I am a photographer...not a videographer! Could someone refer me to some real basic but GOOD material on the basics of videography as it applies to drones. I know there's tons of stuff on YouTube but my brain hurts just trying to browse through all the material! Or if there's someone on here that would be willing to help me out with the basics ??
Thanks!
I was in the same boat so here’s some of the things I’ve learned about the major differences between the two.
Time(Frame Rate and Playback Speed):
The way a video camera works is it will take a series of pictures which are then played back to create a “moving picture.” This is because the human brain can only process so much information and even though the pictures taken by the video camera have some missing information between pictures, if the pictures are played back quickly enough the brain still perceives this as continuous motion. It’s widely understood that it’s about 15 frames per second is the minimum playback speed at which the brain will perceive video as motion rather than individual photos.
Having said this the brain will still perceive this as choppy motion. You may have seen old silent films where it looks like everything is moving too quickly and doesn’t look like SMOOTH motion. This is particularly apparent in high motion sequences.
This is due to the fact that these films were shot at 15fps because video cameras at the time were not capable of much faster frame rates and film was extremely expensive. For our purposes, you see the value of having a higher frame rate and playback speed to capture and playback smoother motion.
As video cameras and projectors increased in capability a new Cinema standard play back rate was born and has remained at 24fps. This is where a common misconception comes in. The PLAYBACK speed of 24fps is an industry standard today but not shooting speed. Most studios will shoot at s higher frame rate then they intend to playback the final product(except scenes with dialogue.) Why’s that?
Well having a high number of frames allows more latitude in post. For instance, having a 30fps clip played back at 24 fps will give the impression of slower smoother motion. For instance, I did this example for another thread and I took a video over the Mormon temple in Salt lake. The following videos are the same exact video shot in 30FPS the only difference is the first video is set to playback at 30fps but the second video is set to 24fps. On a computer click play on both videos to watch them simultaneously to see the difference.
You’ll notice that the second video is smoother even though you don’t notice it being much slower then the first video. There are exactly the same number of fames the second video just plays back the frames slower. Now what I could have done from here is deleted some frames from the second video to speed it up in the places the video was already smooth and that would cause those areas to move faster but then keep the frames in the places the original video looked choppy there fore retaining the smoothness from the second video. As with photos capturing the most amount of information possible will enable more latitude in post.
So you can see how playback speed and frame rate can have a huge impact on the the “feel” of the video.
Shutter speed and it’s relationship to frame rate
As a photographer you will already understand shutter speed and how it affects motion blur in an image. Faster the shutter the less motion blur. In photography we are generally trying to get less motion blur and a sharper still image. However with video we are trying to get the
correct amount of motion blur.
The human brain expects that a moving object will have a certain amount of motion blur, if it doesn’t then it looks and feels weird. Too much motion blur and it looks like a ghost and not enough will give the perception of slow motion. Because of this the relationship between and shutter speed and frame rate are of the utmost importance. There’s something called the 180 degree shutter rule.
This theory is that, to replicate the way our brains perceive motion, the shutter speed should be twice the frame rate. For instance if shooting in 30FPS then the shutter speed should be 60 shutters per second or 1/60.
Here is a video from PolarPro explaining this in more detail but this is the reason you must use ND filters with video because we need to have the right shutter speed without changing the other elements of our exposure triangle(ISO, Aperture, and shutter speed)
Shutter Speed, Frame Rate and the 180° Rule
These are the “camera basics” with video. Video composition is largely the same but has the added element of transition that is very important and deserves its own post. Also post processing is seemingly a never ending learning cycle as techniques, work flows, and effects are constantly evolving and there’s no one way to do anything. If you want more information on any of those things let me know but I don’t want to give you information overload.
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mavicpilots.com
www.red.com
courses.phantomfilmschool.com
