• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Advice on working with high shutter speeds

  Posted by Neil Weaver on April 2, 2009 at 2:44 pm

  Hi all,
  I’m looking to do some super slo-mo work with my Canon A1 and I’d be interested to hear what challenges and issues others have encountered when working with high shutter speeds – particularly in the edit.

  I’ll be shooting at HDV 1080i50, and editing using this set-up in FCP. However, if my shutter speed is up there at 1/250 or more is there anything I’ll need to change in the edit?

  Also came across a very interesting artifact when doing some speed ramped stuff in FCP. As people zipped about across the screen, they looked transparent which was not in itself a problem as the effect looks quite cool, although ideally everything that moved should have been ‘solid’. Anyhoo, the footage was the basis for a graphic and when I exported the finished version from After Effects, AE had ‘corrected’ the transparency of the figures and they came out looking solid! Not sure how or why, but could be of use to anyone who encounters something similar.

  Thanks in advance!

  Neil

  David Bogie replied 17 years, 1 month ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  David Bogie

  April 2, 2009 at 4:31 pm

  You simply cannot do “super slow motion” with conventional video formats. You must have more than 50-60 discreet slices of time, sya, at least 90, but 10,000 frames per second is nice to have. Fast shutter speeds do not do that, they only create crisper images, provided you have the light.

  bogiesan
• 

  Shane Ross

  April 2, 2009 at 5:00 pm

  Correct. That camera shoots 30fps…period. DVCPRO HD 720p is 60fps, so slowing that down to 30fps or 24fps looks good. But yeah, if you want smooth slow motion, you need a camera that shoots 60-200fps. Or the Phantom that shoots 20,000fps!

  Love that camera.

  Shane

  

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• 

  Neil Weaver

  April 3, 2009 at 10:49 am

  Probably a bit out of my budget though!
  Thanks all.
• 

  David Bogie

  April 3, 2009 at 2:27 pm

  Phantom camera systems can be rented.
  There are dozens of video cameras that will shoot far more than 100fps, just takes a bit of research. Most are not designed for photography but for scientific or mechanical analysis systems. So you have to consider how the obviously different image will fit into the rest of your production. However, the results for super slow motion will be luscious. Even high end pixel-vector recreation software like Twixtor looks like a hack compared to the real thing.

  bogiesan

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