180° Shutter Angle - Why I don't use it for 50/60p 

Glad it was useful, thanks for letting me know.

Really pleased it makes sense, they key is to think about shutter angle on the timeline and not at time of capture, then it all makes a bit more sense.

Ah yes, I did mean to mention that advantage of having an extra stop for low light but forgot all about it! Thanks for the reminder.

Glad it was useful, just bear in mind that this is all about no compromising footage played back at normal speed, you do get additional motion blur in slow-mo so you'll need to decide if that works okay for the cars.

Thanks loads for letting me know, much appreciated.

Yup, this one takes a while but once you get it it can be a great way of shooting for normal speed and slowmo shots without compromising the normal speed playback.

Glad it was helpful!

Pleased it helped, dealing with flicker can be nightmare, especially on cameras without variable shutter

Welcome back :)

You are welcome!

I remember loading tape but thankfully never had to wind up my cameras :) Thanks loads for the feedback.

Thanks

Cool, thanks for letting me know.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, as you say it’s often better to understand why rather than just following the rules.

Glad it helped :)

Excellent, hope it works well for you :)

Thank you @@PaulJoy . I'm filming a WW1 Doco, and our reenactments will be shot @ 50P. Doing a test with the DZOFilm Catta ace Zoom Lens on the Panasonic S1 camera via Ninja V (4K Pro Res Raw).

@@sampsonpictures Sounds exciting, let me know how the test goes.

The test went good. Also, I liked your video on the variable filter, as I have the same setup. I was unaware of the gamma shift. My daughter's jersey was yellow but appeared orange with the variable filter. Easy fix in Resolve, but it's good to know. Cheers for that, and I will purchase a couple of ND@@PaulJoy

The opening scene in Saving Private Ryan using 45 degree (1/192) and 90 degree (1/96) shutter. In an interview, Steven Spielberg said: "You can also see several explosions, and Janusz came up with the idea of shooting with the shutter open to 45 degrees or 90 degrees, which completely negated any blurring. Often, when you see an explosion with a 180-degree shutter it can be a thing of beauty, but a 45-degree shutter looks very frightening."

My pleasure, have fun.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Welcome aboard!

Thanks, yes it’s always a subject that causes a lovely debate :)

Thanks for the nice comment.

Great stuff.

Thanks for the excellent comment Ian. You're right, frame-rate and motion blur experience is a very subjective thing. I'm definitely in the camp of preferring the classic 24/25p look over a more realistic and fluid 50p but theres no reason at all why everyone needs to agree what looks best. Regarding the panning judder / strobing, yes even the latest high end flat screens for Sony and LG still struggle with that, it's quite often the TV's inability to display it as shot over the inability to capture smooth footage. As you say that's one of the many things we have to consider in our shooting. Thanks again, P

I will always far prefer 60fps at 1/60 for most content out there, seeing 24fps content on RU-vid (specially with vloggers) just look extremely jittery and choppy and it just doesnt look great.

Yes, I tend to use 50 or 60fps as well. Mainly for smoothness on TV. I’m actually not that keen on a ‘cinematic’ look in any case for family videos. Always makes me think of the 16fps projector days when we used film stock. It looked ‘cinematic’ but not realistic so for me, they look kind of ‘historic’ and way in the past, just because of the look of them. Some like the way that it takes you away from reality, but I don’t feel that it works so well with family stuff.

@@iancraig yeah, vlogs, gaming, wildlife, sports and practically anything that isn't "cinematic stuff" like weddings or films per say, 60fps is so much better and practical

If you’re only using it for slow-mo then it generally works fine, the problem start when you try to play it back in normal speed.

Thanks 👍

I don’t use this to adjust exposure, I fix my shutter at 1/50th so you may have misunderstood the point here. Shooting at 50/50 instead of 50/100 will actually increase exposure.

Glad it helped, thanks for letting me know.

Correct, the question comes down to whats more important for you, having 180° shutter angle on your regular speed footage or slow motion footage.

That’s true although with xavc-s I wouldn’t expect it to make much difference. Xavc-I maybe, although it’s still a variable bitrate so I’m not sure. Try shooting a 30 second clip in 25p and another in 50p and compare the file sizes!

@@PaulJoy Hi. You're right, I did some tests this afternoon to compare 25fps/50; 50fps/50; 50/100 and even 50 fps/80 (so almost just in between 50 for motion bluer & 100 for a crisper image when moving). 80 avoided some visible blur when in slow mo but was still giving an excellent motion blur and may be a nice compromise (The test camera is a DJI Pocket 3 that I fixed on my motorcycle, so have a stable image and motion blur is quite a challenge, but the gimbal helps a lot). And when I checked the footage, average variable bitrate is between 80 Mb/s and 110 Mbs depending on the shots, so below the Max 130 of the camera. So no real loss of quality. I have to experiment still a bit, but I may go for a permanent 50fps/50 (or 80) to have an option of slowmo to stabilize in post . Thanks again. Philippe

I've not tried it for that but in theory it should give you more detail to work with. let me know how it works.

Glad it was useful, thanks for letting me know.

Hi there. Thanks loads for sharing your experience, while many people like there to be 'rules' for camera settings there are none that are always the correct solution.

Sounds good, let me know how you get on. I’ve not worked on anything with a 50p playback but I can imagine it works well for sports.

Yep, depends a lot on the subject matter. High speed action where you want to have more detail, best to shoot at 180 degrees.

My pleasure!

You're welcome Dirk, best regards to you too.

But don’t tell anyone because you will upset the RU-vid.

Same here! I shoot at 50p 360 bc of "lack of light" purposes and it made perfect sense to me, bc 1/50th shutterspeed is sufficient for slomo

@@andrewj22 I think I see your point here and I think you are right in the case you describe. But I think in most cases, timelines and exports are set in 24 (*25) or 30p. And that changes the result because if you shoot 60p at 180°, you get this certain amount or motion blur for each picture as you said, but by exporting it in a 30p timeline, you divide the number of frames you have by 2. 30/60 frames are deleted ( or *hidden), so you end up with 30 frames that are still exposed at 1/120 But if you shoot this 60p clip at 360°, then when played on a 30p timeline you get the correct motion blur or 1/60s, and when slown down at 50%, you get an excessive motion blur BUT it is less appearing because thr movement is also slower. From my understanding, shooting 360° is a gresat tool for a very specific situation: When you shoot something without knowing if you will slow it down or not. AND most probably, you will keep it normal speed. Shooting 360 AT HIGHER FRAMRATE, give you extra frames in case you will slow it down, but gives you the correct motion blur if you don't slow it down. Very good for things that are unpredictable, like event or reportage, run and gun shooting 😁✨

@@TaoCovillault Thanks for your reply here. I"m afraid I have had to hide @Andrew J's comments on the channel because he has been spamming multiple comments on the video with the same reply. I welcome discussion about this topic and would love to have the discussion to try and explain where I think he had misunderstood the video but posting accusations on lots of other peoples comments is not the way to do it.

Cool, let me know if it works for you.

Thanks for the long comment and consideration. Your approach makes a lot of sense. I would say that like anything else with shooting video every shot requires consideration. Choosing a level of motion blur is like choosing a depth of field, you make the choice depending on what your producing.

My pleasure, thanks for letting me know.

Thats really interesting, thanks for the heads up.

Yup, thats exactly what I noticed too when I started shooting in 50p. Glad it helped Ryan.

There is a video out there that explains this in more detail. I can’t quite recall who done the video, but I think it was Caleb from DSLR Video Shooter. This is true, but not entirely. You have to remember that half the frames will be dropped. So as the image is moving from one frame to the next, half the frames are dropped to reduce it from 50 down to 25, and then the NLE will use frame blending to make sure they flow. The issue is, which frames are dropped. If you move from frame to frame, sometimes the jump from one to the next is jittery because they don’t actually follow each other because there used to be a frame in between. The information that was lost is almost unnoticeable, but sometimes enough to cause the jitters.

@@danfarmer_photo Thats not true for FCPX, I'm not sure about other NLE's. In FCPX there is no frame blending when halving the framerate, it simply only plays back alternate frames. This should be true whenever exactly halving the framerate however if you go from say 60p to 25p then frame blending or frame skipping would be required.

Thanks again :)

Glad it helped.

I often use 1/100th for 100fps when shooting for slowmo and it looks great for things like real estate videos. Let me know how you get on. One thing to bear in mind is that anything over 50/60p doesn’t work well for playing back at normal speed.

@@PaulJoy Not many people can even see 100/120fps since most screens are capped at 50/60hz, and even then RU-vid only shows 60fps max, the thing is, you cant go any lower than 1/120 at 120fps so if you decide to use it on say, 30 or especially 24fps, it just looks jittery and unnatural if you're not slowing down so i really wouldnt recommend shooting 120fps for a 30/24fps timeline unless you're slowing it down. 60fps on 30fps timeline works since not only is it divisible, you can still use a relatively slow shutter speed (like 1/60) so it looks ok and natural, you cant do that with 120fps since its 1/120, i guess you can use it for 30fps or 60fps timeline since its not only divisible but high shutter speeds dont look too bad unlike at 24, but it would be a hassle for little reason, worse low light and most cameras wont look that good at 120fps compared to 24/30 or even 60 on some, sure you can slow it down even more but... most of the times you really only need half speed. If you're shooting something and dont know yet when and if you're slowing it down, shoot 50/60fps at 360 (1/50 1/60) and export it at 25/30fps and should look correct both normal and slow motion (of course you can also export at 50/60fps if that's your liking, 60fps at 1/60 looks way better than 1/120 when played back at normal speed and that FPS). 100/120fps (or higher for that matter) really only shoot it if you're planning to slow it down in post and avoid importing 120fps to lower fps timeline (like 24fps) at normal speed for no reason (sure it could work for 30/60fps but is it really worth it?). Or unless you want to shoot 120fps and export it at 120fps then sure, by all means and i would agree that shooting that at 1/120 should look more natural (but remember that RU-vid and most social media for that matter, only shows 60fps max, so i dont think there's a good reason to export beyond 60fps, unless we were talking about Gaming then sure, more FPS the better)

WOW what a great experiment!! Gerald Undone also did one a while back incorporating frame rate and shutter speed!

@@SantiagoMonroy5 Couldn't you convert 1/120 at 120fps to 1/60 at 24fps by taking the average of 2 adjacent frames and using that?

@@giganooz you mean Frame Blending? Don't recommend it since it kinda starts to look blurry or like it's interlaced. You can drop a 120fps clip into 24 since it's technically divisible, it just can't go lower than 1/120 shutter speed so it always looks sharp and jittery.

Glad it was helpful!

Hi there, thanks so much for this comment, I’d not given any thought to how much of the 24 fps was dedicated to the mechanics of pulling the film down on old cinema cameras and projectors before. I’ll have to have a play with that one!

I Guess 48fps with every other frame being black. This stops what is called, ‘persistence of vision’. What this means is that the motion blur stretches across 1/48th second, followed by 1/48th second black. The brain then inserts what it thinks the motion should be, giving smoother movement. It’s an optical illusion. My TV inserts black frames and it starts to look a little more ‘movie like’ when it’s on. So you get 1/48th of motion blur and 1/48th of brain insertion which (I guess) might insert the same amount for you, giving (kind of) 48fps at 360 degrees and this was originally a measurement used to calculate the best frame rate/smoothness/cost. Unfortunately not in movies possible because film needed the black frame to change the picture which suggests that perhaps we should be videoing at 50 or 60fps with 360 degree shutter! I have never been totally convinced by 24fps. When I was younger, I used film at 16fps and it always looked like poor home movie to me. Even then in the 60’s. 24fps just about works but imo, with a mostly still camera. Some movies are ghastly I think. We all seem to be hanging on to that frame rate, but the medium that we now use has drastically changed but we seem to ignore it. Especially with fast displays that don’t allow for persistence of vision. It’s a funny old topic, but one that has interested me for a long time because of this (quite often) total acceptance of 24fps, even on 60hz screens. It’s kind of become a burned in rule, like the 180 degree rule that more often than not, I break. In fact, at slow frame rates, I prefer a 270 degree shutter or even more. This is a topic that isn’t really discussed much on RU-vid. It’s always assumed that 24fps is the one that is ‘best’ without really analysing why it’s the best. I think when it’s done well, it looks fantastic, but there are many, many examples of poor camera control at 24fps and that slow frame rate makes it appear actually worse in some cases. I think faster frame rates are more forgiving of poor camera control but 24 needs more attention to detail and how you move the camera.

Thanks for letting me know. Yes when I look at 50/100 footage on a 25p timeline it reminds me of those old hand cranked camera movies of ye olden days!

30 will be smoother than 25 but which one you use should be led by what you're delivering. For filmic content I prefer 25 but if going for more true to life look and feel then 30 could help.

If you're delivering at 60fps then go with 60/120.

Glad it helped!

No problem!

NP :)

Hi. My reasoning for shooting 50fps at 1/50th is that I’m expecting to use the footage both for slow motion and normal speed in a 25fps project and export at 25fps. So no, shooting at 50fps at 1/50th and exporting at 50fps would still be 360 degree shutter.

Hey Ben. It is a slight compromise for the half speed footage as it has more motion blur than 180° shutter would produce however that compromise is a lot smaller in my opinion than playing back 25p at 1/100th which is what it would be if you shot at 50/100 and then dropped half the frames for 25p (non slowmo) playback. The thing to remember about this is that I'm talking about the ability to drop half the frames and use 50/60p footage at normal speed on a 24/25/30 timeline.

Hi there. The slider is a Zacuto Stealth with a motor kit. It’s really old now and the tech has moved on a lot but I rarely use it these days so haven’t bothered changing it.

Thanks for the fast reply.

Thanks loads, glad you liked the video.

It’s more a question of how the finished video is being delivered. If your finishing your video at 60fps then you could in theory shoot at 120fps with a 1/120th shutter and still be able to use the footage at 60fps with equivalent to 180 degree shutter angle, ie 60fps with 1/120th shutter.

I feel like there might be more to this story!

If shooting for a 50 fps timeline and you wanted to use a similar method as described here then you would need to shoot at 100 fps with a 1/100th shutter. If shooting 50fps for a 50 fps timeline then you may as well shoot 1/100th unless you want more motion blur than typical 180 degree shutter.

It’s an interesting one because all this talk of 180 degree shutter is to emulate the look of historic film. If delivering at 50fps then your already discounting that look so it really comes down to the visual look you want.

Hi Max, thanks for the sub. In terms of shutter angle when shooting 25p, yes you can get away with 360 degree shutter and I do this myself sometimes but you just need to bare in mind how much movement is happening in the scene because the additional motion blur can start to look unnatural. This video was really aimed at shooting 50p for 25p delivery in which case using 360 shutter angle and dropping half the frames still results in the same amount of motion blur as shooting 25p with 180 shutter angle. Thanks again.

@@PaulJoy Thanks Again Paul :)

Cool, let me know how it works for you.

Are you shooting 40p in order to slow it down to 29.97? If so then you could use 1/80th but why 40p? You may be better off shooting 59.94 at 1/60th that way you can slow it down to half speed or use it at normal speed.

Surely real life shutter speed depends on how quickly you can blink? ;)

While it's true that approx 1/50th of a second feels like a natural amount of motion blur, that only really applies to native playback (aka, 24p on a 24p timeline, 50p on a 50p timeline, etc). Once we decide to playback in slow motion, then we're effectively breaking realism in order to allow us to watch something play out at an unnatural speed. To illustrate my point, even if it were technically possible to shoot 120p at 1/50th of a second, the resulting playback in slow motion would just look like a very slow moving blur. People tend to like to stick with the 180-degree rule, because it gives the slow motion footage that same amount of motion blur that feels natural to us at regular playback. But I agree that people tend to stick too rigidly to the 180-degree rule. There are pros and cons of each choice, and it's the job of the DP to decide what works best for the shot. It really should be called "the 180-degree shutter guideline". 😉

​@@colinjudge1261 you are absolutely correct, people who shoot in 60p do so because they intended the footage to be slowed down, so they must shoot in 180 degree rule. This way the slow-motion footage has the correct blur instead of being too blurry. But for me, it was always the extra frame even if it's 1/50th of a second. This makes the footage feels smoother and more real. This is what I want when I shoot documentary-style. However, it goes to show you that it's better to understand why you are doing certain things than to follow it because that's what you have been taught. cheers

@@anhtran9111 Completely agree, this is why it's so underrated to understand the fundamentals. Beginners can fast-track their progress by listening to these general recommendations like Rule of Thirds, 180º Shutter Rule, Don't Cross The Line, etc. But without learning why these guidelines work, you can't spot the situations where these rules are better off ignored. That's the point where you have creative control, and where things get interesting!

That is a good point James and thankfully with the latest generation of cameras it becomes less of a problem than it used to be. Back when I was shooting with a Canon C300 shooting 50/60p meant reducing resolution to 720p at 50Mbps in only 8 bit. Thankfully the tech has moved on to the point where that becomes a non issue as the cameras are capable of increasing bitrate in line with frame-rate to maintain the data rate for each frame. The FX3 for example records up to 300 MB/s in 25p and 600 Mbps in 4K 60p.

A 50 fps timeline would require you to shoot at 50 fps for normal speed playback but if your camera is the ability to shoot 100fps then it could be used in the same way, ie shoot 100fps with a 1/100 shutter. That way for non slowed down footage half the frames would be dropped and the playback will be the same as if you’d shot 50 fps at 1/100.

@@PaulJoy Thanks for your reply, Paul! Two more questions: 1. Do you see a difference between A: 50p 1/100shutter in 50fps Timeline and B: 25fps 1/50shutter in 25fps Timeline? (I sometimes have the feeling "A" is more stuttery in terms of motion blur, would 50fps 1/50 be better?) 2. Don't you have stuttery footage, while panning for instance, with 50fps 1/50shutter in a 25fps Timeline? Thanks for your efford answering questions from the community! 😃👍

Video shot at 50/60 fps to be played back at that same speed would generally be shot with 1/100 or 1/120 shutter accordingly, ie 180° shutter. Of course you could shoot 100 fps at 1/100 or 120 fps at 1/120 if your camera is capable of doing so and then the method shown in this video would still apply allowing you to use some shots at 50% playback speed without compromising the shots played back at 50/60.

I’d say it depends if your delivering at 50fps. If you are and want to stick to 180 degree shutter for delivery then no it wouldn’t, you’d then want to shoot with a 1/100 shutter to maintain the desired motion blur. You could however shoot at 100fps with 1/100 shutter if your camera is capable of that. As always try it out on something non critical first as I don’t use resolve and can’t say how well the t would work.

@@PaulJoy thanks Paul, makes sense now! I shoot and deliver in 50fps most of the time primarily because I like the ‘soap opera effect’ as mostly filming corporate events where the real look is desirable. Can still slow down 50fps on a 50fps timeline by 50% and it looks fine. 100fps at 1/100th would definitely work if I want more pronounced slow motion 👍 The motion blur effect on Resolve also does a great job at making 50fps (1/100th) footage look normal played at regular speed on a 25fps timeline.

Hi there. The problem with 120fps is each frame can only be exposed for a maximum of 1/120th of a second so it’s impossible to get the equivalent of 180 degree shutter at 30fps which would be 1/60th of a second. The slowest shutter you can achieve is 1/120th per frame, so if you place that clip on a 30fps timeline each frame will still have 1/120th which will be equivalent to 90 degree shutter.

Exactly!

Yes you can, and yes I shoot some interior videos and you normally need all the light you can get! Best advice is to try it out somewhere like your own home and see if the level of motion blur with 1/60 shutter is acceptable to you for your slow motion shots.

@@PaulJoy Thanks a to. Subscribed!!

Hi there. I’ve not tried adding motion blur in post but I’ve had a few comments from people saying that works for them. Your solution sounds plausible, especially if it’s something your editing yourself and your confident in the post motion blur workflow. Personally I’d prefer to know if captured the footage with the required amount of blur in camera and shoot stills separately but if you don’t have that option and the client is happy with the results then why not, you do what works for you and your client! Logo is likely a depth of field thing I’d say.

@@PaulJoy Thanks for the reply! I will make some test footage with 360 though and check if the stills are crisp enough, because I usually record everything in 50p to be able to slow it down later. That might be more efficient than post blur. Especially with a gimbal and if there is not to much fast action going on, it should be fine.

Thanks for your thoughts. I totally agree with you and would set per shot if I know up front how the clip will be used. Where this is useful is when shooting 50/60 not knowing which clips will be normal speed or slowmo.

Thanks for sharing you're findings, I agree that if theres a lot of camera shake additional motion blur could be a problem, plus, there's always going to be subjects / styles that need additional consideration re settings.

Yes absolutely shutter speed will effect exposure and if you don’t have any other way to reduce exposure then you can use shutter speed but at the expense of a negative effect on motion blur.

Yeah, LED lighting can be a total mystery and doesn't always follow the mains frequency precisely. Unfortunately with the FX3 we don't get the ability to make small adjustments to shutter speed. My guess is that it's just off 50hz meaning that when you shoot 25p the effected frames are more apparent because they are visible for twice as long. Shooting 360° shutter at 50 1/50th could definitely help. I could be totally wrong though, LED's are a total frustration , especially when you get different ones in the shot at the same time!

360° shutter might not be a good choice for birds in flight as there would likely be too much motion blur with all the movement. As I cover in the video the there is a compromise withe 360° shutter in that there is added motion blur but the benefit is that you can also play the footage back at normal speed and the blur will be the same as if you shot with 180° shutter. Let me know how your testing goes.

It's so dependent on the subject and the look you're after. The normal 180° shutter works well for the majority of shots but just remember that if your delivering at 30p a 180° shutter would be 1/60. If you shoot at 60p but mostly use that at 30p (dropping half the frames) then using 1/60 will give the same results.

I can't remember how many Tonehs I used now :)

That wouldn't work in the same way because you can't shoot 100fps and maintain a 1/50th shutter as each frame is only exposed for 1/100th of a second. So for 25p playback with 180° shutter the max fps you can shoot is 50 fps.

Hi there. It’s probably best to stick to 25p while your getting to grips with things and it’s best to stay in PAL settings because you’ll be less likely to run in to refresh rate problems with lights.

Pun intended? ;)

If delivering at 50p then 1/100 would be correct. If delivering at 25p though then most people would also say each frame should be 1/50th!

@@PaulJoy yeah i found i got good results by shooting 50p 1/50 and using in a 25fps sequence.

@@PaulJoy I may be confused, but you seem to explain the opposite here at 4:10. Edit - I have read one of your replies to another comment where you explain that you are comparing the result of dropped frames, by rendering 50FPS on a 25FPS timeline, and slowing footage down by using all 50FPS on a 25FPS timeline. I get it now.

@@patrickfalls6819 It's certainly a very confusing subject :) If shooting at 50p for playback at half speed then 1/100 would be typical, it's when it's played back at normal speed by dropping half the frames that 1/100 would not be 180° shutter as then the final result would be 25p at 1/100th or 90° shutter.

Exactly, it's fine if you're going to slow all of it to half speed but that's not often the case in my experience.

I don't use Resolve so I'm not aware of how well it performs in that regard. Certainly if it has the ability to correctly apply motion blur to specific objects in the frame then that could be useful.