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A77 for video sports?

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stproducer

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I've been using my A77 to shoot video of sporting events with only mixed results.

Sample: http://vimeo.com/channels/stproducer

Does anyone have a preferred set-up?

I generally shoot 1080i and fully auto with the shutter riding at anything from 1/60 to 1/400. I used to shoot fully annual with the shutter locked in at 1/125, but because you can't use the auto focus in manual I switched back to full auto.
 
Why only shoot 1080i? Why not shoot 60p? You can derive almost anything from 1080p60, even 1080i if you need it. That way you always have 60 progressive frames to start with, especially for sports.
 
For sports shoot at 60p. If your shooting outside in bright sun use a variable ND filter to get the shutter speed down to 120 or so (double the fps). Then use the exposure lock. Having your shutter speed jump all ove is amateur and looks bad. And fast shutter speeds like that make the action very shizophrenic looking. It has it place but it should be intentional.

Or you could shoot manual. I hate shooting manual.
 
Dustinash said:
For sports shoot at 60p. If your shooting outside in bright sun use a variable ND filter to get the shutter speed down to 120 or so (double the fps). Then use the exposure lock. Having your shutter speed jump all ove is amateur and looks bad. And fast shutter speeds like that make the action very shizophrenic looking. It has it place but it should be intentional.
Click to expand...
Are there any disadvantages to shooting 60p.
--
Tom

Look at the picture, not the pixels

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63683676@N07/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25301400@N00/
 
You might need a more modern pc to playback and especially edit it.
 
Do not interlace your video! It causes strange artifacts/jitter. Especially for fast sports. Interlacing only saves ever second scanline down the sensor each 60th of a second, and alternates between the two "halves" of the sensor by alternating scanlines each pass. Progressive stores each line 60 times a second. Plus you can slow down to 24p and get great cinematic slow mo at less than half speed, without interpolating pixels!
 
Thanks very much to all! 60p it is! Will re-test tonight.

I'll have to crunch it down to something I can edit with- will experiment with 60i or 30p and see what looks best- but good a dice to have the original at 60p.

Just a workflow note- if you're on a mac- option copy the raw folder per to your hard drive if you shoot in full 60p- that way you'll still have the original media plus all the wrappings when computers catch up to full 60p.

hold down option key, drag the disk image to your desktop- and it'll be re-born as a folder.
 
stproducer said:
I've been using my A77 to shoot video of sporting events with only mixed results.
Click to expand...
What "mixed results"? What is it you don't like?

The thing that could be improved to me is shutter speed too fast, "freezing" motion at times. Ideally it should be set manually to 1/60th, but then you'd lose autofocus.
Then again, MF for such shots would be no problem with peaking.

One thing to try, once you shoot 60p, is add a motion blur filter in your editing software.

As there will be 60 frames to make an output at 30, a motion blur between those consecutive frames could be kind of a decent fix.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kilrah/
http://www.youtube.com/user/kilrahvp
 
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