Setting Shutter Speed For Video
Often when you hear people talk about the technical specs of a film they focus on frame rate and resolution size. I mean who can blame them, 4K is pretty exciting! But there’s another huge factor that comes into play when shooting your film, and that’s shutter speed.
Shutter speed can affect the way your footage looks. For example, it can help you make the audience feel more on edge, like Saving Private Ryan famously did with a high shutter speed. Or you can make your audience feel like they are in a dream-like state, like Amelie did with a low shutter speed. So let’s go over setting shutter speed for video and what exactly shutter speed is.
Now, not to get too nerdy on you, but shutter speed is basically, the amount of time the camera shutter is open to expose light onto your camera’s sensor for each frame of your video. And because of that, different shutter speeds can affect how your video displays motion blur.
Motion blur is the result of a blurred edge that appears on the edge of objects or people moving in a scene and having a little bit of motion blur to your films will make them feel more natural to the human eye, as we normally see motion blur in real life.
Basically higher shutter speeds result in a crisper image with less motion blur because your camera sensor is being exposed to less light. This makes every detail sharp which can make the image feel intense. This makes it a favorite of war and action films.
On the other hand, lower shutter speeds result in a less sharp image and a lot of motion blur because your camera sensor is being exposed to more light. This extra blurring effect can feel surreal, which often is used to illustrate a dream like state or drug trip in films.
An easy way to remember this is by thinking about photography. When you see a photo taken at high shutter speed everything in the image is clear and sharp.
However, when you see a photo taken at a low shutter speed, the moving elements of the photo will appear blurry while the static elements will appear crisp and clear. Video is the same as photography, except it’s several images being played back at once to create a film.
Now this is all good and fun, but most of the time what you’re looking for is a shutter speed that looks normal to the human eye, and luckily for you there’s a super easy video rule that dictates just that. Basically, when shooting video you just want to make sure your shutter speed is double your frame rate.
So for example, if you’re shooting 24 frames per second you’d want a shutter speed of 50. While if you’re shooting 30 frames per second, you’d want a shutter speed of 60.
Same goes for all you pal shooters out there. Just double your frame rate to get your shutter speed. This will result in a crisp image with just enough motion blur to make it look normal to the human eye.
Now you’re probably good enough at math to realize 24 plus 24 equals 48, not 50, but unfortunately most cameras don’t offer that as a shutter speed, and 50 is so close it will work just fine.
Now that you know these tips, your film is sure to be crisp with just the right amount of blurry.
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