GH13 Best settings for shooting people running

[tbirdparis]

Hi,

Quick question. Am planning to shoot some sequences of two characters running. Coverage will be static camera positions - tripod, low ground looking up and extreme wide shot from side on as they run past in the distance. Also will do some tracking shots from a front/side angle with the camera operator either running along with them (steadicam) or on a bike (also steadicam). GH13 with lpowell high reliability 40mbps patch, kit lens and/or voigtlanger nokton. Shooting late in the day or early morning for more dramatic light conditions.

Will be shooting 720p so as to have the option to overcrank for smooth slow mo. My question is.. What shutter speed is ideal for this kind of thing? The rule of thumb I've heard repeated over and over is to always lock it to either 1/50 or 1/100 _if_ you're planning to go to half speed playback, ie slow mo. But just curious - what would happen with either much higher shutter speeds or much slower ones? If I used higher ones (like say in the 500 range), would the sense of movement be crisper, or would I just get crappy strobing? And if I used slower speeds than 1/50, would the blurring potentially contribute an interesting effect to the movement, or would it just make it look out of focus and rubbish?

Ideas?

 

[stoneinapond]

If I used higher ones (like say in the 500 range), would the sense of movement be crisper, or would I just get crappy strobing? And if I used slower speeds than 1/50, would the blurring potentially contribute an interesting effect to the movement, or would it just make it look out of focus and rubbish?

I know this is not a direct answer to your question. But the best education is your own experience.

So go out before the shoot, find some people jogging and try out the various scenarios. It doesn't need to be a similar scene, you just want to see what effect shutter speed will have on moving subjects.

There are several clips on the website where people have shot with slow shutters, I mean really slow. One is by Marti Ekstrand where he filmed people walking at night in a graveyard, and then there was a short art piece shot in Manhattan by some else, but I can't remember who (perhaps somebody else will). In both cases the shutter speed was way down there and it produced some interesting and lovely effects.

You should find the piece by ME quite easily. Links to his works are in his signature. I doubt you would want to go that slow, but then again, I don't know what you are trying to achieve.

Best of luck.

 

[ICD Films]

"would the sense of movement be crisper"
Not sure what you mean by that but i guess running like all other action stuff these days can be shot with high shutter for more" intensity", however since you're on a tripod i would probably just stick to 180dgr. Kind of hard giving advice without explaining more than "people running"... sports? a hunt? comedy?

 

[tbirdparis]

I know this is not a direct answer to your question. But the best education is your own experience.

So go out before the shoot, find some people jogging and try out the various scenarios. It doesn't need to be a similar scene, you just want to see what effect shutter speed will have on moving subjects.

There are several clips on the website where people have shot with slow shutters, I mean really slow. One is by Marti Ekstrand where he filmed people walking at night in a graveyard, and then there was a short art piece shot in Manhattan by some else, but I can't remember who (perhaps somebody else will). In both cases the shutter speed was way down there and it produced some interesting and lovely effects.

You should find the piece by ME quite easily. Links to his works are in his signature. I doubt you would want to go that slow, but then again, I don't know what you are trying to achieve.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the input. I took a lot at Martti Ekstrand's video that you mentioned. It's an interesting effect, wouldn't mind trying something like that as an experiment, but for some reason my camera won't go lower than 30 for the shutter speed. Not sure what setting I'm missing, I was in creative movie mode and also at SHD (720p) AVCHD. But that's by the by as it's not what I had in mind.

The kind of shot I'm looking for is pretty straightforward, in this video you see it at 1m30:

http://vimeo.com/20097512

Similar kind of angle to that, but possibly shot from slightly side on instead of directly in front, with the runners running toward the camera. Camera would be operated from a bike (being pushed by someone else) with the camera op sitting facing backwards using a hand held stabiliser. From my understanding, you're always supposed to shoot with the shutter speed at double of your intended final frame rate. I'm just looking for insights into what happens if you don't do this - are there interesting effects to be had, or do you just get amateurish jerky motion and/or blurring?

I'd love to be able to test it out, but it's a tricky setup necessitating a crew, so I'm just looking for more expert opinions before attempting a shot like this.

Cheers for all the input.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Thanks for the input. I took a lot at Martti Ekstrand's video that you mentioned. It's an interesting effect, wouldn't mind trying something like that as an experiment, but for some reason my camera won't go lower than 30 for the shutter speed. Not sure what setting I'm missing, I was in creative movie mode and also at SHD (720p) AVCHD. But that's by the by as it's not what I had in mind.

The kind of shot I'm looking for is pretty straightforward, in this video you see it at 1m30:

http://vimeo.com/20097512

Similar kind of angle to that, but possibly shot from slightly side on instead of directly in front, with the runners running toward the camera. Camera would be operated from a bike (being pushed by someone else) with the camera op sitting facing backwards using a hand held stabiliser. From my understanding, you're always supposed to shoot with the shutter speed at double of your intended final frame rate. I'm just looking for insights into what happens if you don't do this - are there interesting effects to be had, or do you just get amateurish jerky motion and/or blurring?

I'd love to be able to test it out, but it's a tricky setup necessitating a crew, so I'm just looking for more expert opinions before attempting a shot like this.

Cheers for all the input.

Runners directly towards the camera or directly away, will minimize 'strobing' of movment.

The max will be when the runner is moving a 90 deg. angle from the lens axis. I was not able to find a table of 'distance from camera' and 'speed' but here's one for panning.

I think 5-6 seconds for the motion to cross the frame of the shot, is one rule of thumb.

Table for 'panning speeds' for 35mm film. Since things are a bit different for digital vs. film film, it may take some experimentation to find some better 'rules', but these are a start.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_P_2wATt-I1U/Syz7yx4iPHI/AAAAAAAAABs/-xuMAvRwRHo/s1600-h/panning.JPG

While panning is quite like a single object moving, in some sense objects move at a given rate while panning... so, one can sort of get an idea from there...

 

[Lpowell]

From my understanding, you're always supposed to shoot with the shutter speed at double of your intended final frame rate. I'm just looking for insights into what happens if you don't do this - are there interesting effects to be had, or do you just get amateurish jerky motion and/or blurring?

That's the "180-degree rule", which has been handed down from the vintage film camera days. Movie cameras from that era used semi-circular discs as shutters whose rotation was synchronized to the 24p frame rate. Exposing each frame for half the disc rotation (180-degrees) generates a shutter speed of 1/48 second, which is what determines the motion blur we associate with movies.

In modern times, some feel the 180-degree rule should apply to 60p video as well, which would dictate a shutter speed of 1/120 second. For human movement, I think this produces images that lack motion blur and look too crisp and stuttery. To my eyes, good motion blur is produced in the range of 1/40 - 1/60 second, regardless of frame rate.

For slow-motion overcranking, however, I think you're right to set shutter speed on the basis of the playback frame rate. If I were shooting at 60p and slowing it down to 24p, I'd set the 60p shutter speed at 1/100 - 1/160 second to produce a 24p shutter speed of about 1/40 - 1/60 second.

 

[tbirdparis]

That's the "180-degree rule", which has been handed down from the vintage film camera days. Movie cameras from that era used semi-circular discs as shutters whose rotation was synchronized to the 24p frame rate. Exposing each frame for half the disc rotation (180-degrees) generates a shutter speed of 1/48 second, which is what determines the motion blur we associate with movies.

In modern times, some feel the 180-degree rule should apply to 60p video as well, which would dictate a shutter speed of 1/120 second. For human movement, I think this produces images that lack motion blur and look too crisp and stuttery. To my eyes, good motion blur is produced in the range of 1/40 - 1/60 second, regardless of frame rate.

For slow-motion overcranking, however, I think you're right to set shutter speed on the basis of the playback frame rate. If I were shooting at 60p and slowing it down to 24p, I'd set the 60p shutter speed at 1/100 - 1/160 second to produce a 24p shutter speed of about 1/40 - 1/60 second.

Hey, thanks for the info! I'll experiment with those settings then, sounds like it should do the trick.

Cheers.

 

[mpgxsvcd]

I have been testing slow motion on the GH2 lately. I agree that 1/50th is always the best shutter speed for 24 FPS because it really can’t be slowed down. However, I think that you must shoot as fast a shutter speed as possible for 60 FPS slow motion. I always shoot for 1/4000 if I can get it.

The big caveat is that once the subject starts to move too quickly it won’t matter what shutter speed you are using. The motion will look choppy just because the subject moves to fast for the frame rate.

Here are some examples of low speed and moderate speed motion filmed at 60 FPS and slowed down to 24 FPS. I doubt the shutter speed was slower than 1/320 in any of the slow motion videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOmbVuzkLk