What does Shutter Speed really do?

L

life4eva

Carbonite Member
Ok I shoot a lot of videos normally at /50 shutter speed, for that old age rule of 24fps 48 shutter speed.


Now I recently shot a small Music Video and had my shutter speed at well over 200+. Yes it made my image darker but what I noticed was what seemed like a greater dof + sharper image. Like a lot sharper then when I normally shoot at 50 shutter speed.


So I ask the great minds here is it true that high shutter speeds provide a sharper image?
 
well since the shutter is opening and closing much more it will darken ur image (as you have noticed) cuz it cuts more light. Also because of this images, are capured at a more rapid rate and it will look strobelike or stuttery.This will improve apparent sharpness...but not real sharpness. High shutter speeds are sometimes used for fast action...and also for fight scenes like Borne Identity (all the Borne films) and Saving Private Ryan. This effect can be used to create a chaotic look without moving the camera 2 much especially if ur on the telephoto end. It however does not affect DOF in anyway.
Go out and do some testing. turn on ur sprinkler or hose and shoot at 50...then turn it up to 2000. you see the particles of water MUCH clearer. you will of course have to expose appropriately for the change in shutter.
heres some high shutter speed action on my dvx. http://vimeo.com/5705781
 
Last edited:
jambredz said:
well since the shutter is opening and closing much more it will darken ur image (as you have noticed) cuz it cuts more light. Also because of this images, are capured at a more rapid rate and it will look strobelike or stuttery.This will improve apparent sharpness...but not real sharpness. High shutter speeds are sometimes used for fast action...and also for fight scenes like Borne Identity (all the Borne films) and Saving Private Ryan. This effect can be used to create a chaotic look without moving the camera 2 much especially if ur on the telephoto end. It however does not affect DOF in anyway.
Go out and do some testing. turn on ur sprinkler or hose and shoot at 50...then turn it up to 2000. you see the particles of water MUCH clearer. you will of course have to expose appropriately for the change in shutter.
heres some high shutter speed action on my dvx. http://vimeo.com/5705781
Click to expand...

Thank you sir, very informative. Also great footage! Also another question, when people say you can go hand held because of shutter speed what does that mean? Finally I was looking at your work on vimeo and it looks really nice, if you don't mind sharing what's your workflow like with the 7d ?
 
Last edited:
I'm not 2 sure what they mean by that. Maybe because like Saving Private Ryan and Bourne Identity, the high shutter speed is exaggerated when going handheld (which they did and many people do)so it looks more chaotic. All you need is to barely jerk the camera and a punch that will look normal at 50 with look wicked at at high shutter. So maybe thats what they mean.

Thanks for checking out my vids and the kind words :)

My 7d workflow usually is shooting at nuetral with sharpness, contrast and saturated all the way down (sometime saturation is 2 notches from the middle). I use Premiere cs4 and use Matrox HD codec to transcode all the footage in Media encoder. Drop that into a customized 1080 24p timeline. And i usually Colour grade in premiere with levels, contrast and brightness, and 3 way colour corrector. (still really a novice in colouring).

Heres the Matrox HD and Premeire workflow i follow (thanks to DVXUSER member Taky) http://lacolorshop.com/blog/view.asp?id=118

I used to use mpegstreamclip with the avid DNXHD codec and its also decent... but for PC and premiere Matrox works a bit better since its AVI

And i export with these settings which is a quote from DVXUSER member Rakesh Jacob who helped me out :

"File/Export/Media or Ctrl+M (obviously)

Export Settings
Format: H.264
Preset: HDTV 1080p 24 High Quality (and adjusted the video settings below and saved a new preset)

Video Tab
Basic Video Settings
Frame Rate [fps]: 23.976 (to match the original clips better than just straight 24p, not sure if it matters that much though, just playing it safe)
Bit Rate Settings
Target Bitrate [Mbps]: 10 (you could probably go as low as 6 if you were in a crunch for space and it would probably look ok)
Maximum Bitrate [Mbps]: 15 (here low as 10 would probably be fine as well)"

I know its premeire stuff and i dont know if u use premiere ...but maybe it will help.
 
Last edited:
What the shutter speed really does is set the shutter speed, really. You could read about what the shutter IS over the internet.

Your image can't be "darker", if you are trying to say it has a different look, like changing picture profiles. With a faster speed your image will be less exposed, but it's not like a faster shutter speed gives you a particular gamma curve or something like that. Exposure is the combination of shutter speed and iris aperture (f-stop), so if after having correct exposure you chose a faster shutter speed (less light in), you will have to compensate by opening the iris to get more light. A faster shutter does not give "dark" qualities to your picture, it's just that by making it faster you are letting less light in.

As jambredz explained, it looks sharper when you have motion, because you are reducing blur and therefore capturing more detailed pictures. Take a photo of someone running with a slow shutter and then with a fast one, you will fully understand. BUT, of course, the look changes. It's not per se a good thing to have as much detail per picture as possible, the look and feel of those pìctures played back changes a lot. Even in the Bourne Trilogy, if you remember well, they also used extremely slow shutter speed for some scenes (I think in all the flashbacks), ending up with an exaggerated motion blur for a special look.

As for the depth of field... the shutter speed has no effect over the depth of field by itself. What probably happened is that to compensate exposure you had to open the iris, therefore ending up with LESS depth of field, not more. Greater iris (lower f-stop values), lower dof. Although many may understand "great dof!" as shallow dof, like these cameras provide.

If you can manipulate shutter speed as you like, then you will use it only to set how you want motion blur to look or control flickering and strobing. Flickering can be produced by lights, televisions, monitors and so on, because they are in a different frecuency than your shutter speed. When you encounter the situation you will have to change the speed to see if you can eliminate the motion or diminish it, or maybe you like it. Aim at your monitor/tv and change your shutter speed, you'll see. As for strobing, look for a working fan, aim at it changing your shutter speed and you will see.

The other factor can be setting correct exposure... most normally under extreme light situations. With the EX1, in low light some guys are in favor of setting the shutter speed to 1/24 (360º) to get more light in instead of pumping up the gain. In my case I would use gain because I hate how motion blur looks with that shutter speed. With any camera and a bright sunny exterior, if you don't have sufficient ND filters to stop some light, you will probably end up setting a faster shutter speed to avoid closing the iris to much and getting diffraction (problem). For diffraction explanation, check this: http://www.digitalsecrets.net/ItsCanon/ideas.html

Good luck...
 
as Iudex touched on be careful about using high shutters under some lighting(sunlight not included)...cuz that will cause flicker in ur image. Sometimes depending on how good ur monitoring is u will see it...sometimes u wont till ur in the edit. by that time you're already screwed :)
 
Iudex said:
What the shutter speed really does is set the shutter speed, really. You could read about what the shutter IS over the internet.

Your image can't be "darker", if you are trying to say it has a different look, like changing picture profiles. With a faster speed your image will be less exposed, but it's not like a faster shutter speed gives you a particular gamma curve or something like that. Exposure is the combination of shutter speed and iris aperture (f-stop), so if after having correct exposure you chose a faster shutter speed (less light in), you will have to compensate by opening the iris to get more light. A faster shutter does not give "dark" qualities to your picture, it's just that by making it faster you are letting less light in.

As jambredz explained, it looks sharper when you have motion, because you are reducing blur and therefore capturing more detailed pictures. Take a photo of someone running with a slow shutter and then with a fast one, you will fully understand. BUT, of course, the look changes. It's not per se a good thing to have as much detail per picture as possible, the look and feel of those pìctures played back changes a lot. Even in the Bourne Trilogy, if you remember well, they also used extremely slow shutter speed for some scenes (I think in all the flashbacks), ending up with an exaggerated motion blur for a special look.

As for the depth of field... the shutter speed has no effect over the depth of field by itself. What probably happened is that to compensate exposure you had to open the iris, therefore ending up with LESS depth of field, not more. Greater iris (lower f-stop values), lower dof. Although many may understand "great dof!" as shallow dof, like these cameras provide.

If you can manipulate shutter speed as you like, then you will use it only to set how you want motion blur to look or control flickering and strobing. Flickering can be produced by lights, televisions, monitors and so on, because they are in a different frecuency than your shutter speed. When you encounter the situation you will have to change the speed to see if you can eliminate the motion or diminish it, or maybe you like it. Aim at your monitor/tv and change your shutter speed, you'll see. As for strobing, look for a working fan, aim at it changing your shutter speed and you will see.

The other factor can be setting correct exposure... most normally under extreme light situations. With the EX1, in low light some guys are in favor of setting the shutter speed to 1/24 (360º) to get more light in instead of pumping up the gain. In my case I would use gain because I hate how motion blur looks with that shutter speed. With any camera and a bright sunny exterior, if you don't have sufficient ND filters to stop some light, you will probably end up setting a faster shutter speed to avoid closing the iris to much and getting diffraction (problem). For diffraction explanation, check this: http://www.digitalsecrets.net/ItsCanon/ideas.html

Good luck...
Click to expand...

Wow, thank you! Excellent post and it looks like I have some reading to do. Hopefully other members can find this information useful as well as opposed to always arguing on here about these cameras.
 
for flicker issues and strobing, brown/black bars under fluorescent lighting, and practically every issue regarding capturing a monitor/tv in video, set your shutter speed to the native A/C frequency. in the USA it is 60hz, so set shutter to 1/60. in Europe and much of the world it is 50hz, so there one sets shutter at 1/50.

to understand the best how changing shutter speeds works, you need 2 locations (one under fluorescent lighting with a television, the other outside in decently bright conditions), a ball, and 30 minutes, and you will have a VERY comprehensive understanding of shutter speeds. i used to teach photography; this is how i taught people. Set your framerate to 30 for the moment, or 25 if you are PAL.

in the fluorescent lighted room with preferably a tv on, set your shutter speed to 1/30, hit record, and notice its pretty much OK, but blurry.
now set it to something like 1/40, 1/50, 1/90, etc. notice there are odd dark bands on the TV screen, and the image on the cameras LCD seems to flicker.
now set shutter speed to 1/60 (USA) or 1/50 (PAL); the flicker is gone, and the tv screen you are recording appears 'normal'. this is because the shutter speed of the camera and flicker rate of the tv and fluorescent lights is synchronized. generally speaking, you should STICK to the 1/60 (USA) or 1/50 (PAL) shutter speeds under fluorescents or when recording a television.

outside, set the camera down, set shutter speed to 1/30 and adjust everything else for decent exposure. prefocus 2-3 feet away at a spot that is easy for you to see. hit record, and take the ball and bounce it in the area you prefocused on so the ball will be in focus correctly. review the footage; its pretty blurry and soft. now try it at 1/60, 1/90, and so on. You can do the same test by walking in the area of focus, find the shutter speed that seems most 'natural' to you, but by all means play around with it.

hands on is the BEST way to learn.
 
jambredz said:
My 7d workflow usually is shooting at nuetral with sharpness, contrast and saturated all the way down (sometime saturation is 2 notches from the middle).
Click to expand...

This is out of topic here but:
Do you sharpen in post? And how much? Your clips appear to be quite sharp (not like the neutral setting). I also like the colors. Could you share your grading preferences?
Thanks.
 
kostas said:
This is out of topic here but:
Do you sharpen in post? And how much? Your clips appear to be quite sharp (not like the neutral setting). I also like the colors. Could you share your grading preferences?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

i do sharpen it a bit in post. i put it to about 15 (premiere cs4) so not 2 much. i guess this would defeat the purpose of lowering in cam sharpness but i like the option.
Regarding grading i'm truely a novice. i shoot flat and fiddle with 3 way colour corrector mostly...and alot of time i desaturate the image a bit. levels is also something i tend to tweek. but i really just play with it till i like the look. i'd really like to actually learn it properly but for now experimenting is what i do mostly.
 
jambredz said:
i do sharpen it a bit in post. i guess this would defeat the purpose of lowering in cam sharpness but i like the option.
Click to expand...
The point of lowering the in cam sharpness is to have greater dynamic range and better control in post (instead of adding sharpening artifacts in the raw image). So you've got it right.
 
Your (not ur). To (not 2).


jambredz said:
well since the shutter is opening and closing much more it will darken ur image (as you have noticed) cuz it cuts more light. Also because of this images, are capured at a more rapid rate and it will look strobelike or stuttery.This will improve apparent sharpness...but not real sharpness. High shutter speeds are sometimes used for fast action...and also for fight scenes like Borne Identity (all the Borne films) and Saving Private Ryan. This effect can be used to create a chaotic look without moving the camera 2 much especially if ur on the telephoto end. It however does not affect DOF in anyway.
Go out and do some testing. turn on ur sprinkler or hose and shoot at 50...then turn it up to 2000. you see the particles of water MUCH clearer. you will of course have to expose appropriately for the change in shutter.
heres some high shutter speed action on my dvx. http://vimeo.com/5705781
Click to expand...
 
lol. ok then. And i suppose its" laugh out loud" and not " lol"...chill out. Its the net.
 
Last edited:
Your image looks sharper probably because you had your f-stop stopped down more on the lens because of the high shutter speed.

It is taught in photo textbooks that most lenses are at their best stopped 2 stops from wide open, and not wide open. Now I know this is not a one size fits all statement. Some really high end lenses were made super sharp wide open but most DP's will tell you a few stops down gets a clean image.

So even though people who are new to DSLR's go crazy using a show DOF and shoot everything wide open, they are not getting the best out of their lens.

In addition to that you probably introduced more contrast because of this and it looked sharper.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top