Shutter Speed When Using 4K2HD

P

pifemaster

Well-known member
Hello,

I am getting ready to use my FS700 & Odyssey 7Q for the first time this weekend.

I plan on shooting 4K2HD @ 30P. Both days will be wedding receptions (low light) and I will be using the kit lens (SELP18200).

I was planning on shooting with a shutter speed of 1/60.

I would love to get the opinions of anyone with more experience than me - which is anyone that is reading this post :cheesy:

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
www.pifemaster.com
 
Yeah i'm thinking 1/60 is where you want to be shooting at 30p. Even if you're low on light, i wouldn't touch the shutter speed. If you plan on shooting any higher frame rate, like 60p then 1/120.

Special shots like if you want some extra motion blur, lower the shutter speed. Never tried it myself, doubt i'd mess with it at a wedding.
If you raise it, you'll start getting a Saving Private Ryan action feel. Can't imagine that would be good for a wedding!

I've never done a wedding. I wonder how 24p and a 1/48 shutter speed would work for a wedding. Gain a bit of light and shoot at more filmic frame rate.
 
Shutter speed is usually double the frame rate, but the FS700 had weird shutter speeds so you end up a little higher sometimes, i.e. 60fps the nearest shutter speed is 125 for some reason.

I try to do the 180 degree rule, but if it's low light sometimes I will use a lower shutter speed to get an extra stop of light. I think it's somewhat OK to go lower but it's better to avoid going higher unless you want a staccato, Saving Private Ryan look.

With the kit lens, you might struggle a bit indoors since it's a variable F-Stop with it being btw. f3.5 to f6.5 or something like that. I would personally suggest going with a constant f2.8 if possible, at least indoors. I used the Canon 24-105 on Speedbooster and it's effectively a 17-75mm f2.8 in a Super 35mm formate which works well for indoors.
 
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1/60 is fine for regular speed , although I wouldn't be afraid of dropping it to 1/30th if you need the stop. Having said that I wouldn't be afraid if raising the ISO either. Are you shooting slog2? I reckon you can push it to ISO 4000 no problem.

Going high speed? Just shoot at a shutter that matches the frame rate. 180Deg/double frame rate is a waste of time as soon as you go high speed in any form IMO.
 
Colinelves said:
Going high speed? Just shoot at a shutter that matches the frame rate. 180Deg/double frame rate is a waste of time as soon as you go high speed in any form IMO.
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That's interesting Colin. Due to low light I've often just shot higher frame rates at the same shutter speed as frame rate and it looks pretty good to me.

Do you feel that having a double shutter speed does not do much for high frame rates?
 
gene_can_sing said:
Do you feel that having a double shutter speed does not do much for high frame rates?
Click to expand...

Every situation is different. It depends on what you are shooting and how much movement there is. The more movement the more the shutter speed
becomes apparant.
 
gene_can_sing said:
That's interesting Colin. Due to low light I've often just shot higher frame rates at the same shutter speed as frame rate and it looks pretty good to me.

Do you feel that having a double shutter speed does not do much for high frame rates?
Click to expand...

The double speed/180 degree shutter is a hangover from film days: the Camera's needed a time period where the shutter was closed to physically move the film on to the next frame (otherwise you'd get streaking) - so half the time the shutter was open, exposing the film, the other half of the time it was closed, allowing the camera to move to the next frame. As chip read outs are much faster than physically moving a roll of celluloid, digital cameras are not stuck with the same restriction.

Having said that, audiences are definitely used to seeing images with the level of image blur associated with a 180 degree shutter and, in addition, many subjects would blur a lot when using a shutter slower than 1/48th second (i.e. 24fps with a 180deg shutter), which may be disconcerting. However, many subjects won't - so I'd say often you can get away with a slower shutter speed (assuming there isn't a lot of camera movement - which will accentuate the blurring) and often this is preferable to the additional noise you get from adding a lot of gain/increasing ISO.

When it comes to high speed/slow mo stuff: the frame rate forces a shutter speed that's as high as, if not higher than the 1/48th they're used to, so they won't see any 'additional' motion blur that they might find disconcerting, except when shooting very fast moving subjects (even then, it is somewhat debatable how much difference this makes when things are moving anyway - even at 1/48th of a second most movement has motion blur, you just don't notice it the same way you would in a still because, well, they're moving!)

In addition shooting at a higher shutter speed often necessitates opening the lens and or adding camera gain/noise which you may wish to avoid. Furthermore, if you want to use speed ramps in post, the higher shutter speed might give that off 'Saving Private Ryan' feel you get when using a fast shutter (because you are!) when you speed the slow mo back up to normal speed. It also increases the chances of having lighting flicker. Which is to say: little is gained, a lot is lost (often).

Yes, some subjects you may wish to shoot with a higher shutter speed, either to get very crisp details (e.g. lumps of dirt flying through the air) but for many (especially those in weddings!) you don't need it as they're moving so slow there's little or no motion blur anyway!

So it does depend upon what you're shooting - but generally I find there is little to be gained by doubling the shutter speed.
 
Thank you everyone for the responses, especially Colin for the detailed explanation. I would love to be able to use a lower speed to pick up an extra 1/2 to full stop of light. That being said, is it acceptable to shoot at 30P and use a shutter speed of 1/48 or is it best to stay in multiples of the frame rate ie. 1/30 1/60?

Thank you,
Robert Pfeifer
www.pifemaster.com
 
I recommend staying in multiples of the base framerate. Harmonics being what it is, beating at off frequency rates produces strange stutters and artifacts.
 
cuervo said:
I recommend staying in multiples of the base framerate. Harmonics being what it is, beating at off frequency rates produces strange stutters and artifacts.
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What he said! Yes, it's probably safest to stick with multiples of the frame rate if you can. If you need an extra stop shoot 1/30th sec or 24fps@1/48th.

Having said that, I live in PAL land and have shot a lot @ 24fps and over here you HAVE to shoot off-axis (172.8deg - 1/50th sec shutter) and you never get problems doing that (It's been a standard approach for decades). The critical factor is if your frame rate is not a multiple of the electrical frequency of your country you're working in then shutter speed (exposure time) has to be (when it comes to lighting flicker anyway). So you're probably safe to try 1/48th if you want to experiment.
 
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