What setting to shoot a marathon race ?

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I’ll start with the second question:
Progressive for sure- even if you shoot 50i you will need to deinterlace for any roto work, so you might as well get the progressive frames from the start.
I do not personally like to use any camera sharpness/filters- just straight capture, no bells and whistles.
So I guess for the first question the answer is shoot progressive.
In case you want some more camera advice there’s a pretty big forum:
https://www.hv20.com/

[Alperen T. ayhan]

that’s just in my opinion;

1-) Shutter speed should be 60 or 100 (also you may choose 50 too..)
2-) It’s up to result which you want.. So will it be a commercial or like home movies? Because AE can fix both and give best result.. It has wide range ability of compositing. I think you should shoot with sharp settings, progressive or 50i it doesn’t matter. You can add motion blur and make color corrections etc. while postproducing… Just be sure you catch the right pictures clearly 🙂

Alperen T. AYHAN
http://www.sinamasal.com
Always cinema…

[Jacques Davis]

Think of my work as a picture:

I will shoot one hour of marathon without moving my camera.
outside the studder problem my movie will be clean, no black crush, no
overexposed white. That I know how to do.

Then I will grade my movie; plain color, no fancy stuff

no editing.

Then the movie will play , endlessly, from a mediaplayer ( 1080p HDMI )
on a 23″ lcd screen ( samsung f2380 to be precise).

that’s all !

I just want a clean picture.

[Joe Moya]

A few things you need to adjust for when shooting…

… first it is not the movement of the runners that will most likely give you problems…

However, you will have to contend with sun light and direction of sun light issues. Most races start early in the morning and you might have direct sunlight to deal with.

Secondly, shadows caused by caps worn by most runners …REALLY… messes with how much light you need in order to effectively show the faces (assuming that is a priority).

Placement of the camera relative to the runners and the sun is crucial to make the shot work. And… one of the problems is that sun light intensity and direction changes the most in the early hours of the day (i.e., sunrise). So… camera settings that might work for the first 20-30 mins. will not likely work in the next 20-30 mins. of shooting time.

Side note: Using various Neutral Density Filters will help A Lot in dealing with lighting and ISO setting issues. I would suggest you take at least one ND filter and it would also be best to learn how use the ND filter and bright light before you shoot the marathon (assuming you haven’t used a ND filter before).

[Jacques Davis]

I capture from a canon hv20 hdmi port to a blackmagic intensity.
I code apple prores ( for apple color )

I wondered if i would get somewhere by:

use a fast shutter to have a sharp picture
use some kind of after effects filter to smooth only part of the picture which have a big difference between two frames ( legs, feet, arms )

I am a long time user of ae ( cosa after effects ) but I mostly use it to compose and not for effects …

google me

and thanks, I like your posts

[Jacques Davis]

i did tenth of them … I am not happy yet

[Jacques Davis]

no idea with ae and some kind of motion blur

[Joe Moya]

What you going to shoot is not going to be easy..specially if you are working in a crowd and have limited shot angles.

I strongly suggest you shoot some sample video AT THE SAME TIME OF THE DAY YOU WILL BE DOING THE ACTUAL SHOOT:

Here are a few thing you need or need to know:

You will want to have available:

2x ND lens filter and wide angle lens.

You will most likely want to shoot with..:

a high shutter speed (maybe)… A LOT DEPENDS UPONA WHERE THE SUN IS LOCATED relative to the camera and the runners. A shutter speed of 500 or greater may work if you are facing directly into rising sun with an ND filter. A lower shutter speed may work if you have the sun to your back… but, you may have shadows that block the runners faces because of hats (…and, too low of shutter speed could cause blur.).

Blur is not going to be your enemy IF you adjust the position of you camera relative to the runners and the light source (i.e., high iso’s helps prevents blur). However, avoiding excessive shadowing is VERY tricky… blur will not be a problem IF you get the lighting and direction of lighting relative to the camera down correctly. There are gazillian different ways to shoot what you want… but, only a few are the best way to shoot the scene. Trial and error with similar conditions will be the ONLY effective way to find the best combination.

And… finally, just when you figured out the perfect combo… over a short period of time… the sun angle will change and light intensity changes and… wham… things are no longer perfect and you need to change your settings – again.

[Jacques Davis]

it’s worst then you think and it’s easier; worst because I shoot ten cameras together ( google me) for the rest it’s easier: it will be 9 am when I start shooting and 10.15 when I stop. the sun will be low and will only change few degrees( astronomie calculation ).I have no problem to control my light, and exposure.

All I know is that around 1/50 to 1/100 I have too much blur and around 1/250 it start to studder …

Thanks anyway for your time

[Jacques Davis]

let’s go farther … my camera is going to be steady on a tripod. I remember when I used ultimatte long time ago I was always shooting my empty blue screen before the real shooting so my chromakey was clean.

So what if i shoot the landscape without the runners ; then I use this still to isolate the runners then I motion blur the difference between frame 1 and frame 2 then between frame 2 and frame 3 and so on ?

what do you think ?