EX1 at 1/40 shutter a bad idea in low lighting?

matthew77 said:
My ideal shutter for smooth motion is around to 220°. More open than that and things start to get too blurry and fast motion starts to appear juddery.
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But 1/40th equates to about 216 degrees... Sounds ideal to me, because it also solves any potential fluo/HMI issues. If I was advising an EX1 shooter I'd tell 'em to use 1/40th at pretty much all times; only when overcranking would I say to go back to the 180-degree shutter. 1/40th would give you about 1/4 stop more light sensitivity, slightly smoother motion, and immunity from magnetic fluo/HMI issues.
 
Barry, why would 1/40 be smoother motion than 1/48th on the Ex-1?

Also will that always solve old flourescent problems or can you still get stuck?


- Lenny Levy
 
Going off what matthew77 said:
My ideal shutter for smooth motion is around to 220°.
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Several people have said that 180 degrees results in slightly strobier motion than what they're used to on film and that they prefer just a little more open shutter; Evin Grant was a big fan of 200 degrees, etc. There was some paper that implied that the sharper edges of a video signal combined with the deeper DOF (everything being in focus) caused the motion to appear slightly more noticeable than in film, where the background is more out of focus and there isn't artificial sharpening. One tactic they suggested was to use a slightly longer shutter speed which would cause a bit of blur on leading and trailing edges.

I usually use 180 degrees with the detail level turned down a bit for a more organic look. But for those (like Matthew and Evin) who prefer the look of motion with a longer shutter speed, it seems like 1/40th would be the ideal.

As for will it "always" solve the problem with magnetic ballasts: you should never say never, and always is just like it... I'm sure there's some circumstance with an off-speed ballast that could arise. But I've tested multiple Red Ones at 1/40th under multiple ancient magnetic HMIs, and they always were rock solid at 1/40th. I'd probably trust 1/40th moreso than 1/60th to solve the banding issue. 1/120th is supposed to be immune as well, but I did find some flickering/banding possible at 1/120th. So 1/60th if you want crisper motion, 1/40th if you want slightly blurrier and perhaps smoother motion, would be my recommendations.
 
Barry_Green said:
But 1/40th equates to about 216 degrees...
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Barry,

Actually, at 30fps (the speed the creator of this thread is shooting - see first post), 1/40 second is 270°

This is bit fatter shutter than I prefer, and starts to get to the bluriness that can begin to appear juddery.

But these are minor points. I agree with the gist of what you said.
 
Thanks Barry,

Am I interpreting you correctly to say that 1/40 is a general recommendation for 24fps video in general not specifically for the Ex-1 , but it also happily is a great place to land for rolling shutter issues with Flouro's and HMI's.

That's great.

Lenny Levy
 
Barry_Green said:
Well, clarification please: when you say 1080 @ 30fps, do you mean 1080p30? or are you calling normal 1080i "30fps"? Because if so, you definitely wouldn't want to use 1/30th, it'll cut your vertical resolution in half.

If you're shooting 1080p, there's nothing wrong with 1/40th, it'll just be a little blurrier and a little less noisy, and about a half stop more sensitive.
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Why would 1/30th cut vertical resolution? Because half of the scan lines wouldn't show?
 
Because 1/30th is a longer duration than the 1/60th time of an individual field. Sony products have always done field-doubling when encountering a shutter speed longer than the refresh rate.
 
Doing a concert in a hall this weekend guys.

Tried turning off the shutter and brightness is remarkably enhanced.
Would anyone recommend good settings for a concert format indoors?

I was thinking of shooting 1080p 25p so I can edit in Premiere on a widescreen PAL preset and mimic a 2 camera shoot with zooming in on certain shots.
 
Typical concert halls have more than enough light to permit a 1/60th shutter speed, so I would leave it on. Trying to brighten up the picture too much will likely blow the highlights. Stage performances typically have small areas of high illumination against a much darker average lighting for the rest of the stage. Bright colored clothing, faces and bald heads tend to overexpose. While I would not recommend shooting with the TLCS "Spotlight" mode because it tends to ride the iris up and down with light levels to an annoying degree, using the -1 stop bias in TLCS provides a good stable level for most stage lighting situations.

Shoot 25 fps only if you're targeting a PAL audience. Use a 180º shutter and you'll have more than enough light.

What are you doing for audio? Separate or in-camera? If latter, use a good pair of cardioid external condenser mics and use the attenuators to set levels, but keep the rotary dial gain knobs set on "5".

Good luck.
 
If you need more light you could always shoot 720/30p. The 720 mode in the EX1 gets you a bit more sensitivity. You could also shoot 1080/60i and then downconvert to 720/30p to get even more sensitivity.

Also I would not shoot at f/1.9. Footage ALWAYS looks to soft at that setting for me. Just like most sub-$10,000 lenses with wide open apertures have issues. Get it to the tippy edge of f/2.4 and you should be good.
 
I find that 1080/24 seems the brightest of the modes, since the frame rate is lower, allowing more light collection on the imagers.

I don't find a problem with f1.9 sharpness (other than focus is more critical due to shorter DoF). It's the smaller end of aperture where diffraction softens the image. Wide open is sharp, sharp, sharp. I try to always shoot as close to f1.9 as possible, unless I want lots of DoF.
 
thanks for that guys.

I have always shot 720p 50p up until now.

Reason I want to shoot 1080p for this is that I only have the one camera and I want to bring the file into Premiere and copy it on to a few timelines and then zoom in and cut to different sizes in the frame to give the illusion of more than one camera.

What does 180º equate to in shutter speed?

I am just using the onboard audio.
Each Band has maybe 3-4 songs so I will get a song list and film their best 1 and then move towards the stage and use another song as cutaway shots - audience. closeups of guitars etc and mix these two together in post.

It is a 6 hour concert so I am going to have to be selective as I have the 60gig HD and and 1 SxS and I don't want to have to dump anything to a laptop on the day.

I want to stay away from Interlaced from now on as a lot of what I shoot will be for the net.

Another thing the EX3 is great for is feedback in the LCD Monitor...it gives you a great idea of your final picture as you tweak settings.

Thanks Lads
 
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