Patrick Cooper

A few years ago, I was an extra in a movie being shot in South Australia. The shoot was taking place in a private home in the backyard. Specific instructions were given to the crew that anyone who wanted to have a smoke must do so outside the property to keep the home owners happy. Later that evening, I saw two crew members smoking within the backyard. One of them was happily smoking away while working without a care in the world.

Ive been using Sony Movie Studio for a while now for my video editing. It's quite a versatile program overall and covers most of my requirements. However, it does have one major flaw and that is a lack of a serious 1080 progressive export option. SMS does have a 1080p option but it renders the finished video at a shockingly low bitrate. So even though most of my videos are shot in 1080p, I'm forced to render them as 1080i after editing. Just wondering if Adobe Premiere Elements can export videos at 1080p with a decent bitrate?

I admit I haven't seen the film 'Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes.' Is it really as bad as people say?

Have you ever filmed a lizard in a blizzard?

Not too different to the stuff up that occurred during the 2015 Miss Universe Pageant.

Well I did have a little bit of success with my short film from a sales perspective. Ive just started offering copies of the film on DVD for sale at my Kangaroo Island-based market stall which is visited by tourists from passing cruise ships. I managed to sell one DVD on Saturday and another DVD on Sunday. I also sell my photos as greeting cards and as larger prints in mattes at the market with most of the images taken on Kangaroo Island. My short film focuses on the natural attractions of the island (mainly it's landscapes and wildlife) so that obviously has some appeal to tourists. A lot of these tourists will buy a something to remind themselves of a place they've visited and a lot of people in general have an appreciation for nature. So it looks like my short film has some decent potential in the tourism market (in particular the Kangaroo Island tourism market.) Though it's never going to be mass-produced or go through official distribution or anything like that. I'll be perfectly happy continuing to sell copies of the film at my market stall and hopefully a few souvenir shops too.

Not long ago, I sold one video through Shutterstock (my first video sale there.) Ive got a bit over 30 videos and 123 photos on SS so a very small portfolio. A lot of contributors on SS say that video sales are generally very infrequent compared to still photo sales. That's been my experience too. I refuse to sell videos on iStockphoto because they only pay a few dollars for HD clips (and pay exactly the same amount for 4k clips.) Ive had a few requests for my footage from TV shows etc through youtube but they generally want my content for free or are only prepared to pay me peanuts.

Finally I got it to work! I can now fire the speedlight remotely by pressing the camera's shutter button with the TX attached. It was four pins on the bottom of the TX that prevented it from sliding all the way into the hotshoe. A bit of a fidgety process removing them (had to take apart the back panel of the TX with two sets of four screws to access the circuit board.)

I guess a similar technique is a match-on-action where a particular action is shot from multiple angles (and sometimes different shot sizes) as it progresses. Though with a match-on-action, the action would not normally be restarted earlier for the individual shots. It often occurs in 'real time.'

David, that's an excellent point! Yea I should try and grab a DVD or Blu-ray. Gosh, so many options - even VHS and Laserdisc!

This is one Stanley Kubrick film that I still haven't seen. It was on TV some time ago (was meaning to see it) and regret missing it.

I haven't found any way to create a 50p project. Who knows - there could be a way - I'll have to research further. By the way, at the moment, I'm watching the equestrian showjumping in the Rio Olympics on tv and there's some great slow motion footage on display - smooth and fluid like you would expect. I admit I'm feeling envious. Out of curiosity, would it be possible to get better results with Adobe Premier Elements? I'm considering getting it bundled with Photoshop Elements.

According to someone on another forum, 0.5 is the same as 0.500. So I did this option (with the video properties box.) The resulting slow motion doesn't look as smooth as I was expecting. Looks more like regular footage that's been slowed down. Although I admit - the footage was hand held with a telephoto lens so that might have something to do with it.

I wish my G6 had that option. Sounds like it would make life much more simple.

I don't think that option exists on my camera. I'm basically limited to the menu options. For example - record at 50p and output as 50p, or record as 50i and output as 50p etc. Or alternatively record at 50i and output as 25p. I guess if there was an option that would allow the camera to record at 50p and output as 25p, that would give a slow motion effect when playing back the footage on the camera. But I cannot see such an option.

I wish it was that simple. In Movie Studio, I went to New Project but with regards to frame rates (next to HDV and AVCHD) I just saw regular options like 24p.25p, 50i. Though I'm not 100% sure whether those are the frame rates that the footage will be imported as or whether those are the frame rates that it will be converted to on the timeline (once imported.)

Sometimes I wish I had the NTSC version so that I could get that 60p option. I have heard of a hack that can convert the PAL version of the camera to NTSC but I'm not sure if there are risks involved.

David, that's the video I saw before - he certainly got a great result. Yea I would definitely prefer to get my slow motion footage from progressive video and retain all the available resolution.

The G6 has a number of video recording options. Two of these are very similar but not quite the same The option at the top of the menu is as follows: AVCHD Progressive - 1920 x 1080 50p - Image Sensor Output 50p, 28Mbps The second option in the menu is as follows: AVCHD - 1920 X 1080 50i - Image Sensor Output 50p, 17Mbps. Ive tried Dropbox in the past but couldn't get it work. I was trying to share a video but it kept returning an error. I might have to look at using Google Drive instead.

I tried the first option in that link (the video event properties box) but something very odd is happening. For the playback rate (inside that box), I'm putting in 0.5 but as soon as I place my cursor in another field within the box, another two 0s are added to the end of the 5, making it 0.500. I then scrolled down using the down arrow and saw the numbers descending. It looked it was going to take a long time to get to 0.5 (going through all the hundreds.) But it didn't even get close. It stopped when I reached 0.250 and refuses to go any further. Looking at the sample of the video event properties box in the link you provided, I note that it says 59.940fps near the bottom right hand corner. I'm assuming that this is the frame rate that the footage was originally shot at. When I look at the same area in the box (with regards to my own footage), it says 25.000fps. So I'm guessing that for some reason, Sony Movie Studio thinks that my footage was shot at 25fps and is treating it like such. Though I'm certain that it was shot at 50p. I guess I could try stretching out the footage on the timeline and seeing how it looks. But I don't have high hopes.

When playing back the footage on the camera's lcd screen, the footage looks normal / no slow mo. Though I'm guessing not everyone who chooses the 50p setting necessarily wants slow motion footage. There is a youtube video shot by someone who has the NTSC version of the G6 and he played a clip that he shot at 60p. He was able to produce really nice smooth slow motion footage from that with his software (not really sure which software he uses.) Thanks for the link! I'll check it out.

That's right. The footage was shot at 50p. Here's what the camera's menu says: AVCHD Progressive, 1920 x 1080, 50p, Image Sensor Output 50p, 28Mbps. I think Ive given up the idea of converting it to interlaced (that just complicates things.) On my last attempt, I converted it to 1280 x 720, 25p but I'm still ending up with normal looking footage (no slow motion.) Though when I first import the footage into Sony Movie Studio, the software is indicating that it's 25fps footage. But that can't be. I am definite that I was recording at 50p.

That is certainly a possibility. Though I thought that was done to footage that was shot at normal frame rates (eg 25fps) to slow it down. And of course, the results don't look as smooth as footage that was shot at a higher frame rate. For footage that was shot at higher fps, I thought there would be some automatic command that you could initialise in the software that would display it as 25fps (without dumping frames.) Someone on another forum is suggesting that my software is discarding every second frame so that it plays back at the same duration that it was recorded at. So for example, a 5 second clip (recorded in camera) will remain a 5 second clip on the timeline. Whereas I was expecting the duration of the clip to double (a 5 second clip becoming a 10 second clip. etc)

Edit: I meant 18 or 24fps with the projected film footage. Anyhow, I'm still confused as to why the digital video footage is turning out normal / non-slow motion. Is there some step I'm missing in the editing workflow?

As many will know, the PAL version of the Panasonic G6 has an option to record at 50fps. I wanted to use this setting to shoot some slow motion footage. My only previous experience with filming at high frame rates is with movie film (super 8 in particular.) I had a Canon 1014 Autozoom Electronic super 8 camera which had a top speed of 54fps. The principle for producing slow motion footage with this dinosaur technology was pretty simple – film at 54fps and then project the developed film at 18 or 25fps. The results were great by the way – beautifully smooth slow motion. Now back to this Panasonic G6 footage – when I placed the footage on the timeline in Sony Movie Studio, I set the video properties to 1920 x 1080, 50i (25fps.) And also exported the clip at 50i (25fps.) The result? Motion looks completely normal. There is no slow motion. I'm seriously puzzled.