Hello everyone!

Last week, my introduction was focused on backing up your SD card data during a photo shoot, or immediately afterwards. I was excited to see the response from our readers, and I hear that a lot of you are practicing this same back up method yourself. As always, we love to hear from our customers, especially if you have questions, but always welcome general feedback. It helps us come up with our next article topics.

On that note, I am going to move forward with the photography theme and talk a bit about frame rates. Very exciting stuff, you might want to get some popcorn and put on your 3D glasses, this is going to be a thrill! 😉

While frame rates only apply to videography, I think it is important these days that photographers educate themselves on video settings, considering their DSLR is most likely capable of shooting amazing footage. The 5D series has become a staple in the independent filmmaking community. With the right lens, settings, and color correction, your DSLR is capable of achieving that professional, filmic look.

One key element to pay close attention to is your frame rate. The movie standard is 24 frames per second, and I strongly recommend exploring the difference between 24, 30, and 60 frames per second. This is often abbreviated to FPS, and settings for this can be found in your DSLR menu, similar to how you’d select your still image format. If you watch frame rate comparisons on YouTube, you’ll see that 30FPS offers a bit smoother action, and you can imagine where that would be more useful. At 60FPS, you’re creating enough frames to allow for half speed playback, given fluid motion at 30FPS, with the effect of slow motion. This is a handy effect for action and sports, and is also available on your iPhone. On the newer iPhone models, you can shoot in 240FPS, which gives you insanely slow motion. I found the 8 Plus allows you to adjust your regular video settings, allowing you to record at 24FPS in 4k. This would be extremely useful for collecting footage that would be later used in a film, giving a natural match to the rest of the footage. Give it a shot (pun intended) and let us know what you think! Enjoy today’s articles, and have a nice week!

Patrick McCormack
patrickm@smalldog.com