Camcorder Settings For Railway Filming

[John Robertson]

Hello,
New member here.
I am looking for a bit of advice regarding camcorder settings. I am interested in videoing steam trains. I have a good camcorder: Panasonic HC-VXF990. It has a multitude of features most of which I am getting to grips with.
I have been using it on fully automatic mode but of course have the option of changing the settings. Most notable the shutter speed. The default seems to be 1/50 but this results in somewhat blurred footage. I know this can be regarded as advantageous but it's not so good for extracting stills from the video, which I am keen to do. I wonder if there is an optimum setting for both shutter and also aperture. Or should you just try to adjust as per conditions.
Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[AM9]

Hello,
New member here.
I am looking for a bit of advice regarding camcorder settings. I am interested in videoing steam trains. I have a good camcorder: Panasonic HC-VXF990. It has a multitude of features most of which I am getting to grips with.
I have been using it on fully automatic mode but of course have the option of changing the settings. Most notable the shutter speed. The default seems to be 1/50 but this results in somewhat blurred footage. I know this can be regarded as advantageous but it's not so good for extracting stills from the video, which I am keen to do. I wonder if there is an optimum setting for both shutter and also aperture. Or should you just try to adjust as per conditions.
Any advice would be appreciated.

You mention 'blurred footage'. In what sense, - i.e. are you tracking moving trains by a) panning the camera or are they b) shot running across the field of view?

a) is what you would do to keep the train as sharp as possible (assuming that it isn't so close that tracking is difficult). The background scenery would of course be blurred.
b) If you keep the camera still, there will be blurring (giving the impression of speed) but the context in which the train is shot will be clear.

The other issue with filming moving objects is that of shutter angle (or speed relative to frame rate). There is a rule of thumb that for visually pleasing viewing, the shutter angle should be 180 degrees (i.e. where the shutter is open for half of the inter-frame interval. So if you are shooting at 50 frames per second, that is 20ms between frames, then the shutter speed should be 10ms. If it is longer, there will be a considerable blur on images that move within the frame. If it is less than 10ms, the picture will have a very 'gritty' look to it although the moving objects will look sharper. This gritty appearance can be seen on 'action cam' footage such as gopro, see sport broadcasts where cameras are mounted on athletes or even sports equipment like boats, skis, cricket stumps etc., where the camera naturally has a fast shutter speed. Using a fast shutter speed does however give better extracted stills from video.
The HC-VXF990 is a UHD-capable camera (3840 x 2160 pixels) but only at a low frame rate, i.e. 25fps. Given the amount of movement you expect in shooting trains, 25fps is not suitable as pans will just judder across the screen in a most unpleasant way. I would recomment 1080p 50 as the optimum mode.

 

[ac6000cw]

I'd agree with everything that AM9 says, only to add that 10 ms = 10 milliseconds = 1/100 sec (the normal shutter speed for 50 fps video).

You can get away with 25 fps (at 1/50 second shutter speed) if the movement is slow across the frame e.g. 'distant trains in the landscape' type shots where the extra detail in UHD (4k) video might have other benefits - it's an artistic choice/compromise at the end of the day...

I shoot mostly at 1080p/50fps and occasionally at UHD/25 fps.

 

[AM9]

I'd agree with everything that AM9 says, only to add that 10 ms = 10 milliseconds = 1/100 sec (the normal shutter speed for 50 fps video).

You can get away with 25 fps (at 1/50 second shutter speed) if the movement is slow across the frame e.g. 'distant trains in the landscape' type shots where the extra detail in UHD (4k) video might have other benefits - it's an artistic choice/compromise at the end of the day...

I shoot mostly at 1080p/50fps and occasionally at UHD/25 fps.

Thanks for pulling me up on 'ms', - I had my engineer hat on.

I might add that UHD can also be useful if there might be benefit later in cropping video to get rid of unwanted background.

 

[John Robertson]

Thanks for the very quick response.
A fascinating subject and I appreciate your knowledge.
Sorry to be a complete novice but I understand most of that except the "50 frames per second" How do I find out when I'm shooting at 50 frames per second, or 25 frames per second and so on? I have settings on the camera for shutter speeds but am having trouble knowing how to set the frames per second...
Many Thanks again.

 

[AM9]

... Sorry to be a complete novice but I understand most of that except the "50 frames per second" How do I find out when I'm shooting at 50 frames per second, or 25 frames per second and so on? I have settings on the camera for shutter speeds but am having trouble knowing how to set the frames per second ...

The video recording format and mode are set from the main menu:
Press the Menu button, then [RECORD SETUP]followed by [REC FORMAT] or [REC MODE]

for full details, see page 90 of the full manual in the Advanced (Recording) section.

 

[John Robertson]

Thankyou both AM9 and ac600cw (especially for the explanation of milliseconds). I have digested your comments and advice and it has really helped me.
Very much appreciated.
I will experiment with the preferred settings as you recommend....

 

[John Robertson]

There is just one other question.
Would you recommend turning off O.I.S. when using the camcorder on a tripod for railway filming?

 

[matt]

I've used the VXF990 since April last year. I've found it fine in auto mode and don't have any of the issues you are describing. The only time I would change it to manual is usually if I'm filming a train close up to prevent the sky from becoming over-exposed. Plenty of examples on my youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/mjsrailvideos

 

[John Robertson]

I've used the VXF990 since April last year. I've found it fine in auto mode and don't have any of the issues you are describing. The only time I would change it to manual is usually if I'm filming a train close up to prevent the sky from becoming over-exposed. Plenty of examples on my youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/mjsrailvideos

Thanks.
Some great videos on there.
As a matter of interest which auto mode do you use. A or A+

 

[trainmania100]

Make sure you have plenty of storage on your computer, hd and uhd videos will take up lots of space

 

[AM9]

Make sure you have plenty of storage on your computer, hd and uhd videos will take up lots of space

HD video space requirements of video from consumer camcorders are fairly modest in current home PC terms although the VXF990 does have a 50Mb/s mode for 1080p as well as 2160p. The quality of the hardware, although comparatively good, probably wouldn't make it worthwhile using that bitrate unless it was a difficult subject to encode at 28Mb/s.
It does mean though that the owner needs to be disciplined in storage particularly when generating multiple copies during editing.

 

[matt]

Thanks.
Some great videos on there.
As a matter of interest which auto mode do you use. A or A+

I use A. I should probably read the manual to see what A + does

 

[malc-c]

I've been using the HC-VX870, which is basically the same chassis in a different case. I've left everything set to manual other than once when I changed the recording levels to manual and forgot I had left it set when I videoed the sleeper on divert - it was loud !!

Most of my videos using this camera are on my you tube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuGA3LeHihrw798IKc04wfw/videos?ab_channel=MalcolmCrabbe

I love the fact that these cameras have manual options, something I'm looking forward to exploring. Apparently, reducing the shutter speed to half the frame rate reduces the strobe effect caused by the rolling shutters used in modern sensors. This is the effect of the windows on the coaches sloping backwards as they pass, or helicopters having static rotors....

I'm sure your VX990 will give you great results and lots of fun.

 

[AM9]

... I love the fact that these cameras have manual options, something I'm looking forward to exploring. Apparently, reducing the shutter speed to half the frame rate reduces the strobe effect caused by the rolling shutters used in modern sensors. This is the effect of the windows on the coaches sloping backwards as they pass, or helicopters having static rotors. ...

Actually, the shutter speed must be the same as the frame rate, but half the frame interval, - see post #2 in this thread. The effect of a rolling shutter is due to the read time of sensor compared with the change of horizontal position of a vertical feature in the image. The sensor read time is a hardware function. If the shutter duration is increased, the sloping verticals will become blurred sloping verticals, but unless the panning with the moving object is very tight, it may get blurred edges as well.

 

[ac6000cw]

There is just one other question.
Would you recommend turning off O.I.S. when using the camcorder on a tripod for railway filming?

It's your choice, but personally I don't, for two reasons:

1. You'll forget to turn it back on again, so when you next whip out the camera just in time to film something handheld, you'll curse yourself afterwards because the movie is all wobbly...

2. Trains vibrate the ground (as do people on footbridges and wooden platforms), so the OIS can still be useful even on a nominally stable tripod.

(...and it's not just the wheels-on-rails bit that can vibrate the ground - I was once watching three big American diesels start a train on a steep gradient, noticed that my feet were being vibrated, thought at first that maybe it was vibration from bit of wheelslip, then realised that the vibration actually matched the noise from the diesel engines - three 4400hp diesel engines can generate a lot of very low frequency sound...)

 

[John Robertson]

It's your choice, but personally I don't, for two reasons:

1. You'll forget to turn it back on again, so when you next whip out the camera just in time to film something handheld, you'll curse yourself afterwards because the movie is all wobbly...

2. Trains vibrate the ground (as do people on footbridges and wooden platforms), so the OIS can still be useful even on a nominally stable tripod.

(...and it's not just the wheels-on-rails bit that can vibrate the ground - I was once watching three big American diesels start a train on a steep gradient, noticed that my feet were being vibrated, thought at first that maybe it was vibration from bit of wheelslip, then realised that the vibration actually matched the noise from the diesel engines - three 4400hp diesel engines can generate a lot of very low frequency sound...)

Thanks for the reply much appreciated.

 

[John Robertson]

Can anyone explain what: 1440p60 means on a Youtube video.
I assume resolution and fps ?
So is a video uploaded at 1440 automatically 60fps ?

 

[AM9]

Can anyone explain what: 1440p60 means on a Youtube video.
I assume resolution and fps ?
So is a video uploaded at 1440 automatically 60fps ?

the standard way to designate the video format is:
pixels per line:interlaced or progressive:frame rate (per second)
thus:

1440 - 1440 pixels per line
p - progressive scan (i.e. no interlace, normal for everything except broadcast TV destined/derived video)
60 - 60 frames per second​

standard broadcast digital terrestrial broadcast in the UK is 1440i25. The 'i' signifies interlaced fields so there are 25 interlaced frames per second. Owing to bandwidth limitations in the available multiplexes, most broadcasts are using non-square pixels of aspect ratio 1:1.3333 so that
1440 x 1.3333 gives the 16:9 picture aspect ratio of 1920 x 1080.

 

[John Robertson]

the standard way to designate the video format is:
pixels per line:interlaced or progressive:frame rate (per second)
thus:

1440 - 1440 pixels per line
p - progressive scan (i.e. no interlace, normal for everything except broadcast TV destined/derived video)
60 - 60 frames per second​

standard broadcast digital terrestrial broadcast in the UK is 1440i25. The 'i' signifies interlaced fields so there are 25 interlaced frames per second. Owing to bandwidth limitations in the available multiplexes, most broadcasts are using non-square pixels of aspect ratio 1:1.3333 so that
1440 x 1.3333 gives the 16:9 picture aspect ratio of 1920 x 1080.

Thankyou for another very comprehensive reply.

 

[AM9]

Thankyou for another very comprehensive reply.

Apologies (and embarassment) John. I was obviously not giving my last post full attention. To correct it:
1440p60 is a non-standard spec.. The correct designation of video formats is: lines per framecan type:frame rate.
The reference to 1440 being the samples per lines using non-square pixels to provide a 16:9 aspect ratio image with 1080 line is correct, as is so for the HDV videotape format and much of digitalTV broadcasting. Here, choosing a lower sample rate can give a better image quality when there are bandwidth constraints.

 

[ac6000cw]

Can anyone explain what: 1440p60 means on a Youtube video.
I assume resolution and fps ?
So is a video uploaded at 1440 automatically 60fps ?

What happens with YouTube is that when a video is uploaded, their system re-encodes it into a variety of resolutions and frame rates (all the way down to 144p), so that it can streamed to almost anything (connected via internet connections from 'wet string' bandwidth upwards). The resolution of the uploaded video is the highest resolution it will be streamed at (if that matches one of the standard YouTube resolutions, otherwise the maximum will be the next lowest standard resolution). Note that streaming resolutions 720p and upwards support both 50 and 60 frames-per-second (depending on the frame rate of the upload video), streaming resolutions below 720p are (I think) 30 fps only. But YouTube keep changing things anyway...

These are the recommended settings/choices for upload files - https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en-GB . What that boils down to is - the upload files should be at the frame rate that they were recorded at, and at whatever resolution you are generating ('rendering') the output file from the editing software at (which is usually the same as the recordings, but that's your choice).

1440p60 is '2k' resolution i.e. it's 2560 x 1440 frame size, 60 fps, progressive scan (not interlaced). As far as I know, YouTube also supports 1440p50 (the 50 fps version).

 

[AM9]

... 1440p60 is '2k' resolution i.e. it's 2560 x 1440 frame size, 60 fps, progressive scan (not interlaced). As far as I know, YouTube also supports 1440p50 (the 50 fps version).

Thanks for that. I didn't know that youtube was giving names to some odd formats. I would imagine that 2560x1440 is what many of these gamers who record their playing have uploaded. There are a few monitors of that native resolution that are popular with gamers as they are better than Full HD monitors but a lot cheaper than UHD.
In the video world, '2K' officially is one of the Cinema standards, i.e. 2048x1080, just as '4K' is 4096x2160. TV 'so called 4K' is actually 3840x2160 and officially known as UHD, (Ultra HD).