Shooting a Motorcross event...best settings?

F

FilmBoy77

Veteran
i'm going to be shooting two guys doing a bunch of motorcross tricks on a track sometime this week or next week. any advice on best settings for cool looking footage (shutter speed, scene settings, etc)?

i already plan on shooting a lot of it at 60fps and doing some speed ramps, etc. this is going to be a 2 to 5 minute demo just kinda highlighting two riders from the area and what they can do.
 
A shutter of 1/250 would give it an "edgy" Gladiator look if that's what you're going for.

I'd shoot 24p with a 1/48 shutter and have a scene file setup for a 60p overcrank that I could flip to when I choose.

That's just me though, not sure what would fit your style the best.
 
As a general rule I shoot action sports at 30P-60 fps @ 1/1000 shutter and lifestyle at 30 fps (sometimes 24P).

If you shoot at 60 fps then you can always speed it up for real time, but it's harder to did the other way around... So I shoot everything at 60 fps (unless I need audio).

I would recommend trying a few different settings, shooting similar action, and then watching it on a plasma/SD TV/Web/whatever you plan on outputting it to.
 
you know you can shoot 60fps and still get audio right? recording mode set to 720-60p and set recording speed to 60. it plays back at double speed, 60fps, not overcranked. but you conform it to 30 or 24 using cinema tools if you're a fcp user, and then its slow mo with sound. not sure of the workflow with any other editors.
 
I do alot of motor sports with the 200. The sweet spot for me is 720P 60- Shutter varies. Usually 1000+. Heres my set up:

Cine D- Film Cam
Frame rate -60
Syncro scan - 180.0
Detail level- +1
V detail-0
detail coreing - +3
chroma Level - +2
Chroma phase - 0
Color temp - 0
Master Ped - -7
News gamma - off
Gamma - HD norm
Knee - high
Matrix - Cine-like
Skin tone - off
V detail - thin

When I shoot for over / Under crank its:

720P 24 @ 60 frames - Shutter @ 1000

The daylight slo mo is epic. Heres a few screen grabs of the slo - mo. Keep in mind these guys are doing about 70+ as they go by.



Nava
 

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thanks for the tips guys!

yea, i won't really need audio as it's going to have music playing throughout the demo once edited.

rpmnava - that's some sweet looking grabs man...is that straight out of the camera with those settings or has that been color graded?
 
But think about doing some slower shutter stuff maybe just as a specialty shot to pan with your guys and have all the background completely motion blurred to crap... a very cool look to play with. Just an idea since everyone is saying super fast shutter... which is a great idea, but you don't always have to go for sharpness if you are trying to idealize your subject.
 
James:

I am not being a nit picker here but please tell me that you are saying and spelling the sport "motocross" and not "motorcross". I grew up racing motocross and made it to pro and you are going to get some real eye rolling if you are dealing with racers, promoters or fans and refer to their sport as motorcross.

Just trying to save you some grief man! ;-)

Dan
 
manglerBMX said:
you know you can shoot 60fps and still get audio right? recording mode set to 720-60p and set recording speed to 60. it plays back at double speed, 60fps, not overcranked. but you conform it to 30 or 24 using cinema tools if you're a fcp user, and then its slow mo with sound. not sure of the workflow with any other editors.
Click to expand...

nope.. I've never tried that.

Does the footage look exactly the same once re-conformed for slomo? I thought 720-60p duplicated frames?
 
puredrifting said:
James:

I am not being a nit picker here but please tell me that you are saying and spelling the sport "motocross" and not "motorcross". I grew up racing motocross and made it to pro and you are going to get some real eye rolling if you are dealing with racers, promoters or fans and refer to their sport as motorcross.

Just trying to save you some grief man! ;-)

Dan
Click to expand...
Who did you ride for? A good friend of mine rode for CanAm way back. Gary Dunkleburger (yeah that's his real name).
 
rsbush said:
Who did you ride for? A good friend of mine rode for CanAm way back. Gary Dunkleburger (yeah that's his real name).
Click to expand...

Definitely not factory but received regional Suzuki support way back in the dark ages of the early 80s and the first RMs. Yes, I know his name. Does he have a brother or relative named Ryan?

Dan
 
Do you remember a guy named " Lee Ramage" ?... west coast rider back in the day with marty and those guys
 
puredrifting said:
Definitely not factory but received regional Suzuki support way back in the dark ages of the early 80s and the first RMs. Yes, I know his name. Does he have a brother or relative named Ryan?

Dan
Click to expand...

No brother by that name. He was from PA riding in the late 70's - very early 80's. Always rode Suzukis until he hooked up with CanAm.
 
rpmnava said:
I do alot of motor sports with the 200. The sweet spot for me is 720P 60- Shutter varies. Usually 1000+.
Click to expand...


guys how do you get the shutter at 1000 plus on the HVX200? i thought the syncro scan was the shutter speed and that only goes to 350 while in film cam mode.
 
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