Settings for slow motion video

[AvaV]

I need some very simple instructions for how to set up an OM-D E-M1 Mark II for recording a slow motion video. I am not a technical person and am very confused. I have read the video section in the book Mastering the Olympus OMD E-M1 Mark II by Darrell Young and it is not helping my understanding. I am trying to video Karate students doing Kata. It is to slow movement down, enough, but not too much, in order to make corrections in their technique. There are too many camera selections, pathways and choices.
If anyone can give me instructions on where to go in the menu, and what to select that might accomplish this, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you

[Ross the fiddler]

EDIT: See BDennis comment below or else it is possible to do sequential frames in Interval Shooting/Time Lapse at the slowest frame rate of 1fps which can then be saved as 4K movie though. Go to Menu 1 & last item which is Drive Mode & follow that through to Interval shooting.

[BDennis]

Pretty sure you can do slow motion on the Mk ii but it won’t record audio I think. I haven’t used it for a while since upgrading cameras, although I still have the MkII.

It can do slow motion in FHD 1920x1080 24 frames per second slowed x4 at the slowest setting.

Go to:

- Video Menu
- Specification Settings (video quality)
- Top menu item in Specification Settings (image size, compression, bit rate)
- 6th item down penultimate item “MOV FHD …” with the slow / fast option

Set it to:

Size: FHD
Bit rate: SF
FPS: 24p
Clips: OFF
Slow /Fast: x0.4

You need to press OK when you’ve set those for settings to register.

I’m pretty sure that will get you slow motion at x0.4 speed in FHD quality.

There are other options for how much to slow it like x0.6. You might want to experiment.

There are other things to set like AF, movie record mode and picture mode. I would try for P mode with everything auto on exposure and video Picture Mode off and just set it to natural. These are under the video Mode and Specification menus. You probably want to go for minimum post processing?

Another option is to record higher frame rate video like FHD 60p (60 frames / second) and slow it down in post processing to 30 frames / second.

Hope that helps, the video options can be confusing and changes from firmware updates may not always be reflected in the manual you have to hand!

Bill

[Ross the fiddler]

Thanks. It's been a while since I last played with that & had forgotten it was there. I've edited my post above.

[AvaV]

Thank you for your help and suggestions. I will give it a try and see how it goes. I have not done much with video at all. I don't have a way to post process it. I was hoping to watch it on my computer. as is. ...

[Ross the fiddler]

You can crop, join & convert (to MP4) in OM Workspace.

[AvaV]

Thank you! I did not realize you could do that there. I will have a look!

[AvaV]

It worked to slow down the movie and it turned out very well, but it is in the wrong orientation. I cannot figure out how to rotate the movie. I have it opened both in photoshop and OM workspace. Is there an easy way to rotate it?

[Ross the fiddler]

Remember, the camera is not a phone. However, it is possible to rotate it in a program like Windows Movie Maker though ('cause I made that mistake myself), but it will be a vertical display in the centre of a 'wide screen' 16:9 format though, like this. https://youtu.be/9VSv5a2ktok
Only the latest OM-5 does vertical video (at this point).

[Ross the fiddler]

Also, I'm assuming you are talking about the video mode & not sequential time lapse frames?

[AvaV]

I don't have a program for movie editing and only need to rotate the videos, so don't want to buy one. I need to hold the camera vertical and not have the video come out sideways to watch. I thought I used the C4K option before without this problem , but maybe not since apparently only the OM-5 does it. Guess I need to find some free or inexpensive video software just to do this one thing..... windows Movie maker is not longer available from what I can see online.

[BDennis]

Do you have an iPad tablet by any chance? If you can get the clip into the Photos app on an iPad, you can edit it very easily in that and do the rotation. Perhaps an iPhone can do that too.

Apart from that, some free application that runs on Windows (it sounds like you are on that OS). I use something called DaVinci Resolve on my Mac and it also has a Windows version - free but quite complex and a big download and it needs a performant PC. It can easily rotate a video using a transform and then you just export it. In the example here I just dropped the clip into a project and set the "Rotation Angle" to 90 degrees on the right. Sledge-hammer to crack a nut though!

[AvaV]

I don't have an iPad, however, I emailed someone I took some photoshop classes from in the past. They told me to take it into photoshop and rotate it. When I tried, it told me I needed a smart object and when I clicked on yes, it created it for me. Then I rotated it, and rendered it. It was saved back in the original folder. It appears to work fine, so I guess that is my answer for now. He also said there was a pictures to EXE application that I could do it on. Not certain what that is.....
Thank you for the suggestions!

[PeterG]

There is a Picture-to-EXE program much in favour with AV workers: https://www.wnsoft.com/en/pte-av-studio/

[AvaV]

Thank you for the information

[oregon]

If you find it hard to set your camera to film in slow motion, you can easily edit it by using a video editor. I use this free mp4 editor.

It's very easy to do it there. Upload your video, and select the timeframe after this switch to more tools. There, you will find the Video Editing tab and select Slow Motion. You will see a slider, and you can adjust the speed however you want. If you' adding the slow motion effect to a video with audio, the audio will have the slow motion effect as well.