Better shooting at 50fps or 60fps?

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FoxAdriano

Well-known member
Hi,
if you live in a country that has a frame rate of 50 fps and/or if you don't have to sell the videos you shoot, but you make them only for yourself, is it better to shoot at 50 fps or 60 fps? I have always used my camera at 50p and 1/100, but I can change the settings. I know that in practice it doesn't change much, but I would like to understand better. All computer, TV, monitors and phones can refresh at multiple of 60Hz in all countries.
Thanks
 
Yes. I'm in PAL land and I shoot 50fps @ 360 degrees (1/50th). Same motion blur as "traditional" 25fps/180 degree shutter (1/50th) but it gives you twice the temporal resolution.
 
Frame rate is entirely an aesthetic choice, and if your distribution platform is entirely online, it literally makes no difference in people’s ability to watch your content.

24p is the “film look”, and 25p isn’t far off from that. 30p looks more like traditional live video (TV news). 50p and 60p also have the live video look, especially when 50p is shot at a higher shutter speed, it’s just that 60p is even more crisp than 50p. Pick your flavor based on the look you want, but there’s no reason not to shoot 50p if you’re based in PAL territory (as opposed to 60p) as long as that’s the look you’re going for.

If you’re in a broadcast situation, you’ll have deliverables requirements and specifications from the network. Even then, it may just be a matter of converting the frame rate for delivery.
 
@alex H You are correct that you should deliver what you are asked for, but the OP did state it is just for his own consumption so if free to choose any combo he wants.

Given all our monitors/TV can display higher native frame rates, you might as well use that extra temporal resolution on offer. The advantage of 50fps/360 degree (or 60/360) is you get the same "traditional" motion blur per frame, but you have twice as many, so you can pan twice as fast and no silly side effects like spinning wheels looking like they go backwards. If you don't like the look you can drop every 2nd frame in post and get "traditional" 25/180. No one argues about higher spacial resolution (eg SD, HD, UHD), but for some reason balk and increase temporal resolution (25/180 to 50/360).... and it's "free".
 
FWIW - I shot a few side by side comparison videos to demonstrate the difference between 25/180 & 50/360 as well as 29.97/180 & 59.94/360

If your monitor is set to an NTSC refresh rate (59.96/60fps or a multiple) then check this comparison out:
(video of a spinning disc)

If your monitor is set to a PAL refresh rate (50fps or a multiple) then check these comparisons out:
(video of a spinning disc)
(street footage)
 
jmone said:
@alex H You are correct that you should deliver what you are asked for, but the OP did state it is just for his own consumption so if free to choose any combo he wants.
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Yes, and I addressed that in the first sentence of my post:

Alex H. said:
… and if your distribution platform is entirely online, it literally makes no difference in people’s ability to watch your content.
Click to expand...
 
FoxAdriano said:
Hi,
if you live in a country that has a frame rate of 50 fps and/or if you don't have to sell the videos you shoot, but you make them only for yourself, is it better to shoot at 50 fps or 60 fps? I have always used my camera at 50p and 1/100, but I can change the settings. I know that in practice it doesn't change much, but I would like to understand better. All computer, TV, monitors and phones can refresh at multiple of 60Hz in all countries.
Thanks
Click to expand...
If you live in a 50hz country, I would shoot at 50p. In daylight shooting, 50 or 60 will make little difference. But at night, shooting 60p under 50hz lighting can under certain lighting conditions cause a serious 10hz flicker problem in your vision. An absolute pain to fix in post. I live in a 50hz country, but often filmed in the States and Canada. We always shot at 25 or 50p for our domestic audiences, but we always ran the shutter at 1/60th to avoid that annoying 10hz flicker. Talking to US and Japanese crews visiting us, most were shooting 30 or 60p and most were running their shutters at 100th, as that is a multiple of 50. In doing so, they also avoided a 10hz flicker going the other way.

Chris Young
 
I'm following this thread very carefully and I'm really enjoying it.
I've understood several things that I couldn't understand.
Since all of you are more experienced people than me, I would like to ask for advice.
I'm leaving for Africa soon. I'll go to a remote area to shoot the traditions of a indigenous people, so not in the city. Since there is a lot of sun and the people are dark-skinned, even if not black, I'm thinking of shooting with another profile with my GH6 in 4K, 2:2:2, 50p with1/50 shutter speed maintain the cinematic blur.
Maybe is it better to use V-Log? Maybe is Like709 or Cine-D better than V-Log ... or what?
I have been using V-Log a lot and I like it quite a bit. But this time I would like to get a well-defined video image quality with crisp colors. But maybe can V-Log give me more in grading?
Any suggestions are welcome!
Thanks again.
 
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Log will give you more latitude in grading.

@cyvideo - nice tip about adjusting the shutter to match the frequence of the county you are in to avoid flicker with (most) artificial lights. Though shooting at 360 degrees will fix the issue as well.

The other "good" thing about 50fps/360 (1/50th) is you don't lose light as you would if shooting 50fps/180 (1/100) - It too is the same as 25/180 (which is also 1/50th).
 
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I thank you for your advice. I don't know what camera you use, please could you tell me on a sunny day, how much do you have usually overexpose when shooting using V-Log with the GH6? Thanks.
 
FoxAdriano said:
I thank you for your advice. I don't know what camera you use, please could you tell me on a sunny day, how much do you have usually overexpose when shooting using V-Log with the GH6? Thanks.
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I have a question. Why do you think LOG should be overexposed?
 
Doug Jensen said:
I have a question. Why do you think LOG should be overexposed?
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I've never shot V-Log but have edited a lot with it, and it seems to be totally fine at what you would call normal / correct exposure levels. I would stick with that, I think.

CY
 
Doug Jensen said:
I have a question. Why do you think LOG should be overexposed?
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If I want to test some profiles, I always rely on what I read or watch on the Internet. So watching various videos on the configurations of various cameras, I learned that there is the need to overexpose with all of them, some more and some less. I have used technicians who evaluate cameras.
Usual overexposure is from 1/3 aperture up, up to 1 stop of overexposure.
This is the rule for the Log during shooting, depending on the camera.
Why are you asking me this question?

The rule:
“It is also necessary to keep in mind that, when filming in Log mode, many people prefer to take advantage of overexposure so that they get a slightly brighter image than desired. The brightness is then reduced in post-production so as to darken the shadows rather than bring out more detail.”
 
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cyvideo said:
I've never shot V-Log but have edited a lot with it, and it seems to be totally fine at what you would call normal / correct exposure levels. I would stick with that, I think.
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I have used V-Log quite a bit too. V-Log is a great profile but sometimes I need to get a video that pops the images better, with sharper images and more "crisp" colors. V-Log gives videos with images so soft that they do not pop. Can you get all this with V-Log? Do you know of a profile that can give me the video images I am looking for, but with a good dynamic range?
 
FoxAdriano said:
The rule:
“It is also necessary to keep in mind that, when filming in Log mode, many people prefer to take advantage of overexposure so that they get a slightly brighter image than desired. The brightness is then reduced in post-production so as to darken the shadows rather than bring out more detail.”
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“Many people prefer” does not make something “the rule”.

Yes, over-exposing log (or “exposing to the right”, or “ETTR”) is something people do from time to time. But it’s not a “rule”, just a technique.

FoxAdriano said:
I have used V-Log quite a bit too. V-Log is a great profile but sometimes I need to get a video that pops the images better, with sharper images and more "crisp" colors. V-Log gives videos with images so soft that they do not pop. Can you get all this with V-Log? Do you know of a profile that can give me the video images I am looking for, but with a good dynamic range?
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Log footage is not intended to be used as-is. The colors look washed-out, but that’s because log footage is designed to be corrected in post. This means adjusting the dynamic range and pushing the saturation. That brings all the life back to the colors.
 
FWIW - I've an FX6 and let the eVND control the exposure most of the time. It works really well 95% of the time. I also have a A7Siii and I dislike the lack of eVND. On that I tend to change between the two "base" ISO and then adjust the IRIS to make sure the waveform is not clipping.
 
Vlog on the GH6 has sharpening turned down and the saturation is also low if you just do a colour space transform. You need to add a little sharpening and saturation to get the vidid "video look " image. The value of Vlog is you then have the choice as to how the final image looks. There are also lots of LUT's you can get too. Personally I like to grade the image myself depending on project. Vlog with Dynamic boost ON will give you the maximum dynamic range the GH6 can get. Having Boost ON for your bright scenes may be more of a problem as it will need a lot of NDF to get in range. I use highlight exposure metering so in fact get to the max exposure without clipping with cross check with using both zebra settings. One at 100% so I know what is at clipping in scene and can decide if I want to ignore.
 
FoxAdriano said:
Why are you asking me this question?
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The reason I asked is because you seem to be under the false impression that overexposing LOG is necessary when you asked:
"please could you tell me on a sunny day, how much do you have usually overexpose when shooting using V-Log with the GH6? Thanks."

So naturally I was wondering why you think that overexposing is necessary and why you think a "sunny" day should be treated any different than a cloudy day. It turns out you have been listening to "experts" who don't really know what they are talking about. Thank you for answering my question.
 
Doug Jensen said:
So naturally I was wondering why you think that overexposing is necessary and why you think a "sunny" day should be treated any different than a cloudy day. It turns out you have been listening to "experts" who don't really know what they are talking about. Thank you for answering my question.
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I thank you for your reply. I learned some interesting things in this thread.
 
It's also about the refresh rate of the device(s) that you expect to play the video back on. If you are in a PAL territory, and plan to watch it on a 50hz tv... then 50fps is a better choice (so as to avoid Pull Down Patterns). For global audiences with a variety of screens (TV, Monitors, Phones), then I'd probably pick 60hz (over 59.94) as this is the most common base refresh rate.
 
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