60fps + interpolation vs 120fps - which is more sensible?

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I don't shoot a lot of video. But, when I do, I shoot at 120fps (play rehearsals). It would make no sense for me to shoot any other way. Real time video is not the aim, and doesn't look that great anyway.

So I'm wondering... is it better, perhaps, to shoot at 50/60fps and just slow it down by a factor of two? I would ideally use a narrower shutter angle (or equivalent). The bonus is that I can shoot 4K, because my Olympus cameras don't shoot 4K at the highest frame rate. And I can avoid flicker.

I should do a comparison for myself - but some opinions would certainly help.

 

[Zack Birlew]

If you're slowing it down, just do 120fps if you can do 120fps, it will look better overall despite advances in Twixtor and other software solutions. I know the thought is efficiency or "99% can't tell" but it's just depending on and hoping for your software coming through for you after the fact rather than filming the extra material up front as it should have been to capture that moment.

 

[M Harvey]

Whether it's better or not depends on what you're trying to achieve. So: why do you shoot 120 fps, what's the creative goal or deliverable-- just 4-5x slow motion? What's the playback rate?

 

[digivims]

Better shoot at 24fps for your normal scenes. And for those where you need speed related effects, go for 120fps. In real world, the 60fps video looks too real and thats where end-up applying different blurs to make it look aesthetic. I mostly shoot at around 24fps because I sell stock footage and end-customers are ok with 24fps. Beyond 24fps, the market gets narrower.

 

[Karim D. Ghantous]

Thanks for all your comments. I didn't explain properly and I forgot to mention that I want a playback speed of 24-30fps. So I was thinking of shooting at 50/60, conforming to 30, then slowing to 120 or 100.

Here is an example of footage I shot last year:

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