30fps or 60fps ?

[RonanCork]

Hi Guys,

I'm a Mavic 3 Pro:

I'm going to be shooting some footage - photo and mostly video for a local golf club.

I've an idea on the types of shots I'd like to shoot get but wanted to get some POI ones of a player taking a shot etc. also

I was going to record in 60fps (4k) for that. Am I right in thinking that slowing down or speeding up (i.e. like a speed ramp) footage "looks better/smoother" when shot in 60fps

In the case maybe I'll record all my footage in 60fps.

Any advantage/disadvantage to this?

Any guidance would be great!

Thanks Ro

 

[Yaros]

Am I right in thinking that slowing down or speeding up (i.e. like a speed ramp) footage "looks better/smoother" when shot in 60fps

Yes, slowing down footage you definitely need 60FPS.
I almost always record in 60FPS.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

We are a firm believer in 60 Frames as you can get some really nice clean Frames to Export from in the timeline.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain an. Capture the Storm

 

[akdrone]

Agreed on 60fps. I often fly quite slowly and speed UP the images to double their speed in FCP but 60fps also lets me slow them down by 2x without any problem. Just be sure you are shooting manually for both white balance and exposure so your subject doesn't get dark when you spin around facing the sun and then brighten back up in the other direction. Also ensure your shutter speed is 120 with the proper use of ND filters if you want some realistic blur on the club as it swings. If you want a sharp, clean club (understandably a potential option) then ensure a very fast shutter speed by NOT using an ND filter and locking in a high shutter speed in the Pro exposure settings that you use.

 

[BobaFut]

I could be confused, but shooting 60fps won't really be helpful when speeding up footage, just slowing it down. But other than being stuck at 4K on the 20MP camera, it's not like shooting at 60fps really costs you anything.

I actually shot a golf event recently and didn't bother with trying for slo-mo on anything. Part of that was because it was a big event where I was hired by the organizers, but it wasn't like all the teams were informed that a drone would be buzzing around them, so I was trying to keep my distance. IMO, slo-mo is kinda pointless unless you're filling most of the frame with the subject. I mostly focused on photos with my drone and then my handheld camera for "action" shots (both photo and video). The value of the drone in the event I did was to highlight the setting (a course up in the mountains), but I didn't find it all too useful for action. But your mileage may vary.

I just tend to stick to 30fps unless I have a specific plan for 60fps footage because I shoot on multiple cameras and Premier can get a little fussy when editing clips from different frame rates and it's easier to just keep everything uniform.

 

[ryguy80]

If you are using the drone footage as part of a YouTube video or film, then it's more personal preference on frame rate. 60 fps will get you the smoothness and 30 fps will give you a more cinema-like feel.

I'm more apt to do timelapses with my drone footage then slow it down. Slow-mo seems better suited for action cameras.

 

[Droning on and on...]

I could be confused, but shooting 60fps won't really be helpful when speeding up footage, just slowing it down. But other than being stuck at 4K on the 20MP camera, it's not like shooting at 60fps really costs you anything.

Only file size, if that's a consideration, and these days usually isn't.

My philosophy is never leave behind material you could have captured. If it makes no difference always shoot highest resolution, highest framerate. You can always throw away detail if the final product needs to be 1080p, for example, and can easily go from 60 to 30 fps if needed for the capabilities of the output device by tossing every other frame.

What you can't do is convert a 1080p/30fps capture to 4K/60 and gain the spatial and temporal resolution. It will look the same.

 

[brett8883]

I do think shooting at a higher can help make sped up footage look smoother. Say you speed up to 12 fps. Well 30 doesn't divide by 12 so you’ll have missing frames and every 3rd frame will be blended. If you shot in 60 fps, however, you have all the frames. even if you don’t have all the frames, using optical flow on 60 fps tends to work better than 30fps.

The main downside to shooting 60fps is that you have to use a higher shutter speed for the same shutter angle and this is a major draw back in low light.

Also, sometimes the sensor will readout in a lower bit depth or a different readout mode at higher frame rates but we don’t really know if that is the case for the M3

 

[EssenYVR]

I could be confused, but shooting 60fps won't really be helpful when speeding up footage, just slowing it down. But other than being stuck at 4K on the 20MP camera, it's not like shooting at 60fps really costs you anything.

I think that @akdrone's point was that shooting at 60fps means you can easily go both ways - speed the footage up or slow it down.

With powerful post-production tools like DaVinci Resolve your choice of frame rate and even shutter speed is often less critical than it was for previous generations of videographers. Resolve lets you add motion blur to sequences if they need it, which can be handy if you decide at editing time to speed up footage that you didn't think was going to need it.

And it can interpolate frames to slow down motion as well. Of course if you want a dramatic amount of slowdown then it helps to start with as high a frame rate as possible.

 

[Droning on and on...]

And it can interpolate frames to slow down motion as well. Of course if you want a dramatic amount of slowdown then it helps to start with as high a frame rate as possible.

Interpolation is fake material. That may or may not be important, depending on the application. Here's they key point: You may not know until after shooting.

Nothing wrong with Interpolation for many if not most applications. However, if you can shoot 4K/60 you should... You're only giving up some GB, and years later may be thanking the Video Gods you did.

 

[akdrone]

I think that @akdrone's point was that shooting at 60fps means you can easily go both ways - speed the footage up or slow it down.

Exactly so. If I were making "movies" and was really concerned with meaningful motion blur I'd stick with a lower frame rate but I'm much more interested in the flexibility that 60fps provides in allowing me to slow or speed up my footage. I often fly too slow or faster than I want, particularly in terms of matching it up to the desired length of the video. I shoot landscape videos almost exclusively here in Alaska. Flying across a forest at 7mph, changed to 14 often works fine and if I want to have a short cut that I want to match to the length of some music, dropping the speed by half can be really useful with zero sense of it even being slowmo. It will look exactly like I was simply flying slower, even if I am close to treetop level. For me, shooting at 60 works well but admittedly others doing more serious cinema may only be happy shooting at 24fps so we all have to choose a frame rate based on our own video subjects and plans. On rare occasions when I -know- I may want some motion blur I'll shoot at 30 with a shutter of 60 but that's unusual for me. Common for others as their needs dictate.

 

[hidaven]

Exactly so. If I were making "movies" and was really concerned with meaningful motion blur I'd stick with a lower frame rate but I'm much more interested in the flexibility that 60fps provides in allowing me to slow or speed up my footage. I often fly too slow or faster than I want, particularly in terms of matching it up to the desired length of the video. I shoot landscape videos almost exclusively here in Alaska. Flying across a forest at 7mph, changed to 14 often works fine and if I want to have a short cut that I want to match to the length of some music, dropping the speed by half can be really useful with zero sense of it even being slowmo. It will look exactly like I was simply flying slower, even if I am close to treetop level. For me, shooting at 60 works well but admittedly others doing more serious cinema may only be happy shooting at 24fps so we all have to choose a frame rate based on our own video subjects and plans. On rare occasions when I -know- I may want some motion blur I'll shoot at 30 with a shutter of 60 but that's unusual for me. Common for others as their needs dictate.

Hi! So I want to speed up (speed ramp) my drone shots like you but I want to keep some nice natural looking blur. 30 fps looks good to me running at 30fps but what happens if I add 30% speed ramp increase to that orig. 30fps? Do I lose my orig. natural blur? Id shoot in 60fps but it doesnt look as natural flying over the ground.....And then if I add 30% more speed in post it might really look to computerized. Thoughts??

 

[akdrone]

Hi! So I want to speed up (speed ramp) my drone shots like you but I want to keep some nice natural looking blur. 30 fps looks good to me running at 30fps but what happens if I add 30% speed ramp increase to that orig. 30fps? Do I lose my orig. natural blur? Id shoot in 60fps but it doesnt look as natural flying over the ground.....And then if I add 30% more speed in post it might really look to computerized. Thoughts??

How well your motion blur maintains itself if you speed up the film will depend on the NLE you use but with any of the better NLE's it will not be a problem. The real problem ( I don't think I made the point well or at all) with shooting at 24 or 30pfs is "judder". Professional filmakers plan their shots meticulously when they are panning a scene. They know their equipment and panning speeds needed to not induce what we call judder. We will never be able to mimic a camera with a mechanical shutter on a tripod panning at a known rate and thus you see a -lot- footage with judder. The creation of judder is actually a very complicated thing and involves several components. We have only control of 1) shutter speed and 2) panning speed 2) frame rate. With drones that have no variable aperture our shutter speed doesn't even allow much choice since we really should not be shooting at high ISO with our tiny sensors. Our panning speed is always pretty much fixed as around 7sec for a frame (or should be in that area as a default) and not much faster or judder will become a factor -almost- regardless of fps so fps definitely becomes an issue. I found early on that in spite of my best efforts so try to pan slowly I was getting pretty significant judder at 30fps and that was also a big reason I moved to 60 as a default. Even that does not ensure no judder but it has helped a great deal and I rarely complain about my own footage like I used to...at least with respect to judder. If you are not somebody like me that very often pans across an area, it is not really a concern and would play no part in deciding whether to use 24/30/ or 60. For those that do landscapes and tend to pan from side to side there is a lot of information on the 'net regarding judder. Surprise surprise.