Photo blogger describes exposing video using "180-degree rule"

The original link.. I think none of it has any relevance to the act of professional motion picture recording.

(and that is coming from someone whose first 18 years in business was as a pro stills 'tog)
 
morgan_moore said:
The original link.. I think none of it has any relevance to the act of professional motion picture recording.

(and that is coming from someone whose first 18 years in business was as a pro stills 'tog)
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I think I agree with you but when you say "none of it" I can't tell if you mean the Wolfcrow video, the blurb added by the fstoppers blogger, or using a 180-degree shutter. I would agree that the first two items are not helpful to anyone. 180-degree shutter is still relevant, but I'm not sure you disagree.
 
laverdir said:
Haven't seen what fstopers claimed, but have read here that smoeone was unclear why there are mostly static shoots coming from photographers:

1. you can't adjust exposure with shutter angle without affecting fluidity of motion pictures and, in general, adjusting exposure with ND filters on stills cameras isn't fun

2. most stills cameras have bad rolling shutter nusproducts, it's one of areas in which CCD still has advantage and why GS sensors are being developed further

Camera movement is an art by itself.
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Yes. In my opinion, camera movement (and also subject and lighting movement) are the only issues separating making photos from making videos. (Not that those are small items.) When photographers first switch to making videos, they often start making essentially cinemagraphs without meaning to.

I mean - the art of finding a perfect moment/framing that can, in stasis, transfix the viewer is so challenging that it's no wonder they carry over that practice (at least initially).
 
ahalpert said:
I think I agree with you but when you say "none of it" I can't tell if you mean the Wolfcrow video, the blurb added by the fstoppers blogger, or using a 180-degree shutter. I would agree that the first two items are not helpful to anyone. 180-degree shutter is still relevant, but I'm not sure you disagree.
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All of it. I didnt see the video - I think my ad blocker got it - but Im not convinced that WC has ever stepped off his blog set.
 
I think there is a huge roll difference between photographer and videographer... well that depends where you sit in the production chain.

A 'film' (promo vid) is like a magazine or leaflet - it has words, font choice, a message etc

A set of photos is like an element (component) of a magazine or leaflet production, passed to the copy writer and design layup artist to be mixed with words, font choices and many other elements.

A film maker needs many skills a photographer typically doesnt have.

A camera operator, may not need many skills a photographer doesnt have.

That is my experience anyway especially on the video projects Ive directed/shot/edited.
 
laverdir said:
Adding motion blur in post.
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In my operating days I sometimes would have a director ask me to pan faster at a given moment and I'd brace myself for the typical conversation that would follow:

"I can pan faster, but it will strobe"
"Well, just a little faster then".
"This is as fast as I can go without it strobing" (UNSPOKEN--"which is why I'm panning at that speed")
"How do we fix it?"
"I can go a lot faster"
"Show me"
I pan just fast enough to get beyond the strobe window.
"That's too fast!"
I look at him and shrug. [UNSPOKEN - "Physics!"]

At least this one was based on a director understanding that there actually is a "no-fly-zone" for pan speeds at 24 fps. Slightly less frustrating than them asking me to bend light rays, place two cameras in exactly the same spot or be in two places at once.

For the record, I never consulted a table or formula on this, I just developed a sense of it from practice. And that in the film days, where you couldn't see the effect in the viewfinder and didn't have instant playback that was reliable to tell you if it was happening or not. Part of the required skillset of an operator.
 
CharlesPapert said:
"I can pan faster, but it will strobe"
....
For the record, I never consulted a table or formula on this, I just developed a sense of it from practice. And that in the film days, where you couldn't see the effect in the viewfinder and didn't have instant playback that was reliable to tell you if it was happening or not. Part of the required skillset of an operator.
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This is what you call field experience and is something the newcomers discussed earlier learning to shoot video from youtube won't so quickly and easily know/have
 
morgan_moore said:
I think there is a huge roll difference between photographer and videographer... well that depends where you sit in the production chain.

A 'film' (promo vid) is like a magazine or leaflet - it has words, font choice, a message etc

A set of photos is like an element (component) of a magazine or leaflet production, passed to the copy writer and design layup artist to be mixed with words, font choices and many other elements.

A film maker needs many skills a photographer typically doesnt have.

A camera operator, may not need many skills a photographer doesnt have.

That is my experience anyway especially on the video projects Ive directed/shot/edited.
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I agree with you here, although I think this is just a matter of videographers being asked to complete graphics, color correction, final preparation, while most photographers don't need to do that. Of course, their photos may not need anything overlaid and they may be delivering the final product. If anything, I'd bet there are way fewer photographers who don't edit their own photos than there are camera operators/DPs who never edit video.

But my point about photographers shooting video was just about operating skills and shot vocabulary. The idea of panning, moving the camera, or racking focus is irrelevant to photography, and I just don't see a lot of photographers who turn to video using a lot of camera movement when they first do it.

I'm not knocking them or saying they won't evolve to move the camera.
 
morgan_moore said:
All of it. I didnt see the video - I think my ad blocker got it - but Im not convinced that WC has ever stepped off his blog set.
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Haha you didn't miss much there. I like wolfcrow's camera comparisons but that's about it. And the fstoppers blog does a much better job covering photography.

Why do you think using a 180-degree shutter is irrelevant? Obviously there are reasons to deviate from it, but I personally consider it a default. Whether that's because I'm used to it from watching films or because it's physically ideal I could not say.
 
CharlesPapert said:
For the record, I never consulted a table or formula on this, I just developed a sense of it from practice. And that in the film days, where you couldn't see the effect in the viewfinder and didn't have instant playback that was reliable to tell you if it was happening or not. Part of the required skillset of an operator.
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Out of curiosity, did you ever alter your shutter angle for the sake of reducing judder during a pan?

Also, do you think this is one of the primary reasons some filmmakers push for higher-framerate playback? (Personally, I would stick with 24fps regrardless.)
 
If I see "180 rule" I ONLY think of crossing the line - the usual no-no that many less experienced people do accidentally.
 
Photographers have been dabbling with video for over a decade. The 2010 Professional Photographers of America conference had a session that encouraged wedding photographers to buy a video monopod and simultaneously shoot stills and video of weddings with their HDSLRs. I don't think they mentioned frame rates, shutter speed or ND filters. It was presented as a way to grow a wedding business and expand the offered services, but my thought at the time, which I still maintain, was that it's a bad idea to attempt both at the same time, as you will inevitably miss something and deliver compromised products. You need to focus on one or the other in order to deliver professional results. Now days they're probably telling everyone to skip shooting stills and just extract frames from UHD footage. :furious3:

In reference to shutter speed on DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, when shooting 24P, I set the shutter speed at 1/45th (more on this below), 1/60th under 60hz lighting to avoid flicker, and I'll go down to 1/30th for a low light static scene like a city skyline.

Here's an interesting DPReview post on exact shutter speeds: "On a stills camera shooting stills, a nominal shutter speed of 1/60 s selects an actual shutter speed of 1/64 s; a nominal shutter speed of 1/50 s selects an actual shutter speed of 1/50.80 s; a nominal shutter speed of 1/40 s selects an actual shutter speed of 1/40.32 s. Because the real shutter speed steps are accurately 1/3 EV" John Vickers.

Here's an old post that advocates shooting at 1/45th for 24P on DSLRs:
Kholi said:
YES.

You are not crazy, it is not your computer screen, you're just sensitive to it. I am as well, and so are some of my friends. High End digital cinema cameras are tuned to make sure cadence is similar to film. DSLRs are mishaps.

I've posted this since I started using Canon DSLRs, but only a few people actually go out and try it:

USE 1/45(CANON) or 1/40(GH2)

As much as I want 1/48 settings, I actually don't care anymore. 1/40 on GH2 looks right. 1/45 on Canon looks great.


http://vimeo.com/38260236

(Video's from DVXuser: LIN3ARX, someone else who tried 1/40 after the suggestion and is sticking to it now)


http://vimeo.com/33016592

Ignore my shakey hands... coming off of shooting 30lb MX setups and Epic GH2 is way too light to try and hold. xD


http://vimeo.com/12284829

7D @ 1/45


http://vimeo.com/37406049


5D @ 1/45
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ahalpert said:
Why do you think using a 180-degree shutter is irrelevant? Obviously there are reasons to deviate from it, but I personally consider it a default. Whether that's because I'm used to it from watching films or because it's physically ideal I could not say.
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I dont think I said I dislike the 180 'rule'

I very much do.

Meaning that-pulling stills from video rarely works due to motion blur in frames.

Whe doing timelapse I sometimes move to 300 shutter as I like timelapse to flow.
 
Imamacuser said:
Photographers have been dabbling with video for over a decade. The 2010 Professional Photographers of America conference had a session that encouraged wedding photographers to buy a video monopod and simultaneously shoot stills and video of weddings with their HDSLRs. I don't think they mentioned frame rates, shutter speed or ND filters. It was presented as a way to grow a wedding business and expand the offered services, but my thought at the time, which I still maintain, was that it's a bad idea to attempt both at the same time, as you will inevitably miss something and deliver compromised products. You need to focus on one or the other in order to deliver professional results. Now days they're probably telling everyone to skip shooting stills and just extract frames from UHD footage. :furious3:

In reference to shutter speed on DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, when shooting 24P, I set the shutter speed at 1/45th (more on this below), 1/60th under 60hz lighting to avoid flicker, and I'll go down to 1/30th for a low light static scene like a city skyline.

Here's an interesting DPReview post on exact shutter speeds: "On a stills camera shooting stills, a nominal shutter speed of 1/60 s selects an actual shutter speed of 1/64 s; a nominal shutter speed of 1/50 s selects an actual shutter speed of 1/50.80 s; a nominal shutter speed of 1/40 s selects an actual shutter speed of 1/40.32 s. Because the real shutter speed steps are accurately 1/3 EV" John Vickers.

Here's an old post that advocates shooting at 1/45th for 24P on DSLRs:
Click to expand...

Well, 1/45 is pretty close to 1/48 in any case. Probably not a huge difference between the look at 1/45 and 1/50. 1/40 looks a bit blurrier to my eye, but I haven't done explicit shutter speed comparisons with GH footage.

Yes - I think photographers were being coaxed into video by the 5Dmk2, the idea being that they could take their same photo in video form.

But there are 2 problems. The first is that so much of many photographers' work is reliant on using speedlights/strobes and that lighting control evaporates when shooting video. (And I always have a laugh when photographers try to shoot video in studio using the modeling lights on their strobes. So weak by comparison.)

The 2nd problem is that they're used to working with 14-bit RAW files and not 8- or 10-bit processed files.

So, generally, I think it's easier for videographers to hybridize their workflow and pull stills from video than the reverse. But either way, the client will compromise quality for budget savings.
 
morgan_moore said:
I dont think I said I dislike the 180 'rule'

I very much do.

Meaning that-pulling stills from video rarely works due to motion blur in frames.

Whe doing timelapse I sometimes move to 300 shutter as I like timelapse to flow.
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Gotcha and agreed. Although pulling stills from video seems like a good time to up your shutter speed for that sake. You're going to be compromising quality one way or another, and I think 1/80 shutter yields decently sharp results of normal people motion. (Hell, photojournalists go down to like 1/20 for exposure and hope for the best.) You're going to have a lot of frames to choose from to find a sharp one.

Yeah, I'll shoot timelapse at 1/2-1/4 shutter for the motion blur. (On Panasonic GH and S cameras, you can set the shutter speed below the framerate. It's just an easier workflow for me than shooting a proper stills timelapse.)
 
morgan_moore said:
A film maker needs many skills a photographer typically doesnt have.
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My best friend from high school's daughter is the most intuitive filmmaker I know in the YouTube blogger world. She's not a technical person at all. She doesn't know the "180 rule", or what a "180 degree shutter" means in context to her work. She's never studied film making. She could care less about what kind of camera she has, or the feature set, yet she winds up effectively using ALL the camera offers. For her, film making is just a form of personal expression or journaling as she works through what life is all about.

She's dammed effective telling her own story....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7scafSOmhs

That video was from several years ago in a happier time, and she's had many challenges in her life, and is creating difficult challenges for her family, and ultimately "film making" may or may not be what carries her forward or defines her life. You can see this change in her other works if you care to search, but even with nothing but a cell phone propped up on a box, she finds a way to express the complications in her life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6BBDLYD04o
 
I think you have about 45 degrees in either direction from a 180 shutter of grace before it becomes noticeable. There's generally not much of a creative look to a wider shutter (more open), it just gets a bit smeary and I can't think of a time when I saw it used for an interesting effect. Obviously the skinny shutter look has been a favorite for action scenes, fashion/music video etc for many years.

Shooting a feature on the F900 many years ago I accidentally turned off the shutter on the first day and was delighted to see that I gained signfiicant stop, so I did a setup with it. On playback I saw how it mushed out motion and went "OK, guess I should leave that thing on". In my defense, one must remember that prior to that, turning on the shutter on a video camera was a specialty choice, usually to dial out a frequency issue with a monitor etc and came along with an "!" in the viewfinder to remind you that you were doing something out of the ordinary and to remember to turn it back off again.
 
CharlesPapert said:
I think you have about 45 degrees in either direction from a 180 shutter of grace before it becomes noticeable. There's generally not much of a creative look to a wider shutter (more open), it just gets a bit smeary and I can't think of a time when I saw it used for an interesting effect. Obviously the skinny shutter look has been a favorite for action scenes, fashion/music video etc for many years.
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Gotcha - but no use in opening up the shutter to combat strobing?

PS if I may "fan out" for a moment, I recently found out on another part of the forum that you shot Key & Peele. My wife and I nearly died laughing at that show so many times, and the feature-quality cinematography was definitely a part of that. Thanks for the good times, man.
 
paulears said:
If I see "180 rule" I ONLY think of crossing the line - the usual no-no that many less experienced people do accidentally.
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Agreed. Two different rules.

180 degree rule = crossing the line

180 degree shutter rule = that frame rate shutter speed thing.

I believe some people aren't convince that the shutter speeds are accurate on cameras, and they experiment with finding their favourite between 1/40th and 1/50th. Some just don't like digital 24fps, and find that more smear is favourable. People have been complaining about digital 24p on DVX since the beginning of the 2000's. So, it isn't a global shutter vs rolling shutter thing.
 
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