Newbie Help - Shutter Speed vs. 24p

[eubanks01]

So forgive me but how does shutter speed work in relations to video. I understand photography, but I am BRAND new to video.

So if you are shooting in 24p isn't that 24 frames per second? How many other "frames per second" do you have as options?

So if I set my camera to shutter priority and a SS of 1/100 but I'm shooting 24 frames per second, what does that mean? Does it mean that at 1/100 I could theoretically shoot 100 frames per second? But since I'm at 24 fps my shutter basically records for 1/100 of a second 24 times per second. Is that right?

Sorry for the stupid newbie question.

[lordtangent]

Think of it in terms of your still camera. It's just a still camera that happens to shoots 24 times a second!

The shutter speed means exactly the same thing is does on a still camera. It's the time the shutter is open when taking a single frame.

On video cameras, changing the shutter speed does not change the frame rate. You are always shooting at 24fps.


On film cameras, because the shutter and film transport are mechanically linked, changing the FRAME RATE changes the shutter speed. YOu can also change the shutter speed by adjusting the "angle" of the shutter on many film cameras. (some only have a fixed angle though) But that's with film cameras.

[eubanks01]

Ok, thanks!

So it's impossible to shoot a slower shutter speed than frame rate right? I mean you can't shoot with a shutter speed of 1/30 but at a frame rate of 60 frames per second right?

[Ian-T]

Ok, thanks!

So it's impossible to shoot a slower shutter speed than frame rate right? I mean you can't shoot with a shutter speed of 1/30 but at a frame rate of 60 frames per second right?

You must mean 60 fields per second (the HV20 does not shoot 60 frames per second)...but anyways..yes you can shoot at a slower shutter speed than your frame rate with this and many other camcorders. For example at 24p (24 frames per second) you can shoot 1/12 and 1/6 shutter (I don't have my cam right now....but I'm sure someone could verify this). At 60i you can shoot 1/30th shutter...1/15 etc.

[lordtangent]

Yes. That's correct. How the camera deals with it is by simply holding one frame (on tape) to represent the whole time the shutter was open. So in effect you can actually reduce the effective frame rate by using longer than the frame rate shutter speeds.

It's a nice trick to get the proper motion blur on shots that are supposed to be "undercranked". You just need to remove the extra frames in post to speed up the play back.