it. I shoot at 720/60P. I don't tend to use the sound clip, but I edit in Premiere Pro, and there's an option to stretch the sound and keep the original pitch. I don't use it too often, but the whoosh of a golf swing and the striking of the ball may come through clearly and more natural than a more dynamic sound recording. Anyway, I'll drop the speed down in post to as low as 12 to 15 fps and for a golfer looking at his swing, it's plenty fluid enough. I've shot at up to 1/1000 shutter speed, which may be needed for your project. I'd say somewhere between 1/500 and 1/2000. It screws the footage for normal playback because you get all sorts of banding, but if you're only using it for slow-mo, then it should work fine. I think these people are more interested in the "look" and mechanics of their swing than the production quality and "smoothness" of the video.

[Steve Phillipps]

Olof's post was spot on, I've nothing to add, great advice.

I think the comment about another camera being useful he was meaning something like a super slomo and it was just a hypothetical possibilty if that's what you wanted (now or in the future). Things like the Phantom cameras can slow the action down over 40x, meaning the swing could last 20 seconds or so on screen and would be truly stunning. Sounds like no use for this scenario but good to know.

Steve

[William Griffin]

Some people are telling me to shoot, with the shutter set to 180...I am a little lost on this and what does that mean? thanks

[Olof Ekbergh]

In the menus you can set shutter speed as angle or time.

I suggest you get the field guide from Vortex media or really study the manual.

Shutter angle is left from the film days. 180 degrees is equivalent to half the frame rate. So at a 30th it would be 1/60 and at a 60th it is a 1/120. It has to do with the spinning disc that is built into a film camera. Look it up.

Rotary disc shutter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

180 degree shutter is standard and has a nice blend of motion blur to crispness, it is what we are use to seeing.

[William Griffin]

Ok I will do some homework....many thanks.