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Question about 50hertz electricity & dance settings
  • dancefilmdancefilm

    New here and looking for a little support wading through the forums. I just purchased a used GH2 and am planning on upgrading the hack to the most recent Flowmotion. I'm about to go shoot in a country with (unreliable) 50hertz electricity, and I'm wondering what formats will be best for me -- do I have to go down to 720p just because of the power supply (that seems odd)? Also is is true that for shots with motion (I'm filming a lot of dance) 1080p is not the best option?

    Any other suggestions much welcomed!

  • 2 Replies sorted by
  • mrbillmrbill

    Use your usual NTSC settings, but shoot either 1/50 shutter for regular footage, or 1/100 for faster motion like sport - or dance. Nothing wrong with 1080p

  • Mark_the_HarpMark_the_Harp

    Agree about 1080p - will be fine.

    About the power: you say "unreliable" but hopefully it will stay at 50Hz - otherwise you may have issues. Here in the UK (for example) the electricity supply is centrally managed and kept within very fine limits around 50Hz even when the voltage varies a bit.

    I can see that dance (fast movement) would require a higher shutter speed unless you're deliberately going for blur, but if you go for 1/50 and the supply frequency is steady at 50Hz it should all work - and go for a multiple of 50 (ie 1/100) and it should work, but you may start to see static colour banding under fluorescent lighting. Hopefully your venue is unlikely to be using that anyway!

    On the shutter-speed thing, surely you'd want the shutter open for 1/50 or longer than 1/50? - ie a slower shutter speed, to ensure you don't run into problems. Worst case: shooting under fluorescent lighting with not-quite-50Hz power frequency and you get horizontal colour bands that move slowly vertically.

    Hopefully someone has done this and can chip in. My only experience is taking a UK (pal) SD camcorder to the US many moons ago, and fluorescent lighting was definitely a problem - very noticeable colour bars strobing down the picture all the time. It's quite possible that studio fluorescents operate at a much higher frequency to get around this problem. OK in incandescent / stage lighting, though.

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