cinematography Why does 24fps look choppy?

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harmonica44

It doesn't show up on youtube or a smaller screen but 24 fps does look choppy when blown up. Basically the room vibrates when I pan and tilt the camera. It only happens on 24p though. Is this okay, or do is this a DSLR thing that I need to do something in post to look more professional?
 
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Okay thanks. It was spotted by two people so I thought it was a problem. They only noticed it on those two shots though where they are no people in the shot to focus on, so it's probably more noticeable in those types of shots.

As far as rolling shutter, is it okay during an action sequence, to move the camera as fast as I want, as long as their is something to focus on? Not so fast that's incoherent, but fast.
 
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The best way to find out if something is 'okay' is to test it. Test the moves you want, and look at them and see if you think they look 'okay'.

Sometimes fast movement can look fine, other times not..
 
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Hey, buddy. No offence, but.....

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Get a good story, and stop your heavy breathing over "chops". You have way bigger problems than trying to figure out why you have a chopping image (which is, by the way, caused by your processor unable to process image fast enough, causing a frame lag).

stop creeping in a garage and make a coherent short movie.
 
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harmonica44 said:
...how are we suppose to make goodlooking stylistic movies, if we can't even do what the pros do in their camera movements?
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We're not.

We have to do our best. DSLR's can give us fantastic images, but with all their issues we become limited. We need to work within those limits and produce the best piece of work we can. If your film is good, your audience will look past few technical issues like this.
 
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Films cost money for a reason. The reason is not extravagant lunches and star assistants (though that makes up some of the budget on bigger movies).

You can't compete with pros on $0. You can barely compete on $100,000. That's the whole point behind 'working within your limitations'. You can't compete, no. That's why you don't see low budget action blockbusters because they simply don't have the money to pull it off. That does not mean that you cannot make a good movie, you simply need to work with what you have and find the best way of telling the story you want to tell using what you have to tell it.

If that means you can't pan too fast or it'll look like sh*t, then hey - you won't be able to pan too fast unless you wnat it to look like that. Little things like that have pretty much 0 bearing on the film itself - you will never hear someone say 'oh man, that film could've been so much better if only they panned that little bit quicker every time they tried to do a whip pan'. What you will hear is 'boy those whip pans were way too fast, I felt sick every time it happened'.
 
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But a lot of pro movies do fast pans while shooting at 24p. Like even Sam Raimi has done movies like that for example. So is it acceptable on my camera, the T2i then? What if I want to do a fast one for effect?
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Sam Raimi uses equipment that is slightly (sarcasm) better than your rebel camera.

What if I want to pan fast though for effect?
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Then pan for effect. Just make sure you're operating within the limits of your equipment. I'm not sure if you've taken the time to learn how CMOS sensors work to capture pictures, but I feel if you understand this, it could help you understand some of the potential problems you're having with your panning. As Jax said, shutter speed is another factor.

I want to do a shootout in the parking garage, and want some of the shots to be fast pans and tilts. Other shots I want to do fast tracking steadicam shots, as the actors run.
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Are you sure you're not better off doing the sequence with a cut or a mild pan/dolly instead of a wild wiplash pan that may cause 1 in 3 of the population to feel motion sickness? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_sickness)
 
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Some of those pans are going to encompass how many frames? 15? 20? Certainly less then a second? Why not do a mild pan, and speed up a tad in post? There are ways to do things, you just have to plan and think creatively. Certainly the "fix it in post" route isn't always the best. But if you're planning it out correctly, then it's not a "fix".
 
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i'm not sure how, but i am able to pan fast with my t2i and not get jello. i only get the jello effect if the camera wobbles (never during a take, only if the camera is on when we're repositioning it)
 
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Practice your pans. They start and stop, which makes the motion blur lengthen and shorten every time there's a pacing change on the pan/tilt. The change in length of the normal motion blur is what you're seeing.

re: 60i > 24p ... is he on crack? Those days went away with the advent of being able to capture in 24p. Tell him 2010 has come and gone and to move on with the technology. Yes, it'll smooth out the footage, but it will introduce SOOOOO many other issues that you'll have to open your own section in the forum just to handle those.
 
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knightly said:
Practice your pans. They start and stop, which makes the motion blur lengthen and shorten every time there's a pacing change on the pan/tilt. The change in length of the normal motion blur is what you're seeing.

re: 60i > 24p ... is he on crack? Those days went away with the advent of being able to capture in 24p. Tell him 2010 has come and gone and to move on with the technology. Yes, it'll smooth out the footage, but it will introduce SOOOOO many other issues that you'll have to open your own section in the forum just to handle those.
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Exactly. And I watched that video. I have gotten good pans as long as I practice, and don't need the rubber band. My tripod was a couple of hundred dollars more though, and a fluid head, if that one in the video is one or not.

Well it seems that if no one really cares about judder blur, then it's okay. As far as jello goes, I too cannot see it, unless the camera is actually violently shuffled. If I can spin the camera without shuffling it, I don't see jello. Is Jello a problem on DSLRs, or is it on digital movie cameras as well? The same DP has a digital movie camera we can use if he is willing to do it.

I know I can't get the same types of moves as prose, but I keep getting constantly stuck in the storyboards since I don't know what I can and cannot handle. I will get a DP for it later, and I suppose he can tell me what he can and cannot do later to help me storyboard, but it's nice to show a DP storyboards ahead of time to see what they can and cannot do to, to know if they are the right DP for you.
 
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Well it seems that if no one really cares about judder blur, then it's okay. As far as jello goes, I too cannot see it, unless the camera is actually violently shuffled. If I can spin the camera without shuffling it, I don't see jello. Is Jello a problem on DSLRs, or is it on digital movie cameras as well? The same DP has a digital movie camera we can use if he is willing to do it.
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Are you still talking about Rolling shutter? If so, it's a recurring problem in cmos based cameras. I read that even Red cameras even had this issue until they put out a firmware update reducing the issue. It's based on how cmos technology captures the images.... 1 pixel at a time. If you're moving the camera too fast for it to capture the whole picture, you're going to have potential issues. If you have a lot of vertical lines in your frame, it's more noticeable. Hence you'll notice it more in a carpark or a home than you would on a beach. Well that's my understanding on the topic. Who knows, I could be wrong.

That's why I say, test, test, test. Test to see if what you want to do will work with what you have to work with.
 
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