I have been researching which camcorder to get to record a golf swing. After reading a lot of posts, I am a bit confused. Many people claim that it is necessary to have a high shutter speed (around 1/8000). But, some say that the FPS is still NTSC (29.97).

So, I am confused. Are they related at all? Does shutter speed matter if I will be filming outdoors? BTW, I was looking at this camcorder that is posted on WOOT for $130, would it be sufficient? (JVC GR-D850)

behind the lens, and in front of the image sensor (CMOS or CCD), is the iris and shutter. The iris controls how much light to let in (like the pupil in your eye), the shutter controls how long to let that light in for. So wide-open aperture at slow shutter speeds, lets in the most light to the sensor. Almost closed iris and faster shutter lets in the least light.

There are byproducts of these variables too.

Iris also controls Depth-of-Field (DOF) how much distance is in focus. Wide open aperture, creates most shallow DOF. Close the iris a little, and you get a greater DOF.

Shutter:- Fast shutter will allow the camera to see fast moving objects with no blur. Slow shutter will blur movements. This can look good if a good cinematographer follows a skier, where the skier looks sharp, but the background is blurred. Just like still photography.

Frames Per Second has nothing to do with light entering the camera, it's just how many times the CCD or CMOS scans per second. One full scan is one frame. Obviously it should be a compatible scan to the TV it will be displayed on.

My apologies if there is too much info here, hope it helps.

I found the information that you gave me very useful. It gives me a broader picture of cameras work. So, a faster shutter speed will produce less blur, and FPS is unrelated to the shutter speed.

But, I have another question. Let's say that my golf swing takes 1 second to finish. If my FPS is 30, and I stepped through the swing, then does that mean that the "resolution of movement" would be 30 individual positions? And 60 FPS would be 60 positions?

But, I have another question. Let's say that my golf swing takes 1 second to finish. If my FPS is 30, and I stepped through the swing, then does that mean that the "resolution of movement" would be 30 individual positions? And 60 FPS would be 60 positions?

You're getting frame rates (fps) mixed up with camera operations and they are unrelated.

Think of it as a cassette playing in a tape deck. All cassettes are recorded at a certain standard tape speed so that you can play that tape in ANY tape player. It doesn't matter what's recorded on the tape, but it must have that standard tape speed so that it can play in any tape deck. There are different frame rates for different playback standards and that's basically what fps is all about. It has nothing to do with shutter speeds.

I should add that higher frame rates WILL produce a smoother, better flowing images for just the reasons that you mentioned. High speed cameras are a good example of that. The frame rates are sped up to the point where you can actually see a bullet for example to appear to be in slow motion. This sort of thing however is far beyond the needs of the average user. But for golf swings and things of that nature you don't want to be shooting in 24p mode or something similar.

Ok, got it. The flow of images will increase as the FPS increases. However, the FPS is part of the video encoding and will vary from region to region. So, it is not something that we have control of.

But, for slow motion captures, the camera may be capable of capturing 1200 FPS, but the video will still be encoded according to region. So, for NTSC, which is approximately 30 FPS, the actual video will be 40 times slower (1200/30).

Thanks everyone.

camcorders will typically do the scan in the native frame rate to which it will record as far as I am aware. High speed cameras are different and designed to be compatible with tv frame rates on slow motion playback. Eg record at 60 but play back at slow motion in NTSC - 30fps. Standard cams will only record at 30 and if you play back at half speed it would look like a jittery 15 frames played back in the actual duration of 1 second.

Think of it as taking 30 pictures every second and each picture takes 1/200th of a second to complete.

Just one example....


Rich

Sweet. Thanks for all of your help!