raneparish
Active member
Can anyone advise me how to best capture sea spray in slow motion? If the sun's in my favor, is it possible to get the water droplets clearly? I'm planing to shoot in 24p.
Thank you!!!!!
Thank you!!!!!
Slow Motion...HELP!
- Thread starter raneparish
- Start date
Barry_Green
Moderator
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
Slow motion is best captured by not shooting in 24P, but instead shooting in 60i, and slowing down to 24P in post.
Slow motion is best captured by not shooting in 24P, but instead shooting in 60i, and slowing down to 24P in post.
raneparish
Active member
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
Will the result look more like video than film? ( I just got the dvx 2 weeks ago ;D
I've learned alot from your posts by the way. Thank you!
Will the result look more like video than film? ( I just got the dvx 2 weeks ago ;D
I've learned alot from your posts by the way. Thank you!
Barry_Green
Moderator
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
If you just play back what you shot it'd look like video, but when it's played back at the 24P rate, it'll look like film slow motion. It'll be lower in resolution, but it'll look like slowed-down film. Just make sure that all the other settings are the same (gamma, matrix, etc) and adjust your shutter speed to be 1/100.
Experiment before committing to it, of course...
If you just play back what you shot it'd look like video, but when it's played back at the 24P rate, it'll look like film slow motion. It'll be lower in resolution, but it'll look like slowed-down film. Just make sure that all the other settings are the same (gamma, matrix, etc) and adjust your shutter speed to be 1/100.
Experiment before committing to it, of course...
raneparish
Active member
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
Thanks!! Can't wait for your book! You are, as everyone says: THE MAN!
Thanks!! Can't wait for your book! You are, as everyone says: THE MAN!
Story_of_Yesterday
Active member
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
Someone has a crush
Someone has a crush
raneparish
Active member
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
[quote author=Story_of_Yesterday link=board=news;num=1095227832;start=0#5 date=09/15/04 at 07:12:45]Someone has a crush[/quote]
What the?
[quote author=Story_of_Yesterday link=board=news;num=1095227832;start=0#5 date=09/15/04 at 07:12:45]Someone has a crush
[/quote]What the?
MattinSTL
Sound Modulator
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
I've been battling with slow-motion for the last 3 years... at one point I was absolutely obsessed with it. When you see incredible slow-motion on The Discovery Channel or The National Geographic Channel, and many others... what you're seeing is the Vari-cam... Forget buying one of those... your house may have cost less, but what they produce is what I want to produce.
Unfortunately I think you're going to have to accept some stutter or strobing when you push the DVX to less then 1/2 speed. Some NLEs seem to like slow-motion better then others, Vegas is supposed to have better speed control then Premiere, but I've got both and I'm not really seeing it.
I bought a program called Motion Perfect which was supposed to draw all the missing frames to smooth out the stutter. I'd say it was worth the price, but I rarely use it because it has an odd phenomenon in the output. Some objects in the frame do in fact smooth out to beautiful slow-motion, but other portions of the picture stretch and suddenly morph back to normal size... like shifting sand in the wind. At first I was excited about this effect because if you had a time that you NEEDED it you'd LOVE it. Nobody would guess how you "did it" and they'd assume that you spent 6 months in post drawing frames... it's THAT weird looking. At this point I rarely use it... I got Motion Perfect about 1.5 years ago and I keep checking the Dynapel site for an upgrade, but nothing's out yet.
I don't know if all this rambling helps you any, but it might. The best advice I can give you for good slow-mo is to tripod your cam and set a shutter of 1/50 to 1/120... that way anything that you want in detail will be, even if the picture stutters a bit. Tripodding the cam will help keep people from thinking about the stutter because areas of the picture which don't move won't stutter... this is doubly important if you decide to try Motion Perfect.
I've been battling with slow-motion for the last 3 years... at one point I was absolutely obsessed with it. When you see incredible slow-motion on The Discovery Channel or The National Geographic Channel, and many others... what you're seeing is the Vari-cam... Forget buying one of those... your house may have cost less, but what they produce is what I want to produce.
Unfortunately I think you're going to have to accept some stutter or strobing when you push the DVX to less then 1/2 speed. Some NLEs seem to like slow-motion better then others, Vegas is supposed to have better speed control then Premiere, but I've got both and I'm not really seeing it.
I bought a program called Motion Perfect which was supposed to draw all the missing frames to smooth out the stutter. I'd say it was worth the price, but I rarely use it because it has an odd phenomenon in the output. Some objects in the frame do in fact smooth out to beautiful slow-motion, but other portions of the picture stretch and suddenly morph back to normal size... like shifting sand in the wind. At first I was excited about this effect because if you had a time that you NEEDED it you'd LOVE it. Nobody would guess how you "did it" and they'd assume that you spent 6 months in post drawing frames... it's THAT weird looking. At this point I rarely use it... I got Motion Perfect about 1.5 years ago and I keep checking the Dynapel site for an upgrade, but nothing's out yet.
I don't know if all this rambling helps you any, but it might. The best advice I can give you for good slow-mo is to tripod your cam and set a shutter of 1/50 to 1/120... that way anything that you want in detail will be, even if the picture stutters a bit. Tripodding the cam will help keep people from thinking about the stutter because areas of the picture which don't move won't stutter... this is doubly important if you decide to try Motion Perfect.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
"Proper" slow motion is done by shooting more frames per second than you play back. In film, you'd shoot at 48 frames per second, and play back at 24 frames per second, and have 2:1 slow motion.
Video cameras don't have that capability. So everyone tries to "slow down" their footage in post, and the results are always awful. Some people swear by Twixtor and MotionPerfect, I tend to swear AT them, because no matter how much I tweak and adjust, there's always some odd ghosting artifacts.
The VariCam has the ability to shoot 60 progressive frames per second. Play that back at 24 frames per second and you'll get filmlike slow motion: perfect motion rendition, wonderfully smooth.
The DVX can do this to a *limited* degree. If you shoot 30P and import that into a 24P project, and play it back at 80% speed, you will get frame-for-frame perfect slow motion, just not very slow (about 25% slower than normal).
For real "slow motion", you have to shoot 60i with a shutter speed of about 1/100 or 1/120, and then slow that down to 40% speed in a 24P timeline (for PAL users, obviously you'd shoot 50i at 1/100 and slow it down to 50% speed). Doing this will turn each field into a frame, and give you the same motion resolution as if you'd shot at 60 frames per second; the only drawback is you'll get less vertical resolution.
You CANNOT expect to get smooth results playing back at any other speeds. 24P/30P/60i are the frame rates you have to choose from. Any other speed WILL result in lousy stuttery motion. You can try Twixtor or some other program and see if it works for you, but if you want to know for sure that it's going to work, the two choices you have are 30P and 60i for importing into a 24P program.
And yes, that does mean you have to know in advance what parts of your program will be slowed down. Same as in film: in film, you know for sure what you want slow-mo'd, and you shoot it at a faster frame rate. You cannot slow film down in post (except by step-printing, which stutters). So in video, treat the DVX like a film camera, plan ahead for your slow-mo's, and you can get fantastic results.
"Proper" slow motion is done by shooting more frames per second than you play back. In film, you'd shoot at 48 frames per second, and play back at 24 frames per second, and have 2:1 slow motion.
Video cameras don't have that capability. So everyone tries to "slow down" their footage in post, and the results are always awful. Some people swear by Twixtor and MotionPerfect, I tend to swear AT them, because no matter how much I tweak and adjust, there's always some odd ghosting artifacts.
The VariCam has the ability to shoot 60 progressive frames per second. Play that back at 24 frames per second and you'll get filmlike slow motion: perfect motion rendition, wonderfully smooth.
The DVX can do this to a *limited* degree. If you shoot 30P and import that into a 24P project, and play it back at 80% speed, you will get frame-for-frame perfect slow motion, just not very slow (about 25% slower than normal).
For real "slow motion", you have to shoot 60i with a shutter speed of about 1/100 or 1/120, and then slow that down to 40% speed in a 24P timeline (for PAL users, obviously you'd shoot 50i at 1/100 and slow it down to 50% speed). Doing this will turn each field into a frame, and give you the same motion resolution as if you'd shot at 60 frames per second; the only drawback is you'll get less vertical resolution.
You CANNOT expect to get smooth results playing back at any other speeds. 24P/30P/60i are the frame rates you have to choose from. Any other speed WILL result in lousy stuttery motion. You can try Twixtor or some other program and see if it works for you, but if you want to know for sure that it's going to work, the two choices you have are 30P and 60i for importing into a 24P program.
And yes, that does mean you have to know in advance what parts of your program will be slowed down. Same as in film: in film, you know for sure what you want slow-mo'd, and you shoot it at a faster frame rate. You cannot slow film down in post (except by step-printing, which stutters). So in video, treat the DVX like a film camera, plan ahead for your slow-mo's, and you can get fantastic results.
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
[quote author=Barry_Green link=board=news;num=1095227832;start=0#1 date=09/14/04 at 23:11:40]Slow motion is best captured by not shooting in 24P, but instead shooting in 60i, and slowing down to 24P in post.[/quote]
Do you mean capturing footage in a 24p timeline? or in 29.97 timeline? I'm a little confused...
[quote author=Barry_Green link=board=news;num=1095227832;start=0#1 date=09/14/04 at 23:11:40]Slow motion is best captured by not shooting in 24P, but instead shooting in 60i, and slowing down to 24P in post.[/quote]
Do you mean capturing footage in a 24p timeline? or in 29.97 timeline? I'm a little confused...
Barry_Green
Moderator
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
What I mean is, if you're editing a 24P program on a 24P timeline, you can add slow motion by shooting those segments in 60i mode, and then importing that footage into your 24P timeline. You then tell the footage to play back at 40% speed, and the editor will make a frame out of every field, giving you the equivalent of having shot at 60 frames per second.
That's how it works in Vegas, I don't know if other editors can do that but I've been assuming they can.
What I mean is, if you're editing a 24P program on a 24P timeline, you can add slow motion by shooting those segments in 60i mode, and then importing that footage into your 24P timeline. You then tell the footage to play back at 40% speed, and the editor will make a frame out of every field, giving you the equivalent of having shot at 60 frames per second.
That's how it works in Vegas, I don't know if other editors can do that but I've been assuming they can.
raneparish
Active member
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
OK, so a Varicam is out of reach...could I get a crisp slow motion image if I rented a 16mm camera? Or maybe I could use a digital still camera in movie mode? As I stated in my initial post, I'm trying to capture the water droplets from a breaking wave.
thanks
rane
OK, so a Varicam is out of reach...could I get a crisp slow motion image if I rented a 16mm camera? Or maybe I could use a digital still camera in movie mode? As I stated in my initial post, I'm trying to capture the water droplets from a breaking wave.
thanks
rane
raneparish
Active member
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
Forget I suggested the digital camera. I don't think it's getting 60 shots per second.
Forget I suggested the digital camera. I don't think it's getting 60 shots per second.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Re: Slow Motion...HELP!
You could get a B&H Filmo 70DR (or almost any member of the Filmo 70 family) for probably $100 or so, and get up to 64fps shooting speed. Or there's a high-speed version of the Filmo that went to 128fps also. Or a Beaulieu R16 will go 64fps, but all the Beaulieus I had eventually developed registration problems, more noticeable at high speed.
16mm can intercut quite nicely with DVX footage but you should tweak the DVX footage to match, if you intend to intercut.
Try experimenting with the DVX in 60i and slowing down in post -- that'll give you the same motion effects as if you'd shot film at 60fps, and should let you know whether 60fps is slow enough for what you're trying to do.
You could get a B&H Filmo 70DR (or almost any member of the Filmo 70 family) for probably $100 or so, and get up to 64fps shooting speed. Or there's a high-speed version of the Filmo that went to 128fps also. Or a Beaulieu R16 will go 64fps, but all the Beaulieus I had eventually developed registration problems, more noticeable at high speed.
16mm can intercut quite nicely with DVX footage but you should tweak the DVX footage to match, if you intend to intercut.
Try experimenting with the DVX in 60i and slowing down in post -- that'll give you the same motion effects as if you'd shot film at 60fps, and should let you know whether 60fps is slow enough for what you're trying to do.