Yeah, that was vague. The agreement was with Gonzo's comments directly above my post.
I typed a sort of opinionated response about the YT clip sample, then realized I was essentially repeating myself. I figure by now CF already knows how I feel about technicals. We've been down that road so I edited my post. Regarding shutter speeds though:
Shutter speed should be set to whatever is appropriate for your image. Why I can't have a true 1/48 shutter at 24fps on some cameras still baffles me to this day. I've used 1/60 to reduce flicker from various objects, AC LED xmas lights for example. 1/50 is close enough to 1/48, but it still looks a little funny to me. If you are going for a specific look, then shutter speed manipulation is appropriate. If you are over or undercranking, then adjustments to shutter are also necessary.
Shutter speed (IMO) should NEVER be used to compensate for exposure so you can open the lens to where you want it. And yeah, no offense intended here, but it does look amateurish,
from a photographic standpoint. Combine that with the wobblevision in that clip and, from a technical and technique standpoint I don't like the image. Use ND if you are outside and want more breathing room to open up the lens.
All of that is ONLY to critique technical aspects. I was just looking at the image only, not the content, acting, cuts or anything else. In fact, I watched it purposely without sound so I could more closely examne the image. On that subject, when the image suffers from a disregard for basic motion picture photographic technique - then the rest of the film has to work
that much harder to overcome the drawback. No lights, fine, whatever, do the best you can with that. No crew, no problem. But please, for the love of film making, at least use the tools at your disposal creatively, not because it was a perceived shortcut to get a shallower field in broad daylight. Nothing at all wrong with adjusting shutter speed to purposely mis-match against frame rate. But do it BECAUSE you want the look, don't simply accept the look because it got you something else that you could have gotten properly relatively easily.
The wobblevision from the handheld is bad enough. Not much to be done about that, it's a CMOS camera, but think of it this way. If there is a couple millimiters of wobble in an object on a 20" monitor, then it is 3x more movement when viewed on a 60" monitor and 10x more than that on a 50 foot screen. The shutter adjustments just exacerbate the problem IMO. (all numbers approximate)
But I'm an image guy. I like cameras, I like lighting, I like shooting, I like telling stories and making statements by visual means. I'm working my a$$ to build a career as a DoP. I'm not a director or a writer. I pay attention to these kinds of things. If my goals were different (make a feature by any means necessary), then maybe I would feel differently.
