How would one pull this shot off with the GH1?

R

Revsta

Well-known member
I am going for the slow shutter effect, ALA Chungking Express, where a person doesn't move and the people around them move a lot and become a blur.

As far as I know, you can't get the shutter that slow on this like you can with the DVX. I also wanted to incorporate a slow push in on the stationary actor. Is this doable either in camera or in post?
 
Yes, you can do this. You'll need to be in 720p mode. Set your focus to manual focus. You can then set your shutter speed to as low as 1/2 a second. You should get quite a "Chungking" step-frame shutter blur. Now, you can either do a slow zoom in post, or you can use a dolly and push-in very VERY slow. However, to get smooth movement on a dolly going this slow, you may need to use a special motorized system, like the ones used for moving timelapse shots (I think the website is called Timescapes). You'll probably need to pull focus. And you'll need to make sure your actor moves and blinks as little as possible. Good Luck!
 
You can indeed get the shutter speed that low.

First, make sure you've updated the firmware to version 1.2. Then, set it in creative movie mode, choose either MJPG 720/30p or AVCHD SH mode 720/60p, and then be sure that "Exposure Mode" in the "motion picture" menu is set to "M". If so, you can now set your exposure down to 1/2 second for massive blur.
 
And just to add to what Barry said, you must have your focus dial set to Manual focus. When put in AFS or AFC, the shutter speed won't go lower than 1/30th.
 
dvbrother is right, you can do this.

Chungking Express wouldn't have the shutter any slower than 1/48 a second. It's physically impossible for the film camera to do that. I think they may have also reduced the frame rate to 12 or even 8 and changed the shutter lower somehow. They used a technique on the film called step printing [also known in your editing software as chuck frames and slow it down, or frame hold slow motion]. All the motion blur is just people moving very fast across the camera whilst Tony Leung and Faye Wong move really slowly?

Try 1/48, 1/24 and 1/12 shutter on the GH1 and tell us what looks best for your scene. I would suggest though, if you wanted to do a smooth push in while everyone moved across in a jerky stroby blur fashion, to do it in camera and not in post. Looks better spatially and is more snazzy. Push the dolly incredibly, incredibly slowly in as everyone moves across the camera really fast. Might help to add alot of resistance and weight too to make it harder and more accurate to push. I would not have the shutter too low as 1/2 though, as the push in will look messy and jerky.
 
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Hey guys,

I tried doing the effect (by the way, you can change the shutter speed while recording w/ the wheel) but when I edit in Premier CS4 the parts w/ the slow shutter speed are played in really fast speed as if its making up for the less frame rates. Anybody get this?
 
Yup. When I did 'A Kindling Light' I just changed the playback speed of the clips, I eyeballed it on a take by take basis to what looked good to me.
 
BandanaDan said:
dvbrother is right, you can do this.

Chungking Express wouldn't have the shutter any slower than 1/48 a second. It's physically impossible for the film camera to do that.

I hate to correct you, but actually, that's not true. Remember that the shutter of a film camera is mechanical. It's a spinning wheel, so if you lower the frame rate, the wheel spins slower, and you lengthen the shutter speed. It's directly proportional. One early famous example of this is the Speeder Bike chase through the forest in "Return of the Jedi". A Steadicam operator walked through a redwood forest with the camera set to a slow frame rate. Because the shutter spins slower, too, there is more blur in the image. So, when the footage is sped up, the trees streak by as if the camera were going super fast.
It's the same trick with the GH1.
Click to expand...
 
I smoothed the slow shutter speed further with frame blending and a standard plug-in in After Effects Pro called "Wide Time", again eye-balling it on a take by take basis.
 
Martti,
That piece you have on Vimeo is amazing, BTW. I remember when I first got my GH1, that was a clip that inspired me to think of all the creative possibilities of the camera!
 
Yeah, that's a 1/2 second. Most of these digital cameras display fractions of a second as regular numbers. Whole seconds are displayed with the quotation mark after the number, such as 2".
 
bekrawa said:
Yeah, that's a 1/2 second. Most of these digital cameras display fractions of a second as regular numbers. Whole seconds are displayed with the quotation mark after the number, such as 2".
Click to expand...

Or you can think of it as 2 frames per second and so forth
 
matt9b said:
Okay, I'm officially starting to get irritated. I want to be able to film at 1/2 second shutter speed on my GH1. Why should european customers be excluded from such benefits? We paid the same price did we not. (Actually probably slightly more!)
Click to expand...

I am an european customer and I can film at 1/2 second shutter speed which I've done with "A Kindling Light"...
 
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