1/30 shutter for play?

F

firehawk

Veteran
Shooting a play with weak lighting at 1080 30P and thinking of shooting at 1/30 instead of 1/60 shutter to help give more light.
Not fast motion just walking and some slow dancing. Always used 1/60 so I'm uncertain about using 1/30. I did some tests and it looked ok on the timeline in Premiere, and the exposure was certainly better than my tests at 1/60. No flicker. Motion blur was ok. These cameras are noisy when using gain so I try to avoid using it. Is there some other gotcha where this is a bad idea and I need to stick with 1/60?
 
I think everyone's done that at some point in their career...if the movement is minimal, it should be fine. You might lose a little resolution but not sure which camera you're using. There are of course tools in post to help with exposure and noise as well if that's an option.
 
Thank you, Norbro. I'm using Panasonic HMC 150 cameras. I have post tools to help also, but trying to avoid that on this job to save time and get it ok in camera.
 
If you're not trying to achieve some kind of artistic effect, and are just trying to record the play, then there's no reason not to do it if you think it helps.
 
Thanks guys. The play turned out fine at 1/30. So good that I may start using 1/30 for dark indoor weddings when I use those same cameras.
 
The key thing is that you were shooting 1080/30p. In that scenario, 1/30 is totally appropriate, will double the amount of light you capture, and will cause some additional motion blur which may or may not be fine, that's the tradeoff for getting twice as much light in.

If you try to shoot 1080/60p with a 1/30 shutter, you'll find your frame rate dropping in half, so that's generally not a great idea. But if you were already committed to 30p in the first place, then it's a totally valid choice (depending on if you like the motion blur).
 
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