Shooting with both 1080 & 720 question
 

Hello,
I'm new to video world. 7D has been my camera for photography and now I'm interested in using it to do some video as well. I've been reading and searching a lot online lately and was wondering if below is the best way to approach an on-location shoot:

1. Shoot with 'mainly 1920x1080 (24fps)' setting and 'switch to 1280x720 (60fps) setting' for the part which I know I will use the footage for 'slow motion'

2. After finish shooting, bring all footages to CS5 premiere and use '1920x1080 (24fps)' sequence/timeline to process footages shot with both 1080 and 720 settings.

3. Use the 'Interpret Footage' function to slow down the footage shot with 1280x720 setting and make it 24fps

Would this strategy work well or should I do the entire shoot with just '1280x720 (60fps)' setting and still use the '1920x1080 (24fps)' timeline in CS5?

Thank you for any help that you could provide as I'm eager to learn! :)

Maybe you have this covered: It depends on how much slow motion is a part of your final project. If it is not, then stick to shooting 1080 for the most part. As long as you're shooting progressive you should get acceptable results with the method you mentioned.

However, if slo-mo is a large chunk of your production, then I would suggest shooting the entire project in 720 simply due to the frequent jumps in resolution. It will be visually obvious and distracting. The entire project can be mastered out at 720 as a lossless image sequence (TIFF, TGA) and then up-rez'd in AE or Photoshop. This will give acceptable quality in the least amount of time and computer power. Hope this helps.

I have a question about this, as well. If I drop 60p footage into a 24p timeline and use interpret footage, do I conform it to 24fps or 23.976? Also, is it okay to go 60 to 24 or is 50% speed going to look better, and thus make the timeline 30p?

Also, I have the Panasonic GH2, which does 60i in 1920x1080 and 60p in 1280x720. Which is the better route for doing slow-mo?

Patrick...only your footage, final delivery requirements and own aesthetic judgement can decide what 'looks better'. There's nothing 'good' or 'bad' in absolute terms, and there is always more than one way to arrive at a particular result.

The choice of frame-rate, interlaced vs progressive, and resolution, is dependent on what your final delivery requirements are. They are all useful for what they were made for.

I see people using 50p and matching it up with 24p. Also, the 7D doesn't resolve more than 720 even when shooting at 1080, so the footage will match up.