180 rule. Fact or fantasy? I put it to the test.

[BigglesPippa]

I expect a lot of controversy over this video. But the proof is in the pudding, if you dont believe my findings, try it for yourself. Once you embrace this, you will be liberated. No more iffy footage trying to live by a century old "rule". No more unnecessary messing around with filters. You can get out, fly, and enjoy yourdelf!

Happy flying and have a good weekend.

Let me know what you think in the comments?

 

[SmilingOgre]

Cinematic is in the eye of the beholder. It has become anything a producer wants to project on a theater screen. Steven Spielberg shot Saving Private Ryan with a 45° shutter angle to make the action, especially explosions more crisp. Many clips of 8bit mirrorless footage are creeping in to "cinema" as well as even the world according to GoPro as we find ourselves looking out of the bottom of a bucket. Producers use the tools at hand and consider all possibilities from what I can tell. Handheld shaky footage is also becoming common to show chaos and action. There's sill plenty of traditional 180 rule, Arri and Red footage, along with film footage out there but times are a changin.

Personally, I don't like the word. It's too overused and ambiguous. Iphone is claiming cinematic because they now use a prores wrapper. I love the differences between my cameras and what each is best at. I love different lenses and the character of each. I love techniques that are smooth and flow well. I love the different feels color grading can produce. I still can't define cinema.

 

[brett8883]

I expect a lot of controversy over this video. But the proof is in the pudding, if you dont believe my findings, try it for yourself. Once you embrace this, you will be liberated. No more iffy footage trying to live by a century old "rule". No more unnecessary messing around with filters. You can get out, fly, and enjoy yourdelf!

Happy flying and have a good weekend.

Let me know what you think in the comments?

It just depends on how fast objects are moving and how close they are to the camera. Shutter angle also portrays a certain subconscious feeling that can’t be seen In a comparison.

180 degrees is just a standard amount of motion blur. If an object is moving really fast you’ll need more motion blur ie longer shutter speed. There is nothing moving quickly or close to the camera in your video so you can get away with a faster shutter speed without odd artifacts. Do one of a car driving quickly through the frame, a runner, a bicyclist, fly close to the ground and then let me know what you see. 180 degree rule is just a good neutral starting point. It’s a “rule of thumb” nobody ever said it was a law.

Also rolling shutter isn’t affected by shutter speed. Two different concepts. Rolling shutter is constant and doesn’t change.

The reason for this is because there is time between when one frame has finished being exposed and the next frame starts being exposed. This hasn’t changed with modern high tech cameras or 4k so it’s just as applicable not as it was 75 years ago.

Here are two clips to which do a pretty good job of showing the two extremes. Notice the runners arms as they get closer to the camera. Notice that it doesn’t matter when they are far away.

(Edit: I guess you’ll have to click the button to watch the videos. It won’t let me embed them)


45 degree shutter

360 degree shutter

 

[BigglesPippa]

Cinematic is in the eye of the beholder. It has become anything a producer wants to project on a theater screen. Steven Spielberg shot Saving Private Ryan with a 45° shutter angle to make the action, especially explosions more crisp. Many clips of 8bit mirrorless footage are creeping in to "cinema" as well as even the world according to GoPro as we find ourselves looking out of the bottom of a bucket. Producers use the tools at hand and consider all possibilities from what I can tell. Handheld shaky footage is also becoming common to show chaos and action. There's sill plenty of traditional 180 rule, Arri and Red footage, along with film footage out there but times are a changin.

Personally, I don't like the word. It's too overused and ambiguous. Iphone is claiming cinematic because they now use a prores wrapper. I love the differences between my cameras and what each is best at. I love different lenses and the character of each. I love techniques that are smooth and flow well. I love the different feels color grading can produce. I still can't define cinema.

I think a lot of people obsess about the 180 rule and as a result end up with over exposed or under exposed footage by trying to stick to it. The message I want to get across. Is expose correctly, even if that means breaking the 180 rule. And as you said, choose a shutter speed that suits your artistic intent.

 

[BigglesPippa]

It just depends on how fast objects are moving and how close they are to the camera. Shutter angle also portrays a certain subconscious feeling that can’t be seen In a comparison.

180 degrees is just a standard amount of motion blur. If an object is moving really fast you’ll need more motion blur ie longer shutter speed. There is nothing moving quickly or close to the camera in your video so you can get away with a faster shutter speed without odd artifacts. Do one of a car driving quickly through the frame, a runner, a bicyclist, fly close to the ground and then let me know what you see. 180 degree rule is just a good neutral starting point. It’s a “rule of thumb” nobody ever said it was a law.

Also rolling shutter isn’t affected by shutter speed. Two different concepts. Rolling shutter is constant and doesn’t change.

The reason for this is because there is time between when one frame has finished being exposed and the next frame starts being exposed. This hasn’t changed with modern high tech cameras or 4k so it’s just as applicable not as it was 100 years ago.

Here are two clips to which do a pretty good job of showing the two extremes. Notice the runners arms as they get closer to the camera. Notice that it doesn’t matter when they are far away.

(Edit: I guess you’ll have to click the button to watch the videos. It won’t let me embed them)


45 degree shutter

360 degree shutter

The message I wanted to get across in the video is that you should expose correctly rather than sticking to the 180 rule and ending up under or over exposing. Moving away from the 180 rule by a couple of stops really won’t be noticeable.

My understanding of rolling shutter is the jello effect so I may have used an incorrect term. What I was referring to was the effect where the top of the frame is out of sync with the bottom of the frame where the shutter speed isn’t sufficient to freeze the action.

 

[timsewell]

My understanding of rolling shutter is the jello effect so I may have used an incorrect term. What I was referring to was the effect where the top of the frame is out of sync with the bottom of the frame where the shutter speed isn’t sufficient to freeze the action.

That's almost correct, but is independent of shutter speed. The sensor is read out sequentially, usually from top to bottom, into the processing pipeline. Something moving fast across your field of view is likely, with slower readouts, to have moved some distance between the point where the readout starts and when it finishes, resulting in the classic skewed, Jello effect. Changing the shutter speed has no effect on this as readout speed is the same, no matter what the shutter speed (and obviously it would be impossible to set a shutter speed faster than the sensor readout speed).

The classic demonstration of this is shooting footage where camera flashes are being used, as the flash's duration is less than the readout speed, leading to a band at the top of the image that is illuminated by the flash, while the lower portion - read out after the flash has finished - is illuminated only by the ambient light.

 

[BigglesPippa]

That's almost correct, but is independent of shutter speed. The sensor is read out sequentially, usually from top to bottom, into the processing pipeline. Something moving fast across your field of view is likely, with slower readouts, to have moved some distance between the point where the readout starts and when it finishes, resulting in the classic skewed, Jello effect. Changing the shutter speed has no effect on this as readout speed is the same, no matter what the shutter speed (and obviously it would be impossible to set a shutter speed faster than the sensor readout speed).

The classic demonstration of this is shooting footage where camera flashes are being used, as the flash's duration is less than the readout speed, leading to a band at the top of the image that is illuminated by the flash, while the lower portion - read out after the flash has finished - is illuminated only by the ambient ligh

Thank you. Do you have a YouTube channel? Pop the link in here if you don’t mind. and I’ll sub and check out your content

 

[brett8883]

I think a lot of people obsess about the 180 rule and as a result end up with over exposed or under exposed footage by trying to stick to it. The message I want to get across. Is expose correctly, even if that means breaking the 180 rule. And as you said, choose a shutter speed that suits your artistic intent.

Exposing properly is a completely different concept to shutter angle. You need expose properly regardless of shutter angle

 

[slup]

For me:

Exposure --> Should obviously be correct according to what you want to achieve.

Cinematic --> equal to how you see it with your eyes in reality.

180 degree rule --> gives approx the same motion blur as your eyes see it in reality.

Motion blur --> More important when flying faster close to objects ... or fast moving objects pass close by. Start to be a factor to consider when the distance to objects are closer than 30m.

When flying my "camera platform" drone, the distance to objects usually are on a distance that means that I rarely consider motion blur ... further more the speed usually are low, again making it unnecessary to complicate thing's by mod the motion blur. So ... very rarely fiddle around with ND filters & manual shutter settings here.

When flying my FPV quads with a GoPro on the other hand ... it's very different. The speeds usually are from 70km/h up over 100km/h, this together with very short distances to ground & objects ... down as low as centimetres. On top of all this, a lot of quick quad movements. Here it's really mandatory to manage the motion blur. Following the 180 degree rule gives here just to much motion blur actually ... you feel that you're gone puke when looking at it. I'm using 90 degree shutter instead, that gives a sweet spot where the blur really show the speed but isn't so excessive that you get dizzy. Always use ND's on the GoPro & lock the shutter to get consistent exposure & motion blur.

 

[CorralesDan]

I just watched that video last night. I'm not as knowledgeable as some who have already posted, but it made me think it's worth exploring. I'm kind of a simple person and I like the idea of focusing on just getting the exposure right. Great topic to discuss and thanks for all the knowledge shared so far.

 

[timsewell]

180 degree rule --> gives approx the same motion blur as your eyes see it in reality.

Almost - your eyes don't see motion blur in real life. It's the amount of blur we are culturally conditioned to view as realistic due to exposure, from an early age, to footage shot... conforming to the 180deg shutter rule!

The origin of that is probably that 180 deg was in fact the maximum angle that could be achieved with a rotary shutter and cinematographers in the earliest days of film needed to get as much light as possible onto their extremely slow film stocks.

 

[slup]

Almost - your eyes don't see motion blur in real life. It's the amount of blur we are culturally conditioned to view as realistic due to exposure...

I rephrase it ... for me the expression "180 degree shutter angle" isn't a technical thing or something I'm used to see in a movie ... it means, in most cases, motion blur on a level where it feels, looks & makes motion natural, as if I were looking at it in real life, it looks unmodified.

 

[eEridani]

Our eyes do in fact see motion blur. Our brains are just very good at hiding that fact. Similar to how the brain hides our blind spots, retinal damage, and performing color correction. Blur can get pretty significant as visual purple flows across the retina, but even without visual purple the human eye is still a chemical process where the photoelectric effect occurs over time.

 

[Ty Pilot]

I think a lot of people obsess about the 180 rule and as a result end up with over exposed or under exposed footage by trying to stick to it. The message I want to get across. Is expose correctly, even if that means breaking the 180 rule. And as you said, choose a shutter speed that suits your artistic intent.

I think a lot of folks that are new to videography may hear of the 180 rule and find that it makes it harder for them to get exposure right and eventually give up on it because they see no difference. As already mentioned, a high flying drone is probably the least likely situation that a high shutter speed will have a degrading effect on the overall video.

But that does not mean that the fundamentals of film making are no longer valid.

Also the 180 degree 'rule' does not state that you 'must shoot at 24 fps and a shutter of 1/50th'. Rather it is simply twice any given frame rate. Modern video/film cameras actually display shutter speed in degrees and the camera changes shutter speed based on FPS. On my GH5 I can change FPS on the fly and the shutter is automatically set to 180 degree's.

 

[RobW01]

As others have said, if you’re flying high enough, or far enough away from a moving subject…
I have clients (mostly real estate and land regeneration projects) who want sharpness over blur.
In my view, ‘cinematic’ is the most over-used term in drone videography, especially if your video is aimed at social media or outlets such as YouTube.

 

[SmilingOgre]

I have clients (mostly real estate and land regeneration projects) who want sharpness over blur.

Perfectly legal to increase frame rate and or decrease shutter angle to get a more crisp image.

 

[BigglesPippa]

Exposing properly is a completely different concept to shutter angle. You need expose properly regardless of shutter angle

Exactly.

 

[BigglesPippa]

I just watched that video last night. I'm not as knowledgeable as some who have already posted, but it made me think it's worth exploring. I'm kind of a simple person and I like the idea of focusing on just getting the exposure right. Great topic to discuss and thanks for all the knowledge shared so far.

There are a lot of videos out there that insist you must always expose at twice the frame rate. Cynically, so that they can sell nd filters. A lot of people had commented to me that they can’t get the best exposure because of the 180 rule. So I made the video to show that the 180 rule isn’t critical. ALLWAYS aim for correct exposure!

 

[BigglesPippa]

I rephrase it ... for me the expression "180 degree shutter angle" isn't a technical thing or something I'm used to see in a movie ... it means, in most cases, motion blur on a level where it feels, looks & makes motion natural, as if I were looking at it in real life, it looks unmodified.

Could you see a difference in the motion blur of the 4 clips in my video?

 

[BigglesPippa]

I think a lot of folks that are new to videography may hear of the 180 rule and find that it makes it harder for them to get exposure right and eventually give up on it because they see no difference. As already mentioned, a high flying drone is probably the least likely situation that a high shutter speed will have a degrading effect on the overall video.

But that does not mean that the fundamentals of film making are no longer valid.

Also the 180 degree 'rule' does not state that you 'must shoot at 24 fps and a shutter of 1/50th'. Rather it is simply twice any given frame rate. Modern video/film cameras actually display shutter speed in degrees and the camera changes shutter speed based on FPS. On my GH5 I can change FPS on the fly and the shutter is automatically set to 180 degree's.

View attachment 142373

I agree that the 24fps isn’t part of the 180 rule. I included it in the video as it is also a common misconception that 24fps is the go to frame rate. Frame rate should be chosen based upon the subject matter and artistic intent.