Chris Johnston
Veteran
I just seem to notice a lot of people here shoot a lot of 720p60 vs 1080 with their dslrs. If not slowmo stuff is there an advantage to shooting 720? (resolution?)
Why 720 vs 1080
- Thread starter Chris Johnston
- Start date
ethan cooper
Well-known member
Other than using it for slowmo, some people just like the 60p look. I don't really care for it myself.
Chris Johnston
Veteran
What's the recording time for 720? I seem to recall them both (720p60 , and 1080)being just a shade over 12 min.
handsome pete
Well-known member
You're correct. There is no difference in time limit between 1080 and 720 on the Canons.
Besides planning to use it for slo-mo in post, I don't see any advantage to shooting 720p.
TooTallTim
Well-known member
Except it doesnt, they both have the same recording times.
Recording 720 all depends on your output, if you need slow mo then you'll shoot as fast as you can in 720. You could shoot to try and match to other 720 footage but I'd always rather shoot 1080 and scale down while transcoding.
I guess the 30 minutes I was thinking is for 640x480 SD resolution. 
Mr. Kubrick
Member
In my experience, 720p footage takes more space and are bigger files than a same clip of the same duration of 1080, that because a 720p file uses more of the double of frames per second than a 1080p24 file.
Is there a reason why you shouldnt shoot @ 1080, 60 for slo mo? I try to shoot @ 1080 all the time as i'd rather have more visible data just in case.. as well, if its noisy, resizing to 720 from 1080 compresses the pixels and should kill some of the noise.. similar to looking @ it on LCD and it looks great until you import it.
handsome pete
Well-known member
Well the only reason I can think of is that there isn't a 1080p, 60fps mode.
I do it all the time.. you're right there isnt a mode for it, but just set it to 24/30 so you can drop that low, then bump up your shutter speed prior to recording to 60 or even 125(since it doesnt do 120).. Just make sure your lighting is right..
someone correct me if i'm off base..
That number your changing is the shutter speed, not the frames per second. They are completely different. Your FPS would be 24 or 30 depending on what you set.
Michael Carter
Veteran
There's something off about the 720 compression in the 550d as well - try pulling a key with the same shot in 1080 and 720 - lots of oddball blockiness really jumps out, especially with tungsten lights.
Most of the work I've done with the Canons I've shot at 1080, but transcoded down to 720 before editing; seems to all go a lot faster, especially in AE. And it's really a great way to kill the moire and reduce noise without softening up your image. Really pretty footage when rezzed down. The few times I've had things broadcast, the tech people receiving the files have told me they're just fine with 720 files (I had no idea my client was going to do a cable buy or I would have edited at 1080).
I do keep a lot of shots in 1080 if I'm doing any serious masking, keying, etc, or to re-frame things at 720.
Most of the work I've done with the Canons I've shot at 1080, but transcoded down to 720 before editing; seems to all go a lot faster, especially in AE. And it's really a great way to kill the moire and reduce noise without softening up your image. Really pretty footage when rezzed down. The few times I've had things broadcast, the tech people receiving the files have told me they're just fine with 720 files (I had no idea my client was going to do a cable buy or I would have edited at 1080).
I do keep a lot of shots in 1080 if I'm doing any serious masking, keying, etc, or to re-frame things at 720.
Snapper123
Well-known member
One thing I've noticed, is that the 640P crop mode seems to have aliasing issues as well. I was shooting this red tin roof from a oblique angle, and it turned out weird as crap. Not as severe as the normal video mode, it also didn't have color moire, but it showed weird steps in the texture, it even showed this on the Liveview screen when I shot it, so I was eager to get home and see what was wrong, and sure enough, it was on the video as well.
Michael Carter
Veteran
I've never used that mode - the issue with 720 is (my guess anyway) that the high frame rate sort of trumps frame size as far as what needs to be compressed. Is the 640 size at 60p as well?
That would be because there is even more line skipping than 720p, and that is what is causing the aliasing / moiré.
I love shooting 720/50p on the HMCs (for slo-mo) but on the 7D it's a problem outdoors because of brick walls and roof tiles etc. Even indoors patterns on clothing can become a real problem, so I tend to stick to 1080p. Even that has problems, but not as obvious as 720p.