Hi
I have a couple of questions I really hope you all may be able to help me and put me straight. So here goes
1. What is the best shutter speed I should be shooting at ? I assumed I should work around a 60th as the other day I was shooting outside at a 200th and people moving in frame had a certain judder. I know this is probably quite a broad question but should I only really work between a 30th and a 60th ? What are the implications of working at higher shutter speeds?
2. When I pan the camera there seems to be a Judder to the image even though I know I'm panning smoothly. Any ideas why ( I have turned the image stabilizer off)
3. When editing in FCP what is the best way of getting the footage onto the machine. When I just go into my Mac book pro (17" 2.16ghz intel core duo) with raw footage it just keeps dropping out and it's impossible to edit with. I think I need to convert the footage to something else before I edit with it. What do you recommend ?
4. Visual Hub, Compressor or Mpeg stream clip ?

Sorry about all the questions but these little things having been bugging me like mad. So all advice will be greatly appreciated :banghead: :grin:
I look forward to hearing from you
Mark

1. For natural motion blur, I am locking at 1/60. This will required an ND filter in bright sunlight situations. For special effects like the juddery effect you are talking about (The Finding Private Ryan Effect) You can go higher. 1/30 seems a bit soft to me, but is usable to get more light in if necessary.

2. First some of that may be just on LCD, as it seems to do that occasionally for me, but I don't see it in most of the files. But, you expect to see that more in 30p than in 60i, but even more in 24p if we get there. I think keeping it at 1/60 or under will help reduce that by adding motion blur. Also, the panning speed makes a difference. There will be a middle speed range that you experience this, that won't show up at a lower or higher pan speed.

Sorry, do not do FCP. I edit everything with Vegas and using NeoScene for an intermediate editing codec. It is Aces !

Hi Mark,
1. Anything other than 1/50th in the UK and you will get flicker from lights/sign etc. All depends on the look you require, I like the fast twitchiness of higher frame rates. If you want to keep lower frame rates then you will have to use ND filters.

2. Sometimes when viewing from the monitor the footage appears to judder but play back frame by frame correct. Also depended on if you are viewing native camera codec H.264 (can run at reduced frame rates to keep time) or transcoded into an intermediate AIC or ProRes (playback it less CPU intensive).

3. I convert the raw H.264 to prores with compressor keeping native size and frame rate.
Footage will play smooth once transcoded, and it much easier to edit. I deal with 24/25 on the way out. Using cinema tools and back to compressor for final print.

4.Compressor for ease of use, handy droplet tool allows instant preset batch processing. MPeg Stream Clip does a good job also. I can split processor duty on my Quad Core in Compressor and that saves time. I also do first grading slight grading in compressor.

Apple Color works very well, once you get your head round it. You can take H.264 files in Color, grade and output to Prores.

Apple intermediate codec 'AIC' does a good job, if you have ever used iMovie and a HD camera then these are the background codecs used (AIC). Fast and slightly smaller than the Std ProRes.

I would still go with ProRes over AIC.

Mark if you PM me I will give you some compressor presets.

James