Shutter Speed for Video

If you are a video maker, you surely want to make the most out of it and wants it quality equating a Hollywood backlot. Agree?

Luckily, you can change the look of your video to make it look like more videoish when you control the shutter speed. In fact, it is the most basic procedure for doing so.

Wondering what is shutter speed? Well, it is the effective time-length in which the opening of a camera shutter takes place. To this time of exposure, the overall exposure is proportional.

The measurement of shutter speed takes place in fractions of seconds right above minutes.

In general, shutter speed effects on stills ranges from long exposures over eight seconds to sync 1/250th flash to shooting 1/2000th action.

Nonetheless, this flexibility is unavailable when it comes to videos. This is because the least possible speed reciprocates the frame rate.

Up and about to make a video? We have come up with five factors that you should take into consideration as you adjust your shutter speed.  Let us dig deep into it here:

Shutter Speed and Frames per Second:

You possibly require slower or faster shutter speed on the basis of the light in which you are shooting. In addition to this, it also depends on your desired mood as well as looks to convey.

• Fast Shutter Speed: A fast shutter speed is capable of freezing motion. Imagine athletes caught in an action’s moment or flying birds.
• Slow Shutter Speed: A slow shutter speed gives a motion blur to any moving object. Imagine those waterfall’s pictures where the water is silky-smooth and white or a picture captured from a moving car.
  

Adding to it, the frame rate also matters here. Thinking of why is the frame rate important?

In fact, familiarizing with the relationship between frame rate and shutter speed is the key for shooting seamless videos. Not only it is the shutter speed which contributes to the looks of your video but its frame rate also plays a crucial part here.

In case you are shooting for that movielike appearance, it’s ideal to shoot at 24 frames/second. Often, in the HDSLR’s case, it is 23.976 frame/sec.

On the other hand, if you shoot for TV, shooting at 25p is ideal. In PAL nations, it is 25 frames per second, progressive scan while in NTSC nations, it is 30p.

Anyway, Local firmware alternatives cause this distinction usually.

Shutter Speed and Shutter Angle:

Amongst the aspects of that film look being shutter speed.

In case you want that cinematic appearance, you need to always consider shutter angle as well as converting amidst that and shutter speed.

The shutter angle that film images use every time is 180°, it is half of the frame rate’s reciprocal.

Hence, at 24p, a 180° shutter is 1/48 sec. While 1/50 sec is the nearest available speed to this on a DSLR.

Originally, the use of shutter angle took place with rotary shutters. However, it requires translating into curtain shutters now.

45°, 90°, and 360° are some of the basic shutter angles. In theory, these would be 1/192 sec, 1/96 sec and 1/24 sec at 24p.

Nevertheless, these are not available on DLSRs precisely. For that reason, you only need to use the closest one you can find.

In Normal Cases

In most cases, diverging from 180° shutter seems bad. If you use 360° shutter, it will create twice as much blurry motion as we are habitual of viewing. Furthermore, it will bring about vague quality footage which can appear as a video of bad night-vision.

Video Look: The video will look like an uncomfortably crispy if you go above 90° and 45° shutter and that is what is usually called the "video look". You usually get this type of result when using news footage, daytime TV or cheap camcorders. However, we are not going after it in general.

Using Advantageous Angles

When done with carefulness, you can use other shutter angles for effect.

For instance, the shutter angle that Saving Private Ryan’s D-Day beach scene makes use of is 45° with an altered film advance timing system for recreating the WWII newsreel’s jerky, sharp quality.

For creating a stark, a 45° shutter was used in battle scenes of the Gladiator.

When blurred out normally, the particles of dust can be seen in sharp relief.

Give a try to 360° shutter in case you want to create an intoxicated or dreamy effect. It will work well as long as your camera is sufficiently stabilized.

Shooting at High Speed:

Lastly, the best-looking option for slow-motion video when shooting high-speed is the shutter angle of 180°.

As per common sense, a shutter angle of 360° would work well for maintaining the motion blur of nearly the same level as a shutter angle of 180° at 24p in case you shoot at 60p for conforming to 24p.

But it is useless in practice. Wondering why so? This is because our sight understands slow motion and expecting to view a shutter angle of 180° together with the linked little motion blur.

Cadence: It has a relationship with a phenomenon named as cadence i.e., the quality or amount of subject’s motion amidst frame.

Similar to the shutter angle of 180°, we comprehend cadence well and adjust in accordance with it.

Key Takeaway:

With reduced to no motion blur, the fast shutter speed will bring about a darker image. It depends on the subject’s speed. On the flip side, a lighter image will be produced by a slow shutter speed having additionally pronounced motion blur.

Bear in mind that not every video camera has manual controls for shutter speed. Therefore, camcorders of consumer level may not come with this feature. That is why look for if your camera features an option for controlling shutter speed manually, either a button in the camera’s body or in the LCD menu.

In order to avoid shakiness in videos, always use a tripod at shutter speeds below a second’s 1/60th when shooting.