Canon HFS Series @ 24P
 

Okay, I've followed the opinions of the Forum's and have purchased a HFS100. Is there a trick to filming at 24P. Stationary it's fine, but gets choppy with movement. What's the secret? Is it an exposure issue? ANy advice would be appreciated.

I have a HFS100, I think you may want to use shutter priority and set this to 1/24 or 1/48 to reduce the choppiness. The Auto Exposure, like Program mode is trying to keep the aperture around the middle of the range to maximize sharpness, in bright light it does this by reducing the shutter time, creating the 'Private Ryan' look.

I've found on other 24P or 30P camcorders that to get the filmic look, is to either have the shutter off or at 1/2 the frame rate (in this case 1/48), this creates blurriness in movement in the frame, creating the illusion of motion.

I've found that the shutter and aperture controls on the HFS100 are not as 'manual' as I'd like. I haven't found a way to create a completely manual settings where I have complete control over the aperture and shutter settings.

The best I've been able to achieve to even 'lock down' an exposure is to engage the 'compensation' feature on the main joystick menu, which keeps the exposure from shifting. Without that the shutter and/or aperture (depending on P vs Av vs Tv) will shift to get what the camera thinks is the optimal exposure.

With 24p and movement you will likely have either choppiness or blur.

24fps is an archaic holdover from the days when that was the best compromise between film consumption economy and still having "persistence of vision" provide the illusion of motion. You may be stuck with 24p if you are going to have to transfer to film or if the venue you submit to requires it for some reason but for most of what we do it is no longer necessary.

I don't chase the 24fps film look "will 'o the wisp" because there are other ways to achieve a "filmic" look. One of the things that film often did different from video was color and tone rendition and the "cine" preset on many of our cameras tries to emulate this with the look of extended dynamic range, muted color, less contrast, lowered brightness, and less sharpness.

This often can look a bit "flat" so I modify it with custom presets (available in most Canon cameras) by boosting brightness, contrast, and sharpness just a bit. This still gives me the benefit of the "cine" preset look but with a bit more "snap" yet falls way short of the "video" look.

I do lose the 24fps "flicker" which some associate with the "film" look but the fact is some can see the flicker and some can't. Most of what makes that "film" look is skillful use of lighting, composition, exposure and the way it all sets the mood.

Have you found any way to lock shutter and gain at the same time? When I lock shutter in dark rooms, it bumps the gain up and introduces all kinds of noise. I don't care if the whole image is black, just that it's not grainy black. Any ideas?

I think the way to lock down the exposure is to engage the exposure compensation joystick item so it is "M" rather than "A" it seems that once it is in "M" the exposure (aperture + gain settings) doesn't drift around. I haven't played with that too much in Shutter priority mode though.