video shooting quality

[imwythe]

Hi guys
im new to this

I have a 50D

i would love to know what the likely best video setting should be?

another question
when i do video shooting, I feel laggy when I zoom in/out, is it my setting problem? my hardware problem? or it does actually happen to all people?
What should I tune?

Thanks for your reply in advance

[nanomad]

There is no "best" video settings since it depends on the scene. Increasing the bit rate usually doesn't hurt though

[Roman]

Hey,

I'm just a beginner too, but here are some settings I usually start with, you can fine tune yourself from here:

Set the bitrate to 1.2 if you are filming with sound, and have a decent speed SD card.

If filming fast action shots, sports etc where you might want to replay in slow motion:
Set to video mode (In Canon menu) to 720p @ 60fps (You might need to switch between NTS and PAL to get 60fps)
Set ISO to 400
Set apeture to 4 or less (Or, the lowest number that gives you enough depth of field)
Set the shutter speed to 90 degrees and decrease it until you get to the right brightness for your scene, or vice versa.

If filming something and you want a 'movie' type look/feel to it:
Set video mode to 1080p @ 24fps
180 degree shutter speed
Set apeture to get the depth of field that you want, start around 5-6 and go up or down from there depending on what you want in the frame. Super low Apeture numbers generally give too shallower depth of field which makes it hard to keep anything in focus for video if you or the subject are moving around.
Adjust ISO to set your brightness, although try not to go over 400-800 or it gets grainy pretty quickly for video.
Use lighting to brighten things up rather than increasing ISO heaps, if that's practical.

IF your imagine is too bright you can use ND filters on the front of your lense to decrease the brightness of your image to the point where its the correct brightness within ISO 100-400ish.

I think there are also Magic Lantern ISO overrides that let you go down to ISO 25 which is handy, but I havent tried this yet.

I have my camera set up with 3 live view presets:

1: [focus setup] I have Magic zoom and focus peaking turned on, use these to focus correctly on what I want to film.

2. [brightness setup] Zebras turned on, to check for under or over exposure.

3. [blank screen] all of the overlays turned off, I use this one to set the white balance up or down, set the ISO up or down, and then to record with.

There might be some better ways, or other settings required for more specific scenarios.
But that's what I've found works alright so far in most situations as a base to start from, and adjust from there.

[Roman]

Regarding zoom, generally the lenses are primarily designed for taking pictures not video...
So zoom doesnt work very smoothly in a video if using the camera controls to operate it.

To zoom smoothly in a shot you really need to adjust the zoom manually using the ring on the lense rather than via the camera controls.

However this is very difficult without causing the camera to shake unless you are using a tripod, so doesnt look so great.

For filming most people seem to favour prime lenses for their low apeture, but they have no zoom.
So they will swap lenses or moving closer/further away to set up a shot.

I've used the zoom on my kit lense, but it needs to be on a tripod otherwise the tiniest vibration looks like you're waving the camera wildly around

[imwythe]

Regarding zoom, generally the lenses are primarily designed for taking pictures not video...
So zoom doesnt work very smoothly in a video if using the camera controls to operate it.

To zoom smoothly in a shot you really need to adjust the zoom manually using the ring on the lense rather than via the camera controls.

However this is very difficult without causing the camera to shake unless you are using a tripod, so doesnt look so great.

For filming most people seem to favour prime lenses for their low apeture, but they have no zoom.
So they will swap lenses or moving closer/further away to set up a shot.

I've used the zoom on my kit lense, but it needs to be on a tripod otherwise the tiniest vibration looks like you're waving the camera wildly around

thank you guys

No matter how slowly i zoom manually , at some stage there is likely to have a laggy second.
Anyway, I now use my feet to move if possible, same problem exists

[dan.g]

I don't know if this is the case, but the display on your camera lags a little bit while recording. It lags even more if it's hooked on an external display, at least with my setup (camera hooked to a computer through a HDMI video capture board)