Posted on 20-06-2009
Filed Under (The Basics, Video) by admin

Before the release of the firmware update, I wrote an article about why controlling the shutter speed would be as important for us, cinephotographers, as controlling the aperture. I promised to show an example video at the time. Well, it took some time but I finally managed to get the required clips! The best subject for such an example would have been to shoot an helicopter but since I could not find one, I picked the next best thing: a waterfall.

Notice, in the clip bellow, how the water looks different according to the shutter speed. While on the left it looks like ‘normal’ water, on the right it looks like something else. It is because each frame in the sequence on the left has some blur while those on the right are super sharp. While the blurry frames are blending nicely with each others at 30fps, the ones without blurs looks very harsh.

As you can see, the difference in the shutter speed is only noticeable when comparing the extremes, so as long as you keep the shutter under 1/250, anything moving slower than the water in this clip should look natural.

Note: The constant exposure was created by increasing the ISO. Notice how, even at high ISO, the image quality is very usable. The rightmost section was shot at ISO 6400.

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