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Shooting in Rain and maintaining filmic look.
  • What settings would you guys advise to shoot in rain, and to capture the rain drops, whilst maintaining a filmic look. I'd want to shoot 25p, ideally.
  • 11 Replies sorted by
  • What do you mean by "filmic look"? Start from a shutter angle of 180° (1/50sec) and double it until you're satisfied with the look...
  • Well I normally have my shutter on '50' and feel that gives me the organic filmic look at 25p. Only problem with this is that it doesn't capture rain that well.
  • Have a light shining straight between the lens and the subject. The key is to light up the rain in the foreground. Everything else is normal shooting from there.
  • Isn't the location fake rain trick Borax solution and rain bars? Always remember being soaked in the stuff on set - miserable!
  • Agree with @Greek_m43, and set shutter higher than 1/100 so rain doesn't turn to mist
  • The best example of a rain scene.

  • @Greek_m43 - Cheers, I'll look into that

    @EOSHD - Would setting shutter higher than 100 risk producing a more 'video' feel? When I increase it from 50 to 60, there's is already a noticeable difference.
  • @Donnie88, to address your "50 to 60" shutter, you see a "noticeable difference", I would submit that one factor to consider, especially is you are using lights to illluminate the rain, is sync. I am located in PAL/50 Hertz electricity country, new to shooting with GH2 and 24p in a predominantly 25p location. 24p 1/60 flicker may appear, same for 1/80. GH2 at 1/100 was ok and synced with 50 Hertz power. Above 1/100, and even multiples of 50 above 1/100, namely, say, 1/200, 1/400, flicker from fluoroscent lights made it unusable. Other light sources may fair better with those higher shutter speeds. Some LED lights worked well above 1/100. I am not going with 25p stock firmware v1.1, so I wait to explore VK's firmware enhancements, in due course.

    Watch the movie, Gamer. Rather high shutter speeds were even used in many of the non-action scenes. Perhaps not the most film like looking movie, as it mimics the game environment of 60p, like Call of Duty games, via the use of higher shutter speeds on 24p set. All the best with your shoot and finding the look you want.
  • Great question, but there's another important one. Say you're doing a shoot outside when it's raining, how can you shoot the GH2 whilst having it on a jib crane and protecting it? Is there something you can put on it to protect it from water damage but maintain the same quality?

  • Well, there are these underwater bags with a clear front glass which only work for snorkeling down to two meters but are perfect in the rain. Not cheap, though.