5dmarkii slow motion

D

danielleelise

New member
Hi everyone, I am new here and in need of some advice. I am shooting a short with my markii and I am planning on shooting a party scene in slow motion. It does not have to be super duper slow, but I want to get the point across. I keep reading that the brighter my shot is, the nicer it will turn out when I take the speed down, but it being a "party scene" makes the light a little tricky. Also, I haven't had much luck slowing footage down in FCP

I am just looking for overall advice. Tips during shooting and post production.

thanks!
danielle

p.s. sorry if this question has been posted somewhere else!
 
If you live in PAL land, you can get a slight slowdown by shooting NTSC 30 fps and confirming that down to 25 fps. Otherwise you are at the mercy of FCP to slow the footage down, as 5DII can not shoot at overspeed. I do not see or understand how shooting for a bright picture would affect the slowdown in any way, FCP just copes frames and constructs intermediate frames also, it does not need to "spread the paint thinner", so to speak.
 
Hello Danielle,
I assume what you re reading about bright shots, has to do with how twixtor works best (high shutter) to slow down the footage.
So take a look at that: http://philipbloom.net/2011/09/13/twixtor/
The problem with 5D is the lack of 50/60fps which is as essential as high shutter for twixtor...
However I believe that you can have decent results If you try, even with 30fps and if you compose your shot properly...
In any case for an interior you ll need much light to compensate for the high shutter...
Im trying myself to get some good results from 25fps...but Im not really satisfied yet...
 
Hey Danielle,

I haven't personally tried it but have seen a lot of good results from twixtor, mentioned above. I would suggest downloading a trial version and testing it out, then maybe using that as your option. Slowing down in FCP generally looks pretty terrible, IMO.


Ron Small
www.swayproductions.com
 
Errr... bright shots? I think you mean, well lit shots... SO THAT you can use a higher shutter speed.
Im not too familiar with shooting with the 5DII (I use a GH2 mostly, and in the past a few "lessor" canons, 550D and the 7D) Anyhow... You can "fake slow motion convincingly with most video applications. Twixtor is probably the best with regards to effectively "faking" slow motion.
Read the link what @Iyrov posted.
Basically, when you capture video, you want ever FRAME as clear and un-blurred as possible. That way, when you use software to "repeat/add" frames... they are as clear as possible.
 
Question on this: I'm normally shooting 1/50th @24fps. What is recommended shutter AND FPS for around 70% slow motion, even if using something like Twixtor? Should I be shooting 30fps and 1/60th or 30fps and any shutter speed I want? I've seen some people shoot some nice slo-mo in daylight wide open ie f1.2 and used whatever shutter speed for best exposure and get some decent shots.
 
Since 30FPS is the max you can do on a 5D, yep, shoot 30. And, conveniently, that's around 70% slow motion for a 24fps sequence anyway.

In general, it's a good rule for shutter to be double whatever your frame rate is, to mimic 180 degree shutter in a film camera. If you shoot at higher shutter, you'll get a choppy look to your video (often used when filming sports or action). Try it -- you'll see what I mean. So 1/60 is perfect for 30fps.

It's not ideal to use fast shutter speed to compensate for wide iris (or slow shutter speed to compensate for narrow iris); sure, you can do it if you have nothing better (and I've done it plenty of times myself), but it's not ideal. Better is to get an ND filter (maybe even a variable ND, like the Heliopan one).

If you wanted to use Twixtor to go beyond the camera's "slow motion" capabilities, you basically set your frame rate to the maximum it can go and your shutter to as high as you can get away with without underexposing your image, so that there's less motion blur to confuse the software.
 
I actually went out last night to run a couple of tests. I shot the following wide open 24fps at 1.4 and said screw it to the shutter speed, which I normally set at 1/50 if shooting 24fps. Man, I was surprised at how good Twixtor handled this footage. Granted I was only slowing some shots down to 30-40% but yeah, quite happy with the results. I still think I'm going to need a 7D for some shots that I have planned though.

 
Sucks there's no firmware for 60FPS on FF bodies. I'd love that feature. I have two 5DmkII's and use them for photography. But I use my friends 60D which shoots 60FPS.
 
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