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Fast motion shooting with The Varicam
Hi,
I’ve a lot of experience with the Sony HDCam Cameras but almost none with the Varicam. I’ve been asked by a client to shoot a large Military Airshow with Varicams, it’s in the UK so I’d have to shoot PAL framerates. Am I correct in thinking I would get into trouble with judder on my fast pan speeds with fast moving (up to 500 m.p.h) aircraft? I’m thinking particularly where we would have a camera on a high crane where there would be a lot of background in the aircrafts as they fly their low passes.
As I understand it (and I’m still struggling with it!) The Varicam will effectively shoot 24 or 25P at “normal” speed any other frame rate is overcranking or undercranking.
I’m keen to try the camera as I love the pictures I’ve seen from it.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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4 Replies
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Steve;
It depends what your client wants in terms of a final deliverable, but if it’s for “Television” and if for Europe, why not shoot at 720p 50, this will provide you with a high frame rate to which you can easily produce “real-time” PAL deliverables. In this case one 720p frame is downconverted to one PAL field, 50 = 50.
VariCam can be used for under / overcranking, i.e. if you have a native 24fps timeline you shoot 12 for speedup and 48 for slowdown, but you also have the choice of shooting 60fps for a realtime NTSC look, or 720p 50 for a realtime PAL look.
Hope it helps,
Steve Mahrer (Panasonic Broadcast)
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That’s some key information for me Steve. I had spoke to one of the guys at Bracknell in the UK about this but I don’t think I understood him fully. If I can shoot at 50fps and maintain that frame rate for output then that’s all I need. Plus the fact I could get some great slowmos If I need as well.
Thanks
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However,
we edit on Final Cut and I note there is no codec for 720 25P or 50P (Thanks Apple!) Is there a workflow for capturing these framerates using HDSDI capture through the BMD or Kona cards?
Thanks
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Steve,
Shoot with confidence on the Varicam with your BMD Card for post. The easy setups work well. We shoot at 60fps and it looks great. down/up converts are software based.
Also, we discovered that the 1200A VTR when set up for downconvert gives out a 50i 576 signal on the SDI spigot from material shot at 60fps with original sound. So you get two bites of the cherry. Shoot for slo mo and use the same footage for normal speed as well if you have a standard def outcome.
Best
Tim Maloney
Axis Films Australia
http://www.axisfilms.com.au
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