Slomo Wedding Shoot ... What frame rate?

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

For those of you that do a slomo wedding shoot of the couple, what works best for you ??
(1) Shoot at 25P 100fps and drop onto a 25P timeline and then speed up the clip 2X OR
(2) Shoot at 50P and the drop onto a 25P timeline and play the clip at half speed???

On my camera's 100fps mode I can simply drop the footage onto the 25P timeline but it seems WAY too slow .. even a kiss goes on forever which is why I double the clip play speed ..it looks great with high speed stuff but it's hard for bride's to do fast action in a huge dress and high heels !!

What do you use???

[Noa Put]

I always shoot 50P so I don't have to think while I"m shooting where slomo might be useful, that I can decide in post, for weddings I find 50% slower more then enough which is only useful for my trailers, don't care about 120 or 240fps capability like some cameras have because they require you to activate this and you might forget to set it back for your next shot where it's not required.

[Nathan Buck]

I use 50fps, 1/100 :)

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Guys

I tend to shoot at 25P at receptions so I have to change my shoot mode anyway. Yes, I can see the issue..at the last wedding I had to halt the bridal party coming into the venue as I found my camera was indeed sitting in 100fps mode so they would have come in at a VERY slow pace!!! I only use slomo for the bridal shoot in a park or similar but then it's off to the reception where I do need to be back at 25P again!!
(my cams only shoot 25P in 4K mode!) I guess if the groomsmen decided they wanted to all jump out of a tree then the super slomo might look good? Have been using 50P slowed by 50% so far but I did try 100 at the last wedding just for fun but the bridal party were not up for any action stuff so I ended up having to speed up the footage to make it realistic!!

[Steve Burkett]

I do think some Videographers overdo the slomo. Worked with a few where it was shot after shot and I was having to speed up the footage to normal, which sort of defeats the point. Especially as in some cameras the quality goes down with higher frame rates. The GH4 96 frames per second is very soft, hard to focus and suffers from terrible moire. I've stopped using it, but really it worked only on some shots, some of the dancing footage looked great, the occasional photo shoot with the couple and confetti throwing. However even I was guilty of overusing it and speeding up the footage in the edit. I think for most slomo, 50p works fine. Even for confetti shots, 96p seemed to make the scene drag, works fine for a little bit but can freeze the action so much to almost rob it of its impact.

I always thought that if shooting 50p to slow down the footage, you'd still use 1/50 for the shutter speed as the resulting footage is still 25 frames per second. 1/100 would be chosen only if the final video was to be outputted as 50p. Though I suppose the difference is marginal.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Steve

50P is probably the easiest to work with and the only reason it holds together when played at 50% is the fact you have a double frame rate. The biggest issue on my Lumix FZ is that the camera sets the exposure AND focus in High Speed Video Mode once you hit record so if you do a stedicam roundie round into the sun the exposure just blows out totally so you are really restricted to a fixed FOV ..50P of course isn't an issue .... 100fps works great if you need a slomo of someone jumping off the roof into a pool or water shots but those are not going to happen at a wedding are they?? I do a slomo of the couple at the photoshoot only .. 2 minutes max and set to music and nothing else .... I've seen quite a few double speed shots of guests arriving which might work but more often than not I don't have time to film all the guests coming in ..usually its just the ones that pass by me while I'm waiting for the limo to arrive!

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

I always shoot 50P so I don't have to think while I"m shooting where slomo might be useful, that I can decide in post, for weddings I find 50% slower more then enough which is only useful for my trailers, don't care about 120 or 240fps capability like some cameras have because they require you to activate this and you might forget to set it back for your next shot where it's not required.

Same here - all my cameras shoot 50p allowing me to be more flexible in post as I do slow down some shots and def slow down by 50% for my trailers

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

I've seen quite a few double speed shots of guests arriving which might work but more often than not I don't have time to film all the guests coming in ..usually its just the ones that pass by me while I'm waiting for the limo to arrive!

I used to try and film a lot of the guest arrivals but it's too stressy as a solo shooter as I've also all the gear to set up so what I do now is set a GoPro near the church door/main entrance set to 50P then slow it down 50% on the timeline and do a sort of timelapse sequence - works a treat