Filming & Production

Shutter speed

Also called: exposure time

The convention is to set shutter speed to roughly double your frame rate, so 1/50 at 25fps or 1/60 at 30fps. That produces motion blur close to what cinema has trained everyone to expect. Go faster and movement turns crisp and slightly stuttery, which is why action and sport shoot high. Go slower and motion smears. Because the shutter is tied to your frame rate, it is the wrong control for brightness in video. Adjust aperture, drop ISO, or add a neutral density filter instead. Shooting outdoors at 1/50 with no ND filter is how footage ends up blown out.

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