Making movies
giving you a 1/50sec shutter speed – your aperture would be around f/22. That’s OK for landscapes where you want everything sharp, but for shallower depth-of-field, it’s not great; hence the need for an ND filter. Frame rate choice Most cameras offer a variety of frame rates including 24fps – the traditional cinema setting – plus 25fps for UK PAL and 30fps for USA NTSC TV. These rates are ideal for normal motion in normal conditions. So, for beginners, shoot 25p – a format that gives 25fps and calls for a 1/50sec shutter speed, as we’ve discussed. Most cameras offer higher frame rates such as 50 and 60fps – even 100, 120, 200 or 240fps – meaning you are recording at faster than normal speed. When editing, this allows the action to be altered for slow motion. Footage shot at 50fps, for example, can be slowed to half speed when watched at 25fps; 100fps can be slowed to quarter speed. Bear in mind that if you select higher frame rates, you need to up your shutter speed. Using the 2x rule calls for a shutter speed of 1/250sec for 120fps or 1/500sec for 240fps. Just as in stills, white-balance is completely crucial in moviemaking. The chances are, you shoot Raw to maximise editing options. But in movies, Raw video is a setting only a select number of high-end cinema cameras offer. Given this, using manual white- balance – or a specific white-balance preset – is a good idea to give your “Recording in the highest resolution will give the most flexibility for cropping in post, but it’s far better to get the framing right in-camera”
IT’S HOW YOU USE IT With only a few additional pieces of kit, your trusty stills taker can become a cinema workhorse
footage consistency. Plus, you can make small corrections when in the editing suite. To get more dynamic range in your shots, some cameras allow you to shoot in a variety of colour profiles such as ‘flat’ or ‘Log’. These record very flat-looking, unsaturated footage to retain as much shadow and highlight detail as possible, which can then be boosted back in the editing stage. But using one of the Log colour profiles – or ‘gammas’ – will usually increase the minimum ISO and remove noise reduction, so they’re best left alone until you have more experience.
It’s confusing, but as a rule when starting out, if you are going to be editing your film in HD, then film everything in HD so you have the biggest choice of codecs, frame rates and crops at your disposal – but you won’t have options to crop in post. At the other end of the scale, if you film in 8K, you may be limited to 25fps, so there will be no slow motion available. And once footage is downsampled to HD, all the extra quality captured will be virtually impossible to see. Each camera is different, and offers distinct frame rates and codecs. If your camera provides plenty of 4K options, this could be the best, since you are able to crop and will still have differing frame-rate options. PN
Is 4K OK? Many cameras have 4K, 6K or even 8K resolution, offering dynamic range of up to 13 or 14 stops. You may think these settings are needed to produce footage good enough for a large screen, but you’d be wrong. Any camera with more than eight megapixels can potentially record video in 4K. Even the Sony A7S III, a full-frame camera aimed at filmmakers, only has a 12.1-megapixel sensor – and it shoots impressive 4K. When footage is shown on normal, non-HDR TVs and computer screens – which is the vast majority – it’s usually in Full HD and a Rec. 709 colour space, which has around six stops of dynamic range. So, you’re going to be throwing away a lot of resolution and dynamic range from an 8K, 14-stop HDR wonder-camera. You probably don’t need it. Sensor size does make a difference, but it’s more to do with the shallow depth-of-field you get from using larger sensors rather than outright image quality. So don’t discount APS-C or Micro Four Thirds sensors, especially as cropped sensor sizes are more likely to feature a more effective in-body image stabilisation system. Recording in the highest possible resolution will then give the most flexibility for cropping when editing, but it’s far better to get the framing right in-camera. Even recording everything and editing in 4K is overkill for many.
Breaking the codec When shooting stills, JPEGs and TIFFs are universal formats. But in video, every manufacturer has a range of its own ‘codecs’. Luckily, cameras save video in a viewable format that’s MOV or MP4. MOV is better for editing and MP4 better for use straight out of camera. There are other factors at play such as video compression, not just on individual frames but compression between frames. All- Intra compression is better quality and takes up more space, whereas Long GOP (Group of Pictures) is lower quality. There are also H.264 and H.265 options, which are largely 8-bit or 10-bit respectively. Then you have bit rates to choose, and a choice of chroma subsampling, usually labelled as 4:4:4, 4:2:2 or 4:2:0. Then there are progressive or interlaced options – the latter usually reserved for TV use. DECIPHERING DATA Different recording settings will be favourable depending on what you’re trying to deliver
WHAT'S IN STORE? High-quality footage fills cards quick! Don’t record in 8K unless you really need to
A QUESTION OF QUALITY While it’s tempting to record in the highest possible resolution, you might be causing yourself a needless headache down the line
32 Photography News | Issue 103
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