when to use 1080 mode on GH1?

N

Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
Can anyone advise me please when is it best to use 1080/24p mode with the GH1?

It seems most people are shooting in 720/60p mode. That would make sense when shooting fast action.

But when is tit better to shoot in 1080/24p mode?

Thanks in advance for your advice,

- Nick
 
A couple things to consider. First, what is your final output going to be? Are you producing for web, dvd, bluray (or avchd dvd), large screen projection, etc. Granted 720 will work for all of these scenarios, 1080 will give you more detail to work with.

More importantly - Think about what you are shooting. Fast action sports with camera panning or a static shot of turtles mating on a log. Higher frame rates (ie 60p) will be better for any major movement of subject or of camera. If your subject is moving slowly and the camera is still or slowly panning, then 24p will be fine and you can utilize the extra res of 1080. When I shot HDV, I always worked with 1080 sequences in Adobe Premiere and outputted to 1080, now with avchd, I find myself being more than satisfied with outputting to 720 - even when outputting to an HD - capable projector. The nice thing about shooting with 1080 when you are outputting to 720, is that you can crop the image in post without loosing any res (while you can of course reduce the 1080 frame to 720 if you dont want to crop at all).

In a test video I just posted at: http://www.vimeo.com/6699515 I shot most of the nature (and animal) scenes at 1080 24p, and all of biking scenes at 720 60p. I had shot some of the bike scenes at 1080 (didnt use any in the edit) and was not as happy about the way the motion looked. Another note, when shooting in 720 60p (or 50p) make sure your shutter is at least equal to the frame rate (if you have enough light) to keep the frames as sharp as possible (most important when slowing down the footage). Sometimes too high of a shutter can give fast motion a little bit of a stutter - though I suggest experimenting as much as possible with a variety of subjects and locations.

Hope this helps a bit - perhaps others have varying ideas and experiences to add. Good luck and happy shooting!
 
Dear Sam,

Thank you very much for your help. I really appreciate that you took the time to write all these helpful tips. I looked at your clip. Excellent footage. I'll follow your advice and shoot 1080 essentially for interviews, but shoot action at 720p. Thanks again.
 
You're welcome Nicholas - glad I could help. Thanks for the feedback, as well. As I said earlier, experiment as much as you can. When I first got into filmmaking, I was shooting 16mm film where each roll was just over 2 minutes and cost about $25 for black and white stock and about another $25 to develop it. And yet, in school we were advised to experiment as much as possible. Now with digital, you just use your card, copy the files you like to hard drive, and shoot more- no pricey film stock to worry about - so best advice I can give is just shoot shoot shoot!
 
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