framerate and shutter speed settings for DSLR video

[tabby weed]

Hey y'all, I'm a total beginner working on a skate edit, shooting on a Canon Rebel T2i. I've gleaned some stuff on youtube etc, but would be really curious to hear what kind of settings folks here are using for filming skate clips on DSLR cameras, especially re: shutter speed and framerate.

I know that for normal (non-skate) filming, the standard is to use a shutter speed that's twice your framerate, but that this usually isn't fast enough for skate filming.

I've also seen competing opinions about whether 30 or 60 fps is better. Are most HD, professional skate videos filmed in 60 fps?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[pointandclick]

doubling the shutter speed of your frame rate gives you a "cinematic" look, depending on what kind of light youre working with.

i work in wedding cinematography part time, if everything is too bright (hot) with a lower shutter speed, its better in that line of work to go to a higher f-stop, as opposed to shutter cranking. this is because we shoot 120 most of the time. there are options depending on the camera called "shutter angle" this will always do the work for you regarding the shutter speed: frame rate.

with skate stuff it depends how you want it to look, lots of room to experiment. but im not sure about when you said "but that this usually isn't fast enough for skate filming"

thats generally a photography thing where you are trying to capture a still with a faster shutter speed to avoid motion blur.

unless im reading it wrong. hope some of this helps?

[lydius]

most people capture/record in 60p, it's up to you whether to export in that framerate and get a very "video" look or to drop every other frame and smooth things out by exporting in 30p. you could in theory shoot 30p if there's not much panning or zooming going on, but in scenes with a lot of motion (data to capture), 60p is ideal.

as for shutter speed, I don't shoot anything less than 120 (1/60 has a lot of smear when panning, or in general when handheld and not on tripod), in fact 250 or 500 is more common for me.

for a DSLR you should have a bigger sensor and that usually relates to a shallower depth of field, so it's easier for you to get bokeh (sharply outlined subject against a nice fuzzy background), so use that to your advantage and shoot at low F-stop or completely open and max zoom if you're trying to get that look for like an establishing shot or b-roll. if you're trying to shoot fisheye or like track someone long-lens, i'd say go for a good middle-ground f-stop like 5.6. i try not to shoot at the highest shutter speeds like 1/1000 or with f-stop super high at like 9.6 or 11 (barely any light getting through). but then again I have ND filter to avoid doing that.

btw this is all based on my shooting with different Panasonic cams over the years, on an HVX now but this advice would be relevant for anyone with manual settings on their camera.

[Jordan Wiens]

this is an old video i filmed on the 60D (same sensor as t2i). i filmed it in 1080/30fps because the 720/60 on those cameras is such bad quality. if i knew i wanted something slowmo i would switch to that mode. I would shoot 1/250th or sometimes 1/500 during the day and 1/60 at night.

i believe the picture profile i was using was technicolor's cinestyle but it couldve been another flat profile, then graded in an early version of filmconvert. eazy handle v1 and half rode videomic pro, half just manual audio with the built in mic with bass added in post.

[tabby weed]

this is so helpful, y'all! thanks so much, everyone!

[nolliecrooked]

if you dont understand much here is it:

balance the triangle (shutter speed, iso, aperture)

shutter speed: as much as you can, the bigger the number the better

iso: try to use it as low as you can, the less iso less graining and more information

aperture: as high as possible but shoudnt be the priority (depends on the lens too)


extra tip: search for denoiser plugin to make the clips less graining if you have to use high iso sometimes, this will be better than lowering too much the shutter speed in most ocasions

another extra tip: if you understand the basics of post production, creating a custom picture style with less contrast, saturation, sharpness etc can lead the final image to have more information to work on, so its a must thing to do, if you dont understand what I'm talking about set it on "neutral"

[Bongwater Mojito]

another extra tip: if you understand the basics of post production, creating a custom picture style with less contrast, saturation, sharpness etc can lead the final image to have more information to work on, so its a must thing to do, if you dont understand what I'm talking about set it on "neutral"

Thanks for the summary, I think I've got the shutter/ISO/aperture in check, but the potential benefit flat/log color profile is bit unclear to me. I read from camera / video forum posts that low bitrate can ruin the goodness. As a Nikon D500 owner I seem to have mediocre bitrates available for everything else than 4k@30fps (144Mbps, then 1080 is 48Mbps or even 24Mbps at 30fps). Can you help me understand the order of magnitude here between color profile, bitrates, frame rate and resolution?

[KDP]

if you dont understand much here is it:

balance the triangle (shutter speed, iso, aperture)

shutter speed: as much as you can, the bigger the number the better

iso: try to use it as low as you can, the less iso less graining and more information

aperture: as high as possible but shoudnt be the priority (depends on the lens too)

Man, this is such bad advice. Sorry.

Shutter Speed: You want minimum double your RECORDED framerate. For fast moving stuff like skating, aim for quadruple framerate or a bit higher. If not, slomo will look awful.
Don't go too high or you'll get a stuttering effect.
Find a shutter speed and try to stick to it whether light or dark so a whole project is shot the same. That might mean you need to invest in lights or ND filters, but anything more than a suble change of shutter speed will make things look really different from clip to clip.


ISO: The ISO should be set to whatever the native ISO is on the camera. You can look that up online super easy.
If your native ISO is 1600, then 1600 ISO will have a cleaner picture than 200 ISO.
Dial it up or down from there as you need to, to correctly expose to the desired shutter and aperture settings.
Bear in mind that the more you move away from the Native ISO, the noisier it'll get. This is moreso if you are going higher.
Within reason, the ISO/Gain setting is the one thing you can fuck with which makes the least difference to the final picture and the most fixable of the three in edit if there are problems.

Aperture: Keep your fisheye f5.6 and above. Beyond that, it doesn't matter too much as fisheyes have barely any depth of field.Just bear in mind that if you go too high, every bit of dust on your lens will be visible whereas more open, you can get away with it a bit.
For long, I'd aim for f5.6-F11. Focus to the furthest point your skater is at and check that focus at the point of the trick and the ride out.
The exception in that bit is if the skater is skating directly towards you. At that point, you might need to go higher as it'll need to focus over a huge distance.