Canon 6D VS S20

[Beav]

Hi guys,

i've started a youtube channel and i'm not sure if to use my Galaxy S20+ for video or my Canon 6D (24-105mm lens). Obviously the S20 is a much newer device but it is only a phone at the end of the day so i'm unsure. On the other hand the phone is probably better due to the aperture but I do have a white photography light so F4 on my 24-105mm might be enough.

I have bought a dedicated microphone which ile plug into the camera itself and i'm not sure if I need to edit any video/mic settings in the camera?

Thanks,

 

[minimaltoo]

Armchair advice, because I've never published a single video that I've shot (!) but whichever device you use, lock everything possible: aperture, shutter speed, focus and white balance (don't forget the WB!). if you are in a controlled environment then that's easier than out-and-about, but it doesn't matter if it's 480p or 4K - if your AF goes hunting during a talking head shot then it'll be painful to watch, so lock off as much as makes sense for your environment.

Keeping to 180 degree shutters (ie: 1/60s for 30fps) is nice if you can, but don't stress too much about that, and don't worry about getting an exact 1/48 or 1/50 for 24/25fps) as this will will give a more traditionally film-like feel to the final video (we've been unconsciously taught to expect motion blur). Using a higher shutter speed (ie: 1/250s at 24fps) makes it feel more soap-opera like.

So pick the device that gives you the most control over the above, and then you'll find it easier to get the feel you want in the final edit.

You will want to look at the mic settings - auto might be fine, but again, if you are in a controlled environment you might want to fix the audio gain so that any background noise is minimised - test things out for whatever your expected loudness will be during the shoot, and for a quick overview, make sure you're not going above +3dB (keep to 0 as a peak if you can) and you'll avoid distortion. There are tricks you can play to give yourself a safety track by recoding one channel louder than the other, and then sorting it out in the edit, but audio is a whole new rabbit hole to go down !

Don't be afraid to use both: maybe the 6D for talking head to camera, and then the mobile for b-roll close-ups of whatever you're talking about - that will depend a lot on what your channel aim is, and how your style will develop. A mobile is far, far simpler to use as an overhead 'desk view' device than a DSLR simply due to the weight and size of it.

I've used Filmic Pro (on Apple devices) and it is awesome for configurability, but there's no need to go splashing out on that until you've tried out the default mobile video app, and if that offer enough config then just go with it.

If it comes down to it, then which one lets you setup the view in the way you like best ? If the mobile fits the room and view better, just go for it with that.

 

[gman]

My understanding is that it's the higher frame rate such as 50/60fps (as opposed to 24/25/30fps) which gives footage a more video or soap/tv look? Whereas increasing the shutter speed to beyond the 180 degree rule is for artistic purposes such as making action scenes more dramatic (I'm thinking of the beach scene re. Saving Private Ryan)?

 

[minimaltoo]

My understanding is that it's the higher frame rate such as 50/60fps (as opposed to 24/25/30fps) which gives footage a more video or soap/tv look? Whereas increasing the shutter speed to beyond the 180 degree rule is for artistic purposes such as making action scenes more dramatic (I'm thinking of the beach scene re. Saving Private Ryan)?

So I think the two are the same (but am very open to being shown why I'm wrong: I'm more into stills than video).

For 'cinema' 24fps the 180-degree rule says 1/48 of a second shutter speed (I'm assuming MILC/DSLR style bodies & shutters as that's all I've used), so by the time we hit 60fps that's up to 1/120 shutter and so we're much more likely to see slow-moving water take on a more droplet than stream-like nature, and for there to be less motion blur on car wheels going past, etc. Going to a 1/500 or 1/1000 shutter will make this even more pronounced and yes it can (and has) been used deliberately in film, but what we're doing is just an extension of taking an ever shorter moment in time and stretching the display of it to the same length of time, turning what felt like a blurred, fluid series of moving images into a slide show of still frames with longer gaps between the stills than the still took to be captured. (Similar to Pulse Width Modulation duty cycles graphs, if you're into that kind of thing - it certainly helps visualise the capture vs display relative periods).

Note the terms fluid and still are totally relative and refer to human visual perception - 24fps is only in use because it's just fast enough to give a convincing illusion of movement - there's nothing magical about the framerate (it was driven by costs: more frames per second cost more money - I'm including mechanical speed limitations of the era in costs here, as there was a need to mass produce reliable replay devices) and because we've had many decades of exposure to this (and broadcast TV at 25/30 is close enough to 24 to feel similar, and with frame-pulldowns we mimicked 24fps even more closely) we've become accustomed to thinking that most things blur at relatively low speeds when on film, and this is now baked into our expectations.

So it comes down to both shooting and playback device - I was assuming a 24/25/30fps playback device, and you'll need to have moving items in your shot before you could feel anything different - if it was a talking head shot I don't think I could tell you what framerate was used (others might). But the 180-degree is about balancing the shutter open and shutter closed times so that we're still on a 50% duty-cycle. Shooting at 60fps with a 1/120 shutter and playing back at 30fps by dropping alternate frames will have the same effect as shooting at 30fps with 1/120 shutter (ie: a 90 degree shutter, so only open 25% of the time). If you moved from 60fps to 30fps by blending pairs of frames, then the 180-degree angle would be maintained.

I am assuming that soaps still used the 180-degree rule. That may be a flawed assumption...