Questions/Opinions on settings for a race series production??

CaptainRon19

CaptainRon19

Member
Hi, I'm very new to the site and I have a few questions about the HMC150 and what settings I should use when shooting a race car series in two weeks time.

Obviously there will be a considerable amount of action shots and I was wondering what the best settings would be for the camera when I will be framing shots perpendicular to the cars, aka when they will be quickly in and out of frame. I was in Mexico about a month and a half ago shooting their first two races (no I didn't get swine flu) and I noticed the 1080/30p setting wasn't great for these perpendicular shots where the cars fly by. Should I be shooting 60 frames at all times? Or only when I really need better clarity for certain action shots? If I should be shooting 60 frames, should it be in 720 or 1080? I ask this because I'm also not entirely familiar with the workflow yet in FCP with an HMC150. I didn't have any trouble with logging and transferring the footage into FCP however it doesn't look good once rendered in the timeline and I still don't know what export settings will lend the best outcome quality.

Any help is greatly appreciated and if you guys needs to see some sample footage to see what I'm talking about as far as the action shots please let me know and I will pop a few into vimeo.

PS- My dad and I have been sharing his HMC150 for stuff over the past couple of weeks, and we are still both in the learning process so any help at all is greatly appreciated and this site has been incredibly informative ever since I signed up.

Thanks in advance for everyones time and help.
 
Auto everything. Too much action to manually change anything on the fly. You'll color correct in post as needed.
1080 or 720 is up to you or the braqodcaster you are shooting it for. I shoot all motorsports for my show in 1080 letterboxed to 720. Makes it much sharper than SD and I remain SD friendly for any local station that may pick up the show.
You can surf some clippage here if you like:

http://user.streetfire.net/profile/grinner.htm
 
Relative to my experience testing this camera -- 720/60p -- period. It's the 60 progressive frames that will make the world of difference.

The scene file choice very much relates to your capabilities in post production. The best looking default scene file choice is F3 Spark -- reduces the appearance of noise and looks nice -- but it crushes the blacks and reduces options in post. F5 Cine V also looks nice, but also crushes blacks. F1 Normal and F4 B-STR are something of a middle ground. The broadest dynamic range is F6 Cine D -- but it's essentially designed for post production -- meaning that if you don't know what you're doing it's going to look worse than any of the other scene files.

So, whatever you do, go for 60P (only available at 720).
 
Thanks for the help guys, the stuff looks great. I shot roughly 4 hours of footage from the whole race weekend, plenty of action to go through.

I have a question regarding the workflow with Final Cut. This guy wants me to send him some of the footage and he'd like it in a DV Codec at 720x480 resolution. Does anybody know the appropriate timeline/export settings for this? I thought I did, but what I keep exporting has quality loss...

any help is greatly appreciated.
 
OK, this thread could not have come at a better time. Thank you Captain Ron!
I'm going to be shooting a Motorcycle drag racing series this summer and the first race is in two weeks...

720 60p makes perfect sense, but what about shutter speed?

Leave it at 1/60 or move it up to something else.
In most of the shots the bikes will be moving away or moving towards me...but some will be as they pass at speed.
I also plan on using some of the footage for slow motion shots.

Also a question for Captain Ron...What scene file did you end up using?

Thanks,
 
Shutter speed depends whether you want a blurry look or a stuttery look. I wouldn't go as far as 1/60 - would recommend maybe 1/150 or 1/250. Try 'em out and see what you think.
 
Before you read, remember I only think I know what I'm saying :)

If your final output is going to be on the web then shoot it in 720/24p since it will end up being converted to that anyways and you won't loose any frames. If your final output is going to be TV or DVD then I would say 720/60p would definetely be the way to go.

I just did a ton of shutter speed test for a project I just shot. You need to adjust the shutter speed to how your composition/ scene is shot and for the look you want. I would try and stay away from panning shots unless your shutter is 250. I would try and shoot a motorcycle drag race at angles from slightly behind or in front so you zoom in and out as they take off. If you plan on panning from left to right quickly you will have the following problems. Slow shutter and the background will artifact and look jumpy but the bike will look slightly better with more blur. Faster shutter and the whole comp will look crisper and not jumpy, however too fast a shutter and you'll loose the blur that gives you that sense of speed.

So set you camera up in parking lot and film a bycycle going by fairly close to you at different camera angles and shutter speeds. Make sure the bicycle does the exact same thing every time. Then playback the footage once at normal speed and then again with the remote using the frame by frame. This will probrably answer all your questions. Oh yeah make sure there is something in the background on you bicycle test shots so you can see the jumppiness on panning shots I'm talking about.

One cool thing you might do is shoot a scene of the motorcycles rear tire as it takes off at 1000 shutter or more and then in post slow it down and add some blur in AE enetering and exiting the scene with a sharp image at the middle.

Remember I really don't know what the hell I'm talking about :)
 
s3films said:
Before you read, remember I only think I know what I'm saying :)



Remember I really don't know what the hell I'm talking about :)
Click to expand...

Maybe you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night...:thumbup:

Actually I did something similar to what you suggested. I live on fairly major street and I spent sometime yesterday shooting the traffic going by.
And tomorrow, my wife is racing her car at the strip and I will be bringing my camera to try out a few things before the bike race next week.

Thanks for the tips...
 
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