Have you experienced frustration when using your camera to shoot video? Confused about T-stops, ND filters and the right shutter speed to use? This week, Chris and Jordan take a break from gear reviews to discuss the things you should know to get proper exposure when shooting video. Get some practical tips and learn about Chris and Jordan's exposure square... or is that an exposure trapezoid? Tune in to find out.
Really great basic video. Thank you. Also, I always wonder about white balance in a video. We put in a few seconds in a photo raw, but it seems like a lot of effort on a video. Would be great if you make a video on that. Thanks
So, I just demonstrated to myself that I don't learn well from videos. I watched that whole thing and I still don't know what the fourth corner of the trapezoid is.
Ok all I can say is shame on you, if you can make video look good on a Sigma 18-35 f1.8. Since sooo many including myself have made excellent video with it, its kind of the indy film must have, I have to say "what the hey ...". Sorry guys, need a reboot.
Want to get correct exposure on your video? Look at pictures of famous cinematographers and you'll find that most of them are wearing light meters either in pouches on their belts or in lanyards around their necks.
i would like to see how you go about a wildlife video what rules apply how you would work with long telephotos and capturing motion etc also what scenarios do you break the 180 deg rule.
I have similar thoughts. I don't think I have ever videoed following that basic rule of thumb. I don't want motion blur, I can't use it. I capture high speed action, much faster shutter speed is necessary.
You control your scene by diffusing the light to lower the contrast. Use lights to make the dark parts lighter and diffusion such as white ripstop nylon to take away some of the brightness from the hottest part of the scene.
Newbie question here from a stills photographer .... doesn't using such slow shutter speeds for video cause "camera shake"? How slow do video shutter speeds have to get before the equivalent issue of camera shake comes into play?
This was a hard one for me to grasp too. The shutter speed at normal frame rates doesn't make a difference on camera shake because the film goes by too fast for your eyes to register the individual frame.
What your eye DOES notice is the horizon and objects in the frame jumping around as the camera shakes. That's why movie people spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on tripods, dollies, and stabilizers. They need to be in total control of any camera movement so they can add or subtract it as they choose. This is just my experience, but when shooting in very, very low light, I have brought my shutter speed down to 1/24th of a second and its barely noticeable except that it gives footage a slight dreaminess which is actually kind of cool.
A very good intro to video technique. Very suitable for a DPR audience consisting of many who are still shooters who, although they pretend to care nothing for video, in truth would like to try (unless they are near-dead!). Dr. Seuss's "Sam" eventually learned to like green eggs and ham!
I simply hope the future installments focus on method, rather than gear. Most video, shot on any camera, is unwatchable by anyone (even Mom), due to naïve or faulty technique. Color grading is scarcely relevant to an audience that, for the most part, may not even edit. The basics of good audio capture (>50% of impact) are another worthy topic.
Hey both, Thanks a lot for your great explanations, I'm completely new to video and rarely use it as a still photographer, but am very interested in what to consider when shooting videos. So thanks a lot for your great video's. Enjoy it a lot. Keep on going :-)
I was thinking parallelogram... but a quadrilateral would also work. Maybe a 4-sides polygon - you could a make a triangular-ish shaped object that way.
Fabulous video! THANK YOU for having a great sense of humor in all of this potentially overly technical topic. It helps one digest the jargon and conceptual thinking needed in using optics to generate content. You guys get it. DPreview rocks, and is my first go to reference for all my clients and students. Amen. ~Tom Upton, PhotoTrainer/Palo Alto
As for the 1/2 'rule', I read somewhere that it should also work with 'multiples', that is, 1/4. For example. Shooting 30fps, you could shoot at 1/60 OR 1/120 of a sec (with the benefit in this last one of having more focus in the footage). Does it make sense?
My understanding is that Yes, you are basically right. However as the shutter speeds go higher and higher, the strobe effect will catch on. If I am doing 1080/24 and shooting indoors with my m4/3 camera, I will video at 1/25 sec to minimize the ISO to reduce noise. Shooting at 1/100 (2x the ideal shutter) makes it easier to do slow mo. Going any higher the strobe effect will creep in.
Really good. Really helpful for someone just getting started.
I've been asked to shoot video of some live events. I would love to see a video on so-called "run-and-gun" shooting techniques that are useful when you have to cover an event as it unfolds, and you can't do "set" shots (ie, "we'll put the camera here on a tripod, and you'll stand there . . . " etc.)
In my early experimentation, I've found that the optical image stabilization and the high equivalent f-stop provided by a small sensor camera tend to make the footage look less "at sea"j and more in-focus. What you lose, in general, is the ability to separate the subject from the background with depth of field. Does that make sense to you?
Finally, a general comment: I find your videos to be useful, informative, and entertaining (after all, the mind can absorb only what the seat can endure). Keep up the good work!
I'm not really into youtube subscribing and all that but I did want to post here to say what a great job you guys are doing and I particularly liked this one when you discuss how depth of field can be a double edged sword in video. The discussion of polarization in video was also good info for me.
Makes me frustrated we lost the built-in ND filter in the RX10m2 from the M3 and M4.
Maybe discuss more about depth of field in video? I feel like a lot of film guys who shoot video fall into this trap. There was a time when you would avoid low ISO film (physical film) so you could get away with shooting at slower f-stops and preserve some depth. I feel like video brings back a lot of that lost knowledge on valuing depth of field.
Quick note... I think the post title is somewhat misleading. The video doesn't teach you how to get correct exposure... just the different factors that go into exposure for video.
It's telling us what the parameters are... not how to use them :) This helps us understand and control exposure, not how to get the "correct" exposure. It's a subtle yet important distinction.
Video generally has much more limited exposure latitude than still imagery. It's crucial to get the "right" exposure for your needs. I'd love to see these guys do a video for optimizing camera exposure for video in some common scenes (with and without histograms, light meters, rules of thumb, etc.).
OK, well, that's great for you... but all the same, there's room for another video with the same title as this post and completely different content that I think would be useful for a stills-centric audience such as this 👍
I understand the shutter speed should nominally be 1/2 the frame rate and things get really weird with high shutter speeds. My question is, if the shutter speed approaches the frame rate, (e.g. ~1/30 ss at ~30fps), how problematic is that really?
A lower shutter speed, will increase the motion blur, so if you are shooting an action scene at night and you low your shutter speed let said 15/s you will see a lot of blur and very few things in focus. I though, sometimes when shooting an interview (impromptus style) where light is not available or enough, and your camera is in a tripod and the person does not moves much. You can pretty much increase your illumination by adjusting the shutter speed at 30 or even 15th/s without cranking the gain or iso to high. Some video cameras has a very noise gain and this is a cool technique to avoid the noise.
My camera is ALWAYS set to 1/24s shutter (24p at 360° shutter) which gives me a whole stop of light over 1/50s on the noisy Canon DSLRs.
My clients never comment on bad motion, but they do comment on noise when it comes up. So yes shooting with slower shutter speed than 2xFR is a no brainer for any slow moving shots and a viable alternative to 2XFR rule if one actually prefers more fluidity in their footage.
(Btw your shutter speed cannot physically go lower than 1/framerate, so 1/15s is not an option unless doing 2x timelapse or something)
My camera is ALWAYS set to 1/24s shutter (24p at 360° shutter) which gives me a whole stop of light over 1/50s on the noisy Canon DSLRs.
My clients never comment on bad motion, but they do comment on noise when it comes up. So yes shooting with slower shutter speed than 2xFR is a no brainer for any slow moving shots and a viable alternative to 2XFR rule if one actually prefers more fluidity in their footage.
(Btw your shutter speed cannot physically go lower than 1/framerate, so 1/15s is not an option unless doing 2x timelapse or something)
My rule of thumb is 1/48th sec for 24p and 1/60th sec for 30p and 60p. The 180 deg shutter rule only really applies to 24p, 25p and 30p imho. 50p/60p with 120th sec starts to look at bit staccato for my tastes. So I really never go above 1/60th unless shooting higher frame rates for slow motion.
So to answer your question, SS equal to or double work fine depending upon the situation.
I'd love to see some info on software, particularly in the free/low/mid-range. I get that Premiere and Final Cut Pro are the end games. But I also understand that if someone wants to take better snapshots on their upcoming vacation, I don't tell them that they'll need to go learn Photoshop.
DaVinci Resolve is free for non-professional use. You loose speed on the free version, which you gain on the paid version and only need if you are pro. Most hobbyists are happy with free and to wait a little longer for CPU crunching
Great video but what I never understand is why you are filming with 24fps for YouTube? In my opinion it makes no sense because nobody on earth is looking YouTube with 24 fps. They all have monitors with 60fps. Because that you should film with 30 or 60 fps for the best viewing expirience. Best regards, Alex
It has nothing to do with how many fps the monitor can show, but the effect you are going for. Cinema film is usually 24/25, so that gives the best cinematic apporach. A 120fps movie looks weird.
I do get what you're saying. 24p is used to mimic films. Youtube videos are not films (Vlogs/etc). So why try to mimic them in motion? 60p looks crisp and realistic.
Anyway it's just an aesthetic choice now about how your motion will look like. If you want your Vlog to have flmic motion blur, so be it, and if you want your film to have realistic 60p look, also so be it...
I agree to all of you and I like the 24-look too. But the point is when there is a 24 content it's a must to look it with 24fps otherwise you will have drop frames. Maybe my standard is different in this case but for me it's a nogo.
You're not going to have drop frames because of your monitor. It doesn't work that way. It's similiar to exporting multiple framerates in a 29.97i container where pulldowns are created. The point of a 60fps monitor is to handle a wide range of framerates. Ideally all monitors would be 120fps according to a lecture I attended at NAB last year.
@ its_a_knife, you are right, drop frame was not the right word and 120fps would match at least for 24, 30 & 60fps. But also pulldowns doesn't work smooth. I mean if you have a real movie and you can't switch your system to native 24fps pulldown is a way. But when you know that nearly 100% of your viewers can watch only with native 60fps than it makes no sense to film with 24fps. 30fps will be a good choice because it looks similar as 24fps but won't stutter.
@Schwermetail What do you mean by stutter? I mean screen tearing can occur but there's many ways around that. I don't see why a monitor would show drop frames. I don't think that's been heard of. If that's occuring you might have an issue with your GPU.
90% of youtube is watched on smart-phones/tablets/laptops - they have fixed 60Hz displays, pro desktop monitors can handle variable frame rates - then the 24fps display judder problem is not an issue.
LCDS to my understanding are progressive displays where the pixels never turn off. They do not act like the television sets of old where pulldown was invented to deal with an interlaced environment. Yes, there is probably some coordination between the graphics card and display when 24fps is shown, but there is no flicker at least on the computer LCDs I see.
24fps is good for internet use due to the lower transmission data rate. The higher the frame rate the more easily it can be sent and played back on varying levels of devices. 60p needs more resources to play back.
Remember, frame rates are an aesthetic choice and sometimes a technical choice as mentioned above.
LCD's illuminated by LED's generally do not cause perceptual flicker. LCD's illuminated by florescent do flicker (most laptops/LCD TVs 8+ years ago). LCD which are OLED do flicker at lower ~50Hz refresh rates (XT1, GFX50S EVF).
Flicker of LCD illumination source has nothing to do with judder caused by pulldown.
LCDs have a refresh rate, the information they display is updated in a sudden change at the the frequency of the display's Hz. Updating can occur mid-cycle within each refresh phase - this is seen as tearing, where the output refresh cycle isn't locked to the input cycle of the GPU.
Tearing is not pulldown judder.
Pulldown judder is caused by the tripling of frames at occasional intervals between frame doubling as I described above.
Even though DPR isn't a video site, it seems they need write an article defining all this. Not my job to, though I've done my best here.
So many experts on frame rates and monitors here, not an expert but i think if there's any flicker or dropped frames is not perceptible, my other question is because of all you guys explanations should we film music videos entirely in 60 fps? ;D ;D all music videos are shot are 24 fps and b-roll at higher frames, so that's even more confusing hahah
Frame rates in general are confusing for non-video pros. It took me a while to get them all straight. Also, each frame rate has a style of shooting or camera movement associated with it. Meaning you do not move the camera in 24p as you can in 60p etc...
@ LKFX_House sound sampling frequency is recorded independent of video frame rate/frequency - they are completely independent, hahaha. Completely independent.
Music videos are the same as any other videos, match the fps to your intended delivery. Europe TV broadcast 25fps, US TV broadcast 29.97fps, Web (portable device inc laptops) 30fps, Cinema 24/48fps.
If you don't judder ensues, as yes we can see it - you don't need to be an 'expert'.
If you are in the UK just see those horrid juddering adverts made in the US that haven't been time-scaled with motion-flow, just crude pulldown. Juddering like hell.
left eye nobody is speaking about sound here, i have directed and edited various music videos, by the way i'm a music producer too, so don't need the tutorial, and i understand how to use frame rates, it's just that everyone is talking here like 24 fps shouldn't be used in youtube
Great tutorial guys.... so, shooting low shutter "feathered edge frames" for great natural motion is perfect old school. What are we going to do when we want to grab usable still frames from 8k video ? Is there something in the pipeline that will allow creation of a compromise when still cameras fall into history ?
There's no solution really. If you're shooting smooth video, all your extracted photography must require a shutter speed of no longer or shorter than 1/24-1/50s shutter speed. And I do believe 1/48 is a healthy shutter speed, I always get sharp frames of practically any thing as long as I am not shooting sports or so.
No it's not a fixed rule in anything but 24p/48s filmic motion,
With slowmotion, you're shooting at 120p for a start, which means that lowest shutter speed you have is 1/120s (360°), and that's pretty fast and sharp.
So make the choice based on how the elements move in terms of speed. If they need more than 1/120s shutter speed to freeze, then go for the number that will work for them. 1/150s, 1/250s, 1/2000s etc. Take a picture if in doubt.
I found that your slow motion looks always looks better wirh highest shutter speed
How about filming at night ? do the same rules apply for,say, city lights ? Is there a max ISO you would recommend for modern sensors at night (I have an Fuji XT2) ?
It's all the same but of course you will not need those NDs.
One trick to get more light is use 360° shutter instead of 180°, (1/24s VS 1/48s) which gives a whole stop of light and still keeps and fluid motion.
Another trick is just purchasing Neat Video 4.0. I can shoot clean 12.800 ISO on my 7-8 year-old Canon rebel due to the AMAZING noise reduction it does.
If you're not going to be using noise reduction software and want clean video, I would never go beyond 1600 ISO, and 3200 for emergencies.
Great introduction video to video. Keep these coming I think they will help out a lot of people.
Now my take on exposure. In video and still you still only have two variables for exposure. That is aperture and shutter speed, which you seem to be fixing the latter to a constant (twice the frame rate). Sensitivity is not really part of exposure, but will effect the final image. You are manipulating sensitivity with Gain=ISO and ND filters. So you still only have two exposure parameters. Sensitivity is incorrectly grouped in there, but will affect final image, so I see why people do it. Sensitivity can be manipulated by may things.
We had a discussion about this while preparing the video. Strictly speaking, we agree, you're correct. Only shutter speed and aperture affect the initially captured data. A fuller picture would be that there are three variables: shutter speed, aperture and luminance level of the scene (which you can modify with NDs or adding lights).
However, since this video is explicitly about compressed video, unlike Raw stills shooting, it's very important that you get the ISO/Gain/Brightening right, in order to get usable footage, so we felt it was important to include it.
Still photography has 2 dimensions. Add an extra dimension of time and you get video photography.
The still photography exposure triangle has 2 dimensions. Add an extra dimension and you get a tetrahedron, which has 4 points equally distributed in 3D space.
Therefore the video exposure shape is tetrahedral, not square, rhomboid, diamond or any other 2D shape.
The truth is I never used my camera's very good video capabilities (Use to have 5D II and now have Sony a9). Your very funny and entertaining video, aiming at photographers like me, convinced me to give it a shoot :)
I use a 180degree shutter on my GH5 for natural motion blur and often let Aperture float (rather than let ISO float) to ensure proper exposure. The problem is that when I pan around outdoors, the aperture changes are rather abrupt in terms of how the light level suddenly changes, much more so than if I fixed aperture and allowed shutter speed to float. So I find myself spending more time in post trying to make those aperture/light changes look smoother. Locking aperture and going full manual isn’t really a solution because highlights will blow out or dark areas will become too dark while panning outdoors. Ideas?
I found it interesting to hear about Jordan's theory of doubling fps as a method of choosing shutter speed.
I have always heard of trying to maintain at a higher rate, like 1/160th for 24fps. And I kind of wish that there was room to talk more about competing theories and why he thinks people might choose them. For instance, it could be that 1/50th ends up giving realistic motion but 1/160 is a sweet spot compromise for crisp edges and decent motion; at least that way, people would have an idea about why someone would choose something else.
It's probably a square, because on the photographer's triangle the variables can change but the shape is always the same.
1/160th will give you very stuttery footage ate 24P. Even at 1/80th, things start to look pretty weird. Following the 'double your framerate' or 180 Degree rule is the best way to guarantee natural looking video.
I guess that for me, I'm interested in knowing about these "rules" so that I can break them. For photography, I rail against people for being clones of every photographer by using bokeh in every portrait or wide-angle for every landscape. I was hoping that shutter speed (something entirely controllable) would be more than just a variable that the camera should automatically manage for you (i.e. if I'm shooting 24fps then the camera should automatically go to 1/50th, if I'm going to *ALWAYS* set it there anyway).
So it's sad to hear that it isn't artistic, it's just a variable from photography that will get in your way, shoot after shoot; but it won't go there on its own????
And I suppose that many cameras have memory settings and I could set it there too. Or I could use auto, and maybe the camera will finally manage the shutter speed to natural feel, like an auto-white balance.
But why not just a setting, so I don't have to always remember or have bad footage?
I would generally agree with the rule of shutter speed being twice that of frame rate. I have found exceptions, such as shooting fountains of lava at higher frame rates to sharpen detail and reduce blur. My personal taste for some documentary types of shooting vs achieving a so-called cinematic look.
Nice video, I would love to see what style or settings you should use when using a canon DSLR for shooting video of something fast moving like RC cars or dogs running and so forth. THANKS
Hi I use the canon sl2 and the 55-250 stm lens here is a video from it. I thought if you set the shutter speed to high you get a jitter effect? also what focus type would be best to use for this? here take a look at my video this is how I am trying to record video and want to make it the best I can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXNG4sylCZU
Your video is great!! Sharp frames (high shutter speed), stabilized lens, focus is not an issue (I focus manually only),
Your shooting is great, just improve the content. I would cut the video to be much much shorter than it is. Repeatition is the one single mistake filmmakers fall into.
Hi thanks, thing is on youtube they like and support guy's with longer videos more from their system how it works. I used auto ISO , auto focus tried both types the full screen face type and the large center covered area type. I also did shoot at 60P 120 shutter settings. It's way to hard to focus on a irattic moving fast object... don't know what could make it better. Thanks
There are no in-camera settings that could make it better. It's the shooter and the editor now that will make it better. Like ability to keep steady focusing, ability to shoot with a stable hand, colouring the footage well, etc.
Hi above you said try a faster shutter speed but wont this make the video look choppy? also do you use the IS stabilization when shooting fast action video like in the video above or will it look better when not used? Thanks
It is shallow of me to comment on 'deepers', but don't like it much. You gonna call them 'tubers' if they find your content via YouTube. We don't need lame nickname. Enough about us. Keep the content about the cool stuff.
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