I was practicing today and thought I would play with the Video shutter speed. As far as I can tell faster shutters only make the picture darker, does not slow motion down on play back.



I feel like I am bowling better and my scores are up, but when I watch my Video play back I don't think there is much improvement. I feel like I am "inside" the ball leading with ring/pinky finger and under the ball. Looking at the Video and I'm not under or inside! Waiting for the light bulb moment - even if it’s only 15 watts!

~ John

Changing to a faster shutter speed takes the same number of frames per second, but you will get crisper shots each frame. It is helpful when stepping through video, or when slowing it down. You should see a difference if you play it through at 1/4 or 1/8 speed. If you can change to a higher fps recording mode, that is good as well. With these, you want to try to get the light settings (ISO, F stop) to let in as much light as possible, especially because bowling places (at least around here) tend to be under-lit.

Shutter speed has nothing to do with frame rate. An increased shutter speed is good to keep high speed objects from from blurring. What you want in or to be able to do slow motion is a high speed camera that allows for 100 + frames per second.

edit: cgeorge beat me to it.

So I guess my question should be: Does my Sony DCR-TRV900 Camcorder have a 100+ frames per second feature?

Or can/would howiegroove pick one of my releases and show it to me super slow-mo?

Another not so smart question is: When I take my Camcorder to the computer to upload a Video, I get to the part where the program asks me to drag & drop to the story board. (Windows XP)
I pull only the shots to the story board I want to post and save it. But when I go to attach the file, the only file that will work is the entire Video file I put on the computer (not just the story board shots).
If someone would lead me in the correct direction everyone could be spared 8 min. of bowling shots from me every time I post.

Thanks and double thanks in advance,

~ John

It looks like your camera does not support shooting at >30fps. Some digital cams will do that, but according to the article I read, you need a lot of $$ before a tape camcorder will do that sort of thing.

That said, it looks like if you zoom all the way out, set the f-stop as low as possible (1.8? 1.6?) and possible add +6 to +12 dB gain, you should be able to take good fast-shutter-speed video.

When you plug it in, save the whole movie to your computer, then open up Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Entertainment? -> Windows movie Maker. Drag the video into that, then drag it down to the the timeline below. You can cut between shots with Ctrl+L, or maybe Ctrl+K, and then drag the edges of the resulting clip to remove excess on each side. You can also drag transitions (cuts or simple fades preferred, by me at least), and add effects, such as slow-motion. You can also add multiple effects to a single clip, so you could add 4 slow-motion effects for a total of 1/16 speed playback. If you want to add the same effect to several clips, I'd recommend adding it to them before you slice them up.

That's your 3 minute WMM crash course

Oh, when you're done, you have to go to file -> Save movie.. (or something similar) If it's just going to youtube, one of the 320x240 options is fine - if you're keeping it for yourself, and the source video is higher resolution, I'd save it with the highest quality you can. Youtube recently lifted the limits on upload file size, so you can upload big movies now (though I think the 10 minute limit is still there)

The manual is online here:

http://www.docs.sony.com/release/DCRTRV900.pdf

manual stuff starts at page 44. Shutter speed should probably be at least 1/100, 1/200 if you can. First light-gaining adjustment would be f-stop. Then gain.

It looks like you also have some AE modes that could be useful.

page 54:
Shutter speed priority or Sport lesson mode would probably be good. Again, in these (and any) modes, you will be able to get more light if you are zoomed all the way out.

More post count padding:

If you are doing lots of manual stuff, you may not want to rely on the auto-focus. Set something easily focusable at the foul line, and manually focus on that object. Setting your ball there could work - it's what I use when I need to MF a shot.

Send me the video and I will be more than happy to do a super slo mo for you. Just tell me how slow you want it(ie. 1/5 speed, 1/4 speed, 1/10 speed.)

Thanks Cgeorg. The file -> Save movie was what I was missing. I was using the regular save & saving the whole down load over & over.

Howiegroove thanks. I'll try to send you the clip. The speed you did on the super slow-mo post was great.