Jump to content

shutter angle


Michael Narimalla

Recommended Posts

hi, Im a film student who is an aspiring cinematographer. I am aware of shutter angles and that they can be modified in degrees, but i have no idea...

 

1) why change the angle (under what circumstances)

2) what type of effect does one get from increasing and decreasing the angle?

 

Can someone give me a brief rundown on shutter angles?

Edited by Michael Narimalla
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

The Wikipedia article is pretty good. I'd add that variable shutters really aren't all that important. The majority of film cameras don't have them. The cost of the extra mechanical parts outweighs the advantages of adjustability. Typically, camera designers use the largest shutter angle that the pulldown mechanism will allow. The range is roughly 165 degrees (Eyemo) to 185 degrees. If you have a variable shutter, it's generally best to leave it at the widest setting. You need to know what your shutter angle is, though.

 

Using very small angles for effect, to eliminate motion blur, and therefore eliminate the illusion of motion, is something you don't often need.

 

There are a few special shutter angles worth knowing about: 144 degrees allows you to shoot an NTSC TV set at 24 fps, and reduce the height of the roll bar to zero. This is OK if the TV is an unimportant background object, but not good enough if it's prominent in the shot and we need to see what's on the screen. 172.8 degrees does the same for PAL/SECAM TV at 24 fps. These angles also eliminate flicker if you're shooting at 24 fps with discharge lamps, 144 for 60 Hz countries and 172.8 for 50 Hz. countries. At 25 fps in the PAL/SECAM/50 Hz countries, what you want is 180 degrees.

 

All film cameras are quite severely undersampling temporally, but we're all used to it. It does produce some motion artifacts, like wheels turning backwards.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 months later...

Hello

 

Im about to shoot a 24fps film in europe. That will be my first 24fps film, because usually we use this 25fps shooting speed. This film will also be a testing for 24fps look. I read that previous article here, and i wanted to ask a question about it. If i shoot 24fps with 180degree shutter angle and I use artificial light, lamps, arri lamps, kinoflows, dedo lights etc, does it really do some sort of flicker to the picture? In the previous article there was a suggestion, that if I shoot 24fps film using lamps in europe (50hrz), i need to have this 172,8 shutter angle. I might use arri sr3 in this film, and the closest adjustable shutter angle to 172,8 is only 172... So... Does it matter if the angle is 0,8 less than in mr. Sprung told? This whole 24fps flickering thing is a new piece of information to me, so i really would be happy to recieve any answer, or help in this case. Thank you for reading and hope you know the answer for helping me.

Edited by Santtu Jaakkola
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...