Video for Sillls Mode Suggestion

[Andrew Gentle]

I was editing a wedding last night and came across some frames which would have made nice stills. The only problem was that the shutter speed of the camera caused too much motion blur. Then I thought to myself, what if RED could implement a mode in the upcoming DSMCs where the camera records a standard 180° shutter frame followed by another frame using a faster electronic shutter speed? Then you would have a stream of motion as well as a parallel stream of frames optimised for stills slightly offset in time. For example, if I were delivering a 25p motion master, the camera would shoot one frame at 1/50 and then could shoot an additional frame at 1/125 or 1/200. The data date would be equivalent to shooting 50 fps. The only issue I can think of is that the exposure would be tricky to manage since it wouldn't be possible to change the aperture that quickly. The exposure compensation would have to be made by the ISO. Hopefully the Mysterium-X or Monstro sensors would have enough dynamic range to make this viable. Shooting the motion stream at a low ISO and maybe even exposing slightly higher without clipping highlights would assist the process.

What do you think?

Just in case it's a great idea: Hybrid Shutter Mode © 2010 Andrew Gentle :wink:

 

[Ralph B.]

I asked about the general topic of making Photo/Cinema choices when you are shooting both at the same time. Obviously some of the magazine shoots that have recently used RED have brought this to the forefront. Ted Schilowitz recently talked about a feature in which you could tag a frame while shooting motion so that you could find that "moment."

I don't know if your proposal would be workable from a technological point of view. I also don't know what the video would look like in coming out of a system set up the way you propose. I don't know if anything but the 2/3" Scarlet would be able push that many frames through the body quickly enough since I believe S35 and FF Scarlets are 30fps systems.

I know I haven't added much to this thought but I do believe this will be an area of photography where the books have yet to be written. The choices made at capture will open up or shut down options on what can be done with footage. My personal thought is that if your going to be using both stills and motion to full effect you'll probably be shooting motion at a faster shutter speed and adding blur in post.

 

[Andrew Gentle]

I also don't know what the video would look like in coming out of a system set up the way you propose.

You would only monitor the video stream so it would look normal. It could record two R3D files in synchronous so the editing workflow remains unchanged.

I don't know if anything but the 2/3" Scarlet would be able push that many frames through the body quickly enough since I believe S35 and FF Scarlets are 30fps systems.

Good point, it could only really be supported on the 2/3" Scarlets and Epic

 

[Stephen Gentle]

I think it's a good idea, but you will have the problem in that you're exposing for the video's shutter speed, so your video file will look right but the file with the faster speed images will be underexposed and will need boosting, which would add noise.

 

[Andrew Gentle]

I think it's a good idea, but you will have the problem in that you're exposing for the video's shutter speed, so your video file will look right but the file with the faster speed images will be underexposed and will need boosting, which would add noise.

Which is why you need the new sensors for this to work. I'm not sure how to calculate the number of stops you lose from changing the shutter speed to, say, 40% of the original (shooting 1/125 stills with 1/50 video) but if you're shooting at ISO 320 motion you should be able to boost quite a way up (800, 1000, probably around two stops?) for your stills without too much noise. Does anyone know how to relate shutter speed to f/ stops?

EDIT: Reading from here, I see that the list of full stop shutter speeds are 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000 and they continue predictably from there. Apparently the rounding is for simplicity. Therefore, shooting 1/125 stills from 1/50 shutter speed about 1.3 stops of light loss (

), easily low enough to be recovered by grading a Mysterium-X sensor. Even shooting 1/200 stills from 1/50 video is only two stops.

 

[Shane Nassiri]

Seems like the tech isn't there yet in terms of being able to process essentially two streams of video simultaneously. You're basically saying shoot at 48fps (or whatever) and alternate settings between each frame, and split them up into two separate files

An earlier and easier implementation of this idea might be to be able to record video and hit a button to grab a still with specified still settings, in the manner that you suggest so that aperture would not be affected and the video stream would be uninterrupted. That way you wouldn't have to cull through 24fps of stills either (although some might like that, I suppose).

I think it's much more likely though, that we see some event videography with high shutter speeds For things like weddings, it may not be a big deal really since there isn't much action, other than dancing.

 

[David Rasberry]

However one chooses to approach this problem, experimenting with different settings is going to be a lot of fun.:thumbsup:

 

[Nuno Ribeiro]

Fire Up

Fire Up

Yesterday I filmed a fire in the middle of a dinner party with friends, took the camera out of the bag at that instant, thats mainly why I carry it around in this occasions, for what might just come around the corner and that made me think about the startup time for Scarlet and Epic. Although Scarlet could be faster (speculating) I wonder if it could be done for either one a mode where a simpler Set of settings and less options could be chosen as the startup Mode, In order to let this cameras fire up quickly, when carried around in this casual and less predictive manner. I know this has been discussed somewhat but still it seems in all my ignorance that a Basic Software Basic Capabilities Mode could be an option, up to a restart in Full Mode.

 

[David Rasberry]

I think they are planning on a low power standby or sleep mode for instant on.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

Seems like the tech isn't there yet in terms of being able to process essentially two streams of video simultaneously. You're basically saying shoot at 48fps (or whatever) and alternate settings between each frame, and split them up into two separate files.

If a Scarlet 2/3" can handle shooting 120fps at 3K, why wouldn't it be able to shoot two streams of 24 or 25fps? It would pretty much be the same as shooting 48 or 50p, but the other stream would just have the shutter open for less time... Given that the shutter is electronic, that should be no big deal.

 

[Shane Nassiri]

I don't think it's so much the sensor as it is being able to process and write two streams of video.

But hey, if it can be pulled off, that'd make for some sweet sports shooting.