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Advantages of shooting 24FPS over 30FPS?

Elliot Pollaro

Elliot Pollaro

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I have heard that shooting at 24fps will get you a better "film like look" with the Epic. I was wondering if anyone has done any side by side comparisons of the Epic at 24fps vs 30fps.
 
Its not just epic...its every camera. It gives a more "Film like" look because films are shot at 24 fps. TV or broadcast is shot at 30fps. That and a some other things like 180 degree shutter and lighting is what give film its look.
 
Film is shot at 24 fps. The farther away from that you go, the less it will look like cinema.

-B
 
So if I was to shoot the same scene at 24FPS, and then shoot it again at 30FPS, the 24FPS version would look and "feel" better? I know its more like cinema, but I am just wondering if there is any visual differences in the image itself.
 
less motion blur at 30fps. Which will make it appear more lifelike and a little less "cinematic"
 
Thats more of the answer I was looking for. Thank you I will do some tests.
 
This is such a subjective subject.

There are so many other factors that go into making a scene look "filmic" than just fps. I deal with that all the time as an editor, i have people bring me footage that was shot at 24, and it doesn't look like cinema, it looks like stuttery jittery motion blurry crap. I think its more of the compisition of the shot, the lighting, the camera moves, matching all that to the subject of the scene.

There are pro's and con's to shooting 30vs24 (or 48 if you're Peter Jackson) with 24 you get more light sensitivity, but limited in pan speeds. With 24 you save on media, but with 30, there is less perceived motion blur and stuttering on faster moving objects.

I think it all comes down to testing. Do what you said, shoot the same scene at 24 and at 30, see what you like. See what matched the scene content, and the need for camera moves. Test, test, test.

Technically, and someone more knowledgable than me will correct me if I'm wrong, 24 lets in more light, so that changes the response of the sensor to what exposure you are trying to achieve. This will change what fstop you use for a given scene, and possible change your iso. Knowing that the iso is metadata, of course.

That's my rambling.

matt
 
exactly, "Cinematic" is not to imply better. Like anything, it's all a matter of taste and what you're trying to achieve. 24fps definitely has serious drawbacks as well. Motion blur, strobing, a general lack of temporal resolution, but for many things it's the right look. Test and see what works for what you are doing.

-B
 
24=BETTER..... always has. 29.97 is a gimmick that the rest of the country has fallen for when we all decided 1080 was the way to go.
 
Adam Michael Carr said:
24=BETTER..... always has. 29.97 is a gimmick that the rest of the country has fallen for when we all decided 1080 was the way to go.
Click to expand...
"Oh, and 8 track was the way to go- one day mankind will realize its mistake." - prescient words from "Hellboy 2"
 
The very first projectors were 48 fps. Yep. Then with film they settled on 1/2 that with a double flash of each frame. Easier on the parts.

I think 24 will go away, along with the signature/artifact of film grain. In time.
 
This is a very long and interesting subject that will not go away very soon. I like both frame rates for different reasons.
I heard that the real reason for 24fps was almost purely economic as it was the slowest you could get away with running in the camera and still fool the eye for most situations.
So from what I heard was that this would save on stock when shooting back in the day. Sounds like sound business to me.. And over time we just adopted it as the standard. I know kind of a crude explanation but you get my drift.

Im sure someone else would love to shed a little light on this.

For what its worth. I some time shoot 29.97/30fps and open the shutter/longer exposure.. to give it a little more 24@180 feel, but as it has been stated in earlier post to testing at both and see what you like and if it works for what your doing that is really the most important.
 
In Europe and anywhere else PAL, 30fps cannot be translated to 25p (PAL) without many issues. The whole world is not North America. If you see your market as only local you will make way less $$$.

24fps can be played anywhere, and looks fine on 30P NTSC and 25p PAL both.
 
I THINK 24fps was originally settled on in the USA because at that speed on our 60hz power grid, the sound recorder gave you one second per foot of sound stock. this made synchronization, even on hand cranked sychronizers simple for editorial.

Perhaps David M, or someone withmore knowledge than I can confirm or correct this idea...

In terms of giving a "filmic" look, the mechanical shutter on some cameras (F65, Alexa) is intended to give the subliminal spacing and exposure time limit per frame that we are conditioned to expect in our film watching experience..

essentially, we are re-creating the feel of emulsion being passed through 2 intemittent movement devices... a film camera, and a film projector.
 
For what it is worth, everything you see on television is 29.97 FPS whether it was shot in 24 (23.98) or 30 (29.97) FPS. Because that is our NTSC television standard. To take it a step further, the NTSC standard is actually not really 30 Frames Per Second but 60 Fields Per Second. A field is half a frame. Not the top half or the bottom half but actually an interlaced series of every other horizontal line on the television screen. To transfer film which was shot in 24 FPS to NTSC video at 30FPS it must go through a conversion process spreading out 24 frames over 60 fields. Since there are six less frames in Film than there are in video, that difference must be made up every second and this is done by process called 3:2 pull down which means that roughly every third frame is spread out over not two but three fields creating a motion blur artifact every third or second frame (3:2). This is a terribly annoying issue for editors who have to do clean green screen keys because there is no way to cleanly key out an object that is in two different places on the same frame. This is why an editor will always tell you to shoot 30FPS and a narrow shutter angle when doing green screen work. The motion blur artifact can be added in later if necessary but there is no way to get it out once it is baked into the file. The only other way around this is to edit on a 24P timeline and convert to 1080i as the final step. If there is no synch sound most of my green screen work is shot at 60 FPS just to give me those extra frames for a clean key.

But Green Screen aside, can the eye detect a motion blur artifact every third frame (1/10 of a second) or does it just make more sense to add a little more motion blur to every frame such as shooting at a 270 degree shutter instead of 180. You guys can argue this forever but for my money, lighting, lens choice, shutter angle and general production value are what create the film look for me.
 
JR Monteiro said:
For what it is worth, everything you see on television is 29.97 FPS whether it was shot in 24 (23.98) or 30 (29.97) FPS. Because that is our NTSC television standard. To take it a step further, the NTSC standard is actually not really 30 Frames Per Second but 60 Fields Per Second. A field is half a frame. Not the top half or the bottom half but actually an interlaced series of every other horizontal line on the television screen. To transfer film which was shot in 24 FPS to NTSC video at 30FPS it must go through a conversion process spreading out 24 frames over 60 fields. Since there are six less frames in Film than there are in video, that difference must be made up every second and this is done by process called 3:2 pull down which means that roughly every third frame is spread out over not two but three fields creating a motion blur artifact every third or second frame (3:2). This is a terribly annoying issue for editors who have to do clean green screen keys because there is no way to cleanly key out an object that is in two different places on the same frame. This is why an editor will always tell you to shoot 30FPS and a narrow shutter angle when doing green screen work. The motion blur artifact can be added in later if necessary but there is no way to get it out once it is baked into the file. The only other way around this is to edit on a 24P timeline and convert to 1080i as the final step. If there is no synch sound most of my green screen work is shot at 60 FPS just to give me those extra frames for a clean key.

But Green Screen aside, can the eye detect a motion blur artifact every third frame (1/10 of a second) or does it just make more sense to add a little more motion blur to every frame such as shooting at a 270 degree shutter instead of 180. You guys can argue this forever but for my money, lighting, lens choice, shutter angle and general production value are what create the film look for me.
Click to expand...

Nothing is mastered or shot in 1080i anymore. Just 24p and 1080p That progressive timeline is then converted to a 1080i container which is in turn de-interlaced back to 1080p24 or 1080p30 by your television. There is no such problem with those taking out greenscreen artifacts because there is no 1080i material to be found anywhere until the final transfer to the 1080i deliverable, which splits into fields, yes, but they both show half of the same point in time/same image.

Anyone shooting or doing effects in 1080i is grossly incompetent, plain and simple.
 
Rob Ruffo said:
Anyone shooting or doing effects in 1080i is grossly incompetent, plain and simple.
Click to expand...

Or they're working in live broadcast. Or live sports on any network not owned by Disney or Fox. Or live news. Fact is, there is a lot of production that is not post produced, is not entertainment oriented, and is not shot at 24 fps. And the people involved in those productions likely don't see themselves as "grossly incompetent," they just see themselves doing different types of productions than the ones you happen to work on.
 
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