what camera for a good tracking?

Hello everyone,

I’ve been wanting to buy a camera or a reflex, which I intend to use to make some camera tracking with blender.

So I wonder which features are the most important to get a good tracking:

does filming in 60fps help? I guess the more frames the less blur per frame? Or is resolution more important (to have precise detail)?

I’m really not a pro as far as real filming is concerned, so I would apreciate if you guys know what other features matter to obtain good detail and less blur!

(I’m talking about a reasonable price range and not full professional equipement though)

Thank you!

Not necessarily. Frame rate is not the same as shutter speed. My Panny films at 60fps, but I can set the shutter speed as high as 1/1000th of a second (IIRC) in order to reduce motion blur. (see the pic below.)

The top image was shot at 1/60th of a second. The bottom at about 1/500th.


Or is resolution more important (to have precise detail)?

Yes, you want a minimum of 720p. Preferably 1080p. When you’re tracking a small dot on the video, higher resolution means that spot won’t be heavily pixelated,

Steve S

Moved from “General Forums > Blender and CG Discussions” to “Support > Compositing and Post Processing”

Try not to shoot with to much lens distortion, for example GOPRO cameras have almost fisheye lens curve and make tracking hard. Try to get a camera that has very light compression to reduce artifacts that might confuse the tracker.

Thank you Steve, then I will look for something that films 1080p with a good shutter speed.
3pointEdit ah yes I hadn’t thought of that! Thank you

Although, Steve, thinking about it, I guess you get a draker image when increasing the shutter speed, and in the same time a laggy motion right? So the best would be to film in 60fps to increase the shutter speed without having lag or light problems…
For example the last video on this article looks very weird http://www.videomaker.com/videonews/2013/07/4-steps-to-understanding-shutter-speed

Yes, you can get some strange results with things that are moving very fast. But for most situations it should be okay. As for darkness, the camera tries to compensate by changing the aperture or sensitivity. Unfortunately, increasing sensitivity can also increase noise. So make sure you have plenty of light.

If you want to see some really strange effects of high shutter speed, look at this video. It’s shot at normal frame rate, but with very fast shutter speed.

Steve S

woa, the video is really awesome!
But since the shutter speed reducing is not a thing you’d always want to use, I guess in that case the Nikon D5300 seems to be a nice solution since it films in 60fps full HD and in a good price range, don’t you think? I don’t really know about the distortion it has, but I guess that’s up to the lens, which can be changed; as for the compression the video codec is H.264 or MPEG-4 AVC I wouldn’t know if that’s good or bad
(sorry for all the barely blender-related questions)

Also a recommended camera would be one that uses a RAW format and with no rolling shutter effect, I’m in love with this camera:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/cinemacameras

BMPC 4K

That looks like a badass camera Sam, I wish I could afford that xD
especially with it’s HDR mode

You can always get the pocket version, is 995$

Unfortunately the Blackmagic pocket doesn’t have the global shutter, so does suffer rolling shutter. It does shoot in RAW though, as well as ProRes422 which is a solid codec without heavy compression and that makes it much better than a lot of DSLRs for VFX (and shooting in general :wink: )

My next move would be BMPCC -> Blackmagic URSA <drools>

You’re mixing up shutter speed with frame rate. In general, you’ll want to shoot in whatever format you’re going to deliver your final film in: 24 fps for film/film look, 30/60 fps for NTSC TV, 25/50 fps for PAL TV. Assuming you’re going to post a film for Youtube, Vimeo, etc., you’re probably going to want to shoot in 24 fps most of the time. For slow motion effects, you can shoot in 60 fps and slow it down to 24/25/30/etc. in post.

For shutter speed, the rule of thumb is to shoot at twice your fps (or as close to it as you can): 24/25 fps = 1/50 or 1/60 sec, 30 fps = 1/60, 50 fps = 1/100, 60 fps = 1/125. HOWEVER, that is just a rule of thumb. That just gives you the most “natural” motion blur for a film look. You can shoot with whatever shutter speed you want, so long as you understand what effect that will have on your image. Shooting at 60 fps at 1/125 and 24 fps at 1/125 will give you the EXACT same motion blur, so as far as tracking goes, there’s no difference. It’s only when you get to REALLY high shutter speeds when you get the crazy motion-freezing effect with that bass video.

Hey i’m here to track almost any kind of footage taken by any camera.
Ready to input cg in to footage…(you just send me video clips, i’ll give you tracked .blend file)
Cost: 1000 frames at 10$ only…contact me at [email protected]

Check this out…taken from asus fonepad 3mp camera.

Note: price varies and depends on number of frames. And payment is accepted only after work done ( PayPal).

I did a of tracking and found that if you can have a camera that gives you RAW at 4:2:2 JPEG 2000 will work good. The 422 allows that last 2 not to merge your Blue into your Green when keying. The Jpeg2000 or true progressive (Watch how manufactured package their cameras) They say “P” but when the dust settles it is their version of “P”. Which could be an interlaced file and still called “P” for progressive.
So a cheap, or kinda cheap would be a GH4 Panny DLSR $2000. will get you going. IF not then find an older Nikon or a Canon with 4:2:2 recording on board. That is another thing the box states. 4:2:2 but with an external recorder. So if you find a camera for a deal, and it has the capability to record external at 1920 4:2:2 buy a recorder that will record via HDMI true 1920 422.

I find that technique matters at least as much as the camera. People who know what they are doing can shoot
very trackable footage with something as simple as an eos 550D, without steady cam or whatever. I haven’t figured out
yet how to do that. I have played with the settings of my 1200D, but on a bright winter day, I cannot seem to get the shutter speed high enough for my poor eye- hand coordination. I probably will need to make a steadycam attachement.

You shouldn’t need fast shutter blender tracks blur quite well. Also consider shooting a training shape like some dots on a page at the beginning of your shot. Use that to keyframe the solve then continue into rest of shot.

I think you don’t realize how poor I shoot grin