What are the options for the DVX200 when shooting fish jumping rapids? With a still camera, I discovered that you must be at at lesast 1,000 of a sec. Can one hope to capture any stills with the DVX200? Keep the blur to a minimum? Looking for the best advise I can get which is of course of dvxuser!
How to video fish jumping rapids
- Thread starter greytail
- Start date
Without trying it, I would think that you would want to go into the VFR (Variable Frame Rate) and bump that up to 120p. That would give you the best chance at having some usable frames. I'm sure there is some math that might need to be done when shooting at a higher frame rate. At 30 fps you used to want to be at 1/60th so I'm going to guess that at 120p you would want to be at 1/250th.
Barry would definitely be more up on this than I am but my calculations may get you in the ballpark for something to try anyway.
https://vimeo.com/137223320
To grab clear stills, I'd try for at least 1/500 shutter, or the 1/1000 that the OP stated. The camera can do it, so if stills are required I'd suggest upping the shutter as much as possible while still maintaining good exposure. It would not have motion blur and you could definitely pull stills from it since that seems to be an important aspect of the project.
Unfortunately, the image quality of 120FPS via VFR is rather low in comparison to shooting regularly, so stills pulled from a 60FPS clip at a high frame rate without VFR would be clearer than stills from a 120FPS clip at a high frame rate with VFR. Something to think about if stills pulled from the video are a crucial part of the project. Also, VFR only allows for 1080, not UHD/4K...another limitation for pulling clear stills.
Probably worth shooting 120FPS 1080P VFR w/ 1/250 shutter for any slo-mo video needs, then switching to UHD w/ very high shutter for pulling any stills.
Unfortunately, the image quality of 120FPS via VFR is rather low in comparison to shooting regularly, so stills pulled from a 60FPS clip at a high frame rate without VFR would be clearer than stills from a 120FPS clip at a high frame rate with VFR. Something to think about if stills pulled from the video are a crucial part of the project. Also, VFR only allows for 1080, not UHD/4K...another limitation for pulling clear stills.
Probably worth shooting 120FPS 1080P VFR w/ 1/250 shutter for any slo-mo video needs, then switching to UHD w/ very high shutter for pulling any stills.
Andrius Simutis
Veteran
Getting stills from video is always a compromise. You'll wind up with weird video if you optimize for stills and bad stills if you optimize for video. Just bring a stills camera and a video camera and good content for both.