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    Shutter Speed/Frame Rate Tutorial

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    Vimeo video school posted an excellent lesson on frame rates and shutter speeds. The math involved with both of these can often throw me off, so it was nice to see a visual representation instead of a bunch of numbers explaining how things are supposed to look. I never thought looking at a fan with a sweatshirt on it would teach me anything, but this video does a really great job at explaining how these work with out getting overly complicated.

    HDSLR Calculator

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    If you’re someone like me and often gets lost in the numbers game of shooting with DSLRs, you should check out the HDSLR Calculator over HDSLR Cinema. If you want to see how much depth of field you’ll have, you can enter in your camera’s crop factor, focal length, aspect ratio, aperture and distance and you’ll get a graph of how in focus the background will be. It’s very useful tool for planning out shoots (and for learning the basic photo rules.) They also feature tools for frame rate conversion, frame duration, aspect ratios, file sizes, composition and required light vs. allowed light. I’ve been messing around with it a bunch this morning.

    Thanks to the heads up from Cinema5D.

    Videos Using Optical Flow for 1000fps

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    Here are some videos from people who used Optical Flow to create the 1000fps effect(like our tutorial.) Check them out:

    Canon 7D 1000fps through Motion from Laww Media on Vimeo.


    Laww Media shot this using a glidecam, which is really cool. We weren’t sure it was possible to get the right effect without using a tripod. We expected to see some of the decay show up if the shot wasn’t still. Instead, one of the major things we learned after people sent us videos was that often hand held and steady cam can enhance the effect and show a different dynamic.

    Longboarding: Slide from Benjamin Dowie on Vimeo.


    This video used the effect in a really cool way. I really dug how Benjamin Dowie broke up the slow-mo chunks and made them just quick little cuts, very cool.

    A cool documentary by Stephen Diaz. It used a lot of slow down shots and which made extreme slow-mo really effective. Really cool.

    It seems like extreme sport videos really use effect to it’s best capability, which is great because its a perfect fit. It can be used to show how they can defy gravity or how much skill is involved at such high speeds.
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    4k, Is It Really The Future?

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    I’ll be the first to admit, 4k sounds pretty appealing. Over New Years, people seemed really excited about the possible 4k hack that was announced (and later shown to be a hoax.) I think it’s pretty easy to see the numbers and of course, get excited.

    I was sent an article about pixels that really taught me a lot about how these things work. Creative Cow did an in depth interview with Panavision’s John Galt. They talk about the future of displays, cameras and frame rates. It made me look beyond how you can be sold 4k, when really it may not be the best reality.

    Here’s the full article.

    If you’re interested in learning more about how projection and cameras really work, check it out. It’s a fantastic article. Thanks to Peter Kirby for sending it over.

    1000fps for free – using Motion Optical Flow instead of Twixtor

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    We were inspired by Oton Bačar’s incredible bmx videos on Vimeo to experiment with retiming 60fps video shot on the Canon 60d. Specifically, we were interested in whether an obscure feature of Apple Motion called “Optical Flow” could achieve results that were comparable with Twixtor.

    After a lot of experimentation, we came up with a workflow that yields pretty solid results. As is the case with Twixtor, Apple Motion handles some shots beautifully while other shots get turned to ripply mush. Which is better, Motion Optical Flow or Twixtor? It seems to be more or less a draw, with Apple Motion having the distinct advantage that it comes bundled with Apple Final Cut Studio and is therefore free if you already use FCS. Either way, you’ll need to pick and choose the best bits with the smoothest motion and the least mush.

    For our test, we used a Canon 60d with a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8, 59.94fps 1280×720, shutter at 1/1600. It’s important to mount the camera on a tripod, turn off AWB, and pick a scene with a relatively simple background (like…snow).

    The basic workflow is to 1) Shoot at 59.94fps 2) Bring the footage into Motion and retime to 15%, 3) Export from Motion and conform it to 23.98fps using Cinema Tools. Then bring into FCP and edit.

    Here is a tutorial that shows the nuts and bolts:

    Tutorial – Canon 60d 1000fps using Apple Motion instead of Twixtor from CrumplePop on Vimeo.




    Note that I say we shot on a 7d, but it was actually a 60d. Sorry. And here is the final result:

    Canon 60D 1000fps using Apple Motion instead of Twixtor from CrumplePop on Vimeo.



    That’s Jed at CrumplePop on the bike, and also playing the music that’s in the video. Jed engineers most of our effects, so if you have ever had technical problems with one of our products, you should especially enjoy the sight of him hitting the ground.

    The bike is a Surly 1×1 with Nokian tires.