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This may not be as simple a problem as it may seem at first, so read carefully.

When I set my (Canon 60D, but this doesn't really matter at all) camera to record at 24 fps (I think it's actually 23.976 fps, but again, this shouldn't really matter), the film fps, it looks so "perfect", like any Hollywood movie. It is a bit stuttery, kind of "low fps" on the first sight, but it's exactly how it should look - a perfect film - and this is exactly what I want.

Now, the problem is, when I record at 60 fps to have a few more frames in case I need a slowmotion, the movie (when played back at 60 fps) looks too "fluid, fast", like a low-budget documentary movie or something like that.

The question: Can I record all my scenes at 60 fps and then somehow "convert" the 60 fps footage so that it looks like it was recorded at 24 fps ?

The reason: I need to record all the scenes in 60 fps, because I don't know which of them I will need in slowmotion later. I cannot record in 24 fps, but I do want the final cut to look as if it was recorded in 24.

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Cleared non-applicable "off-topic" comments after migration. –  BenV Jul 8 '11 at 18:41
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migrated from photo.stackexchange.com Jul 6 '11 at 17:53


3 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

You can, there's a lot of frame blending algorithms that will do it for you. That said, none of them is really great. All your 60fps footage will have a different look than your 24fps footage. You flat out cannot evenly go from 60fps to 24fps, there's just too little overlap in where the frames actually show up on a timeline. For frame conversions of that magnitude (24p->60i for TV, for example), the big boys have traditionally used telecine/telesync setups where they would literally film an image projected from a movie reel with a television camera.

Consider shooting 50fps (if that's an option). It's much easier to go from 50 to 24 (drop every other frame, then drop one frame a second) than it is to do 60->24.

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If I'm doing my math right, the 24fps video's frames alternate between being exactly aligned with a corresponding 60fps video frame and being exactly halfway out of phase. So every other frame of the resulting 24fps video is going to be off by 1/120th of a second (in terms of when it was captured vs. when it will be displayed.) –  Sean Apr 26 '11 at 5:42
Converting from 24 to 50 is typically done by just doubling frames, so the resulting video will actually run a bit too fast. That's because adding one frame each second would create a visible stutter. The same goes for converting in the other direction. –  Martin Vilcans Oct 19 '11 at 18:51
It IS possible, but I wouldn't recommend it.. To get the most cinematic look you should follow the 180 degree shutter. This means that if you shoot at 24p you should have a shutter speed of 1/48sec. If you shoot at 60p you will at least shoot at 1/60sec which means that the blur will be wrong no matter what you do in post.. –  Friend of Kim Mar 1 '12 at 22:16
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If it really is 60fps video (and not just field-doubled), you could do essentially the reverse of 3:2 pulldown.

That is, take the third frame, then the second after that, the third after that, and so on.

It would look quite watchable, though not as natural as anything shot at 24fps (or 48, or 72, etc). It would have a slight effect analogous to 3:2 pulldown, an effect Americans are very familiar with from all the 24fps films shown on their TVs and DVDs. Pans would appear slightly more busy or as having an extra ghost. Rolling credits may be affected more than other content and may need to be re-generated, if best results are to be desired.

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60D 60fps video is indeed progressive. –  Nick Bedford Jul 7 '11 at 3:53
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I disagree with @Jedrek Kostecki

gfilm is a incredible plug-in which saved my life many many times. Sure, not an ad!

Gives a 60fps footage a very close 24fps effect.

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