video nerds: shooting 24P?

[nate]

hey,

i know the pluses and minuses of 24P vs. the rest. however, i usually shoot skiing and other fast action sports with 60i or 30P because i cant get the 24P to look how i want.

any tricks to using 24P with action sports? shutter speeds, etc?

thanks

[dumpy]

Don't....


Do you really need that "film look"? Interlaced will look less strobey with fast subjects.

[Tippster]

You don't shoot sports in 24P to make it look good. You shoot it in 24p for the visual effect. It's an aesthetic choice, not a technical one.

If you want the smoothest video possible (that is not overcranked) you shoot 60i. There's a reason why sports aren't shot (nor shown) in 1080p. This is it.

[kidwoo]

any tricks to using 24P with action sports? shutter speeds, etc?

thanks

Practice your panning to stay locked on the subject. Unless you WANT that strobing look (some people do), don't go above a shutter speed of about 120 or so. If you're shooting at 30p or 60p for slowmo in a 24p sequence, you can definitely go (quite a bit) higher.

After making a bunch of videos over the years, the ones I actually want to watch are the ones done in 24fps. I really don't give a shit if some subjects get some motion blur every once in a while, 60i/30p just looks like somebody's goofy wedding movie.


What's your favorite ski movie? I'd bet money its 24fps.


What camera are you shooting with?

[Dromond]

I'm going to ask a film/video JONG question:

What sort of shutter speed is film (as in feature film) usually shot at? Who cares if the subject is motion blurred if they are... you know, moving. Isn't that what gives the whole thing a subtly smoother, more flowing look? Are you worried about people freeze-framing your movie and seeing blur? I don't get it.

side note: I work with animation and we always animate at 24fps. If the target media is 30fps we just convert because the 24->30 conversion often looks better than animating at 30fps... and we have to make fewer frames!

[kidwoo]

I'm going to ask a film/video JONG question:

What sort of shutter speed is film (as in feature film) usually shot at? Who cares if the subject is motion blurred if they are... you know, moving. Isn't that what gives the whole thing a subtly smoother, more flowing look? Are you worried about people freeze-framing your movie and seeing blur? I don't get it.!

Can't say what is 'usually' used because it depends on a lot of different things. But I'm one of the people that would prefer a little blurring over strobing. Obviously that's only true to a point though. Which is why framing and really good panning help to keep an image sharp.


Kind of funny......I never really thought about animation in these terms.

[Dromond]

Can't say what is 'usually' used because it depends on a lot of different things. But I'm one of the people that would prefer a little blurring over strobing. Obviously that's only true to a point though. Which is why framing and really good panning help to keep an image sharp.


Kind of funny......I never really thought about animation in these terms.

It's funny for me to think of people avoiding motion blur because they think it looks bad. (Stylistic choices excepted.) In 3D animation we have to add motion blur even though it often adds lots of extra render time (i.e. hassle.) Otherwise it just looks strobe-ey and weird.

[nate]

don't go above a shutter speed of about 120 or so.

ah i think this is my issue. i've probably been at too high a shutter as that is usually my choice with 30p/60i. i'll try a 1/60 to 1/120 range. and i'm shooting with a Canon XH-A1 to answer your question.

What's your favorite ski movie? I'd bet money its 24fps.

exactly - people say 24p is no good for action, but something tells me the pro movies i see arent shot in 60i

thanks all for your input. as is usually the case - just playing around with it will probably lead me to the results i want

[Dory Breaux]

I'm going to ask a film/video JONG question:

What sort of shutter speed is film (as in feature film) usually shot at? Who cares if the subject is motion blurred if they are... you know, moving. Isn't that what gives the whole thing a subtly smoother, more flowing look? Are you worried about people freeze-framing your movie and seeing blur? I don't get it.

side note: I work with animation and we always animate at 24fps. If the target media is 30fps we just convert because the 24->30 conversion often looks better than animating at 30fps... and we have to make fewer frames!

To add to kidwoos answer;
most of the time in a film camera, the shutter is double the fps. Most MOS cameras have a fixed shutter angle (which governs the speed), and usually that is somewhere around 180 degrees. So when the frame rate gets ramped, the shutter rotates faster, but always about twice the number of the frame rate. Then there are adjustable shutter angles, which ultimately is the same as adjusting the shutter speed on a digital camera, it just does it in a different way.

That is interesting about the animation, I've never thought of doing that. Then again, I rarely work with anything other then 24fps. I'l have to give that a try sometime though.

Oh and Kevin let me know when your gonna be getting to N* tomorrow, I'm antsy to play with my camera.

[kidwoo]

Oh and Kevin let me know when your gonna be getting to N* tomorrow, I'm antsy to play with my camera.

I'll be dh'n from 10-noonish. Then shooting the collegiate 4x. Then hitting the dirtjumps. You might want to shoot my buddy brandon. He's actually a good dirtjumper.

[Dory Breaux]

I'll be dh'n from 10-noonish. Then shooting the collegiate 4x. Then hitting the dirtjumps. You might want to shoot my buddy brandon. He's actually a good dirtjumper.

something I'm not familiar with, damn mendo kids :P.

I'll see you there for sure.

[Tippster]

Like Dory said a 180deg manual shutter on a film camera will shoot an effective still shutter speed of ~1/48th of a second... hardly fast enough to stop the motion of a skier. The motion blur inherent in this footage gives the film shot skier a smoother look than the equivalent video footy shot at 24p.

Why is that, you wonder? Most video cameras actually shoot their video at 60i that is then internally dumbed down to 24p. That means you have a 1/60 (or faster if you have the electronic shutter turned on) shutter speed instead of 1/48th, which gives you less motion blur - resulting in a more "strobey" look than film. AFAIK the only consumer camcorder that shoots in native 24p is the Canon Vixia HV40.

The higher end film cameras actually do have adjustable shutter angles to give the footage a crisper look, but that is almost never used in anything with fast mostion due to the disconcerting semi-subliminal strobing.

[kidwoo]

Hey tipp: aren't some of the newer solid state cameras (sony ex1, panny hvx/hpx) shooting in true progressive frames? It was my understanding that the pulldown/fake 24 weirdness was to deal with the dv format on the tapes.

non?
oui?

[Tippster]

A search under "Native 24p" results in a flurry of pro-sumer and higher cameras but only one handicam - the Canon.

That said you still have a problem displaying 24p footage on a TV: [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24p[/ame]

[kidwoo]

Who cares about handicams?

So your answer to my question is yes. I thought so.

I get full frames out of that panasonic sdc9 I bought a year ago. It's funny because I had an HV30 and it definitely used a pulldown (that was a dv tape camera though, where the sdc9 is AVCHD flash). Not even canon's 'prosumer' A1 camera shoots native 24p. Good to see they're finally getting rid of that '24f' format that they and they alone invented.

[muted]

What's your favorite ski movie? I'd bet money its 24fps.

Yeah, if it's shot on 16mm which looks great. Then it's converted to 29.97 interlaced DVDs anyways.

But 24p on video is different. It sucks even on the high end Sony 750 and 900s. Kidwoo, you are a smart cookie but Tipp is right.

Another good thing about 24p though is less frames to compress and faster loading for web videos since it has less frames.

(EX1 is not true 30p btw)

[kidwoo]

Yeah, if it's shot on 16mm which looks great. Then it's converted to 29.97 interlaced DVDs anyways.

But 24p on video is different. It sucks even on the high end Sony 750 and 900s.

Or if it's shot in 24pN.....which can also look great. I don't see where tipp and I are contradicting each other, except maybe for an opinion on appearance. He's talking handicams, and I'm talking about higher end cameras that really do shoot full raster progressive frames in 24, 30, 60.....whatever. The old DVX cameras absolutely tagged a 60i format for a 24p 'look'. But that's not the case with a lot of newer ones with what I understand (which is why I asked).

And even DVDs converted to NTSC standards maintain that 24p 'look', which is why people use it on video cameras. Having shot and ripped plenty of my own footage in both 30 something and 24p, I'll take the 24 every time. Obviously I'm not ripping mass produced projects, but with my blue ray player and television, I absolutely can watch true 24p footage without converting to 30fps. The flick Steep used panasonic varicams at 24p......and the shots look great in my opinion. AND that was made for film transfer since it was a true theatrical release. Looks good on my DVD too

Another good thing about 24p though is less frames to compress and faster loading for web videos since it has less frames.

(EX1 is not true 30p btw)

How does the EX1 not use true 30p? If anything I'd think the 24p would be where they'd mask it in a DV format. I haven't really investigated that camera in depth because I never wanted one.

[Dromond]

...And even DVDs converted to NTSC standards maintain that 24p 'look', which is why people use it on video cameras....

With the 2:3 pulldown (24P->60i conversion method) it still looks better. Strange but true. Occasionally when watching a slow pad over unmoving objects on a DVD version of a film I *think* I can see a subtle stutter introduced but the conversion but that's the only time. It's mostly unnoticeable and the rest of the time helps to make everything look smoother.

2:3 pulldown: [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecine[/ame]