Frame Rate Selection for Wildlife

[Kiran Ghadge]

I have query regarding frame rate while shooting wild life. Is 4K 24 FPS or 4K 60 FPS recommended as there may be many unpredictable moments while shooting in the wild. What could be the pros and cons of each?

I tried searching for any similar thread on the forum but did not find any relevant one. If there is any already I apologize and request you to kindly direct me there.
Thanks in advance for the advise.

[Bo Skelmose]

Hi
Going 24P will do fine if you go for the big movies - I go for television and internet. In Europe where the standard are 25P, 50P or 50i - I record everything in 4k 50P Throw away every second picture and you have 25P. For nature - many things are slowed down 50% - insects and birds move to fast do give decent movements on television and you can also Interlace it and it will give you a fine 50i footage. If you live in 60hz land I would record in 60P!

[Kiran Ghadge]

Thanks Bo...

[Steve Siegel]

Kiran,

There may be many, many times when you wish you had shot at 60 fps. Basically any time you think about slowing down the action, even a little bit. And if you go progressive (p) instead of interlaced (i) you will get better quality. If you shoot at 24 fps, you have no where to go in slowing the action, because at 15 fps (not even half speed) the eye can sense jerkiness.

Also consider using a high shutter speed (1/500 or faster) if you do not want motion blur. Contrary to the beliefs of some, a high shutter speed in video does not give stuttery footage.

I have recently been shooting flying birds with a little hand-held that offers 120 fps. It's amazing how smooth and beautiful the footage slowed down 4 times is even with that little consumer camcorder.

[Kevin Railsback]

Kiran,

Great question!

On my PX270 I have one of the User buttons designated to bring up my scene files.

I only have two. They are both totally identical as far as sharpness, gamma and all that stuff with only one exception, frame rate.

Scene File 1 selects 60fps and Scene File 2 slects 24fps. Takes me like two seconds to toggle between the two of them.

So filming flowers, trees or whatever I'm using the 24fps scene file. I got a lot more recording time if I'm shooting 1080p/24pn on my P2 card then I do if I'm shooting 1080p/60p.

I was filming a mouse nest the other day so I selected scene file 2 for the 24fps frame rate.

Before that I was filming a tallgrass prairie burn so I slected scene file 1 for the 60fps frame rate. The fire looks amazing slowed down.

I also shot some 720p/240p with my iPhone 6s PLus and it was out of this world!!!

Wildlife encounters are often so brief, at least where I live, that shooting at 60fps gives me more usable footage.

If a deer jumps over a creek and I shoot it at 24fps I get lets say one second of footage.
If I shot it at 60fps I get like two and half seconds of footage. I can still cut it down to one second if I want but now I have a little more room on each side of the clip to play with and give the viewer more time to actually see the deer jumping over the creek.

Oh and like Steve also said, I often use a faster shutter speed. For the tallgrass prairie fire I shot 60fps with a 1/500 shutter speed. The fingers of fire are nicely defined and look amazing. I get a lot of wows from people when I showed them some of the footage.

So there's my kind of long winded answer for you. I shoot 24fps for subjects that are pretty stationary. Flowers, trees, mountains. Everything else it's all 60fps. If my camera had a faster frame rate than that I'd probably be shooting at whatever that was. :)

[Stephen de Vere]

Originally Posted by Bo Skelmose

Hi
... I record everything in 4k 50P Throw away every second picture and you have 25P.

No, no, no. Not a good idea. The motion blur (controlled by the shutter angle/speed set at the time of shooting) only works correctly for one playback speed. You cannot have your cake and eat it.