I’m thinking about putting stuff together from my travels or outdoorsy stuff from a gopro, a little drone, an SLR or a mixture of all 3. In 1080 rather than 4K. Not sure what I’ll do with it – I guess some might go on you tube or vimeo for friends to see and the rest just live in a dusty corner of a hard drive to be looked at once in a blue moon.

In your opinion does PAL vs NTSC matter any more. As a UK citizen do you stick to 25fps as it is PAL standard or do you use 30FPS (actually 29.97) which is NTSC? Or do you use 24fps? Does it matter any more? Or do you even use 50 or even 60fps? From what I’ve experienced and read converting one to the other often creates a bit of stuttering and audio issues so using the same on all your kit makes sense.

Depends what you’re doing with it. If you want to burn a DVD for viewing on a normal TV I presume PAL would make sense. However that’s not what most people do, it’s not what I expect to ever do, and it doesn’t sound like it’s what you’re suggesting. If you’re putting it on YouTube or Vimeo I don’t think it matters. I tend to film at 60fps as that’s what my camera will do at its highest resolution – I have to admit I’d not considered the idea of just filming at 30fps (to reduce the size of recordings?).

I have to admit I’d not considered the idea of just filming at 30fps (to reduce the size of recordings?).

Partly. I’ve read stuff that said 60fps was a bit pointless for film (as opposed to video games where it does) apart from ability to use as slow mo. My kits not the newest either – laptop struggles to process massive files and slr has to drop to 720p to get 60 fps. 25 or 30 seem to be the sweet spot between a common format available on everything and editable without sending me nuts.

Depends what you are trying to emulate.

Standard for UK is 25p with a 1/50 shutter will give you a nice middle ground for a ‘film’ look and DVD/UK TV compatibility.

No reason you can’t have the genuine 24p for proper film motion but then you have a few issues when/if coming to PAL based formats.

If you want fluid motion with less blur then 50/60p emulates both UK and US ‘TV’ frame rates respectively.

Our general standard tends to be 25p with a 1/50th shutter. To give nice motion blur and film-like output. If you were going to cinema as an output you would have a few issues though as the actual standard is 24fps. Though cinema output is less likely to be your final choice!

Slo-mo usually starts with 50p so you’ve got double the frame rate for smoother motion.

Frame rates are largely moot these days due to digital processing and a more creative decision. But it pays to understand your final delivery format to get the common ground.

Not that I manage to do much, but if I’ve used the GoPro in the past then I’ll always shoot with a high frame rate to at least give me the option of using some slo-mo effects.

Anything less than 60fps on a GoPro will look odd.

If you want to do slo-mo stuff then 60fps; if not doing slo-mo then 30fps is absolutely fine (actually 25fps is also absolutely fine). What are you planning to view the footage on? If anything other than a TV (or bigger) then 1080 isn’t really that much better than 720, so you can save space and get more footage if you have a consideration as to what you are going to view it on and what it will have i.e. no slo-mo, then 60fps isn’t really a requirement.

60fps does make the riding/action look much quicker though, so if you want to appear to be a true riding god with the speed abilities of a pro, then 60fps is probably what you want to use.

Thanks for the responses so far. Sorry, I should have said, this won’t be high adrenaline action (if you could call my riding action!) chesty footage and the like. More atmospheric/landscape/environment bollocks. I guess the 60fps is more relevant to the action stuff.

Final output would be to youtube/vimeo to some extent for sharing but personal use would be to play it back via a TV casting it from a NAS.

24fps on Super 8.

If the subject or camera is going to move or vibrate (drone or mounted to a bike) I’d use 60 then in the final edit reduce it to 30. Double and half the frame rate reduces the creation of interframing. Going form 69fos to 24 fps created a half frame to cover the basic division problem. If you shoot higher you get less blur between frames captured. Smoother footage. 120 on GoPro looks great and offers you a quarter speed option without reducing quality.

I find fast motion on a mountain bike looks better at 60fps, but it depends massively on where you use it. Stick it on Facebook and it will knock it down to 30fps and looks rubbish. YouTube can handle it better though for a lot of people it will default in a lower quality, plus it does compress the hell out of videos. Vimeo tends to be the best, but you have to pay a lot for it to make good use of it.

Ski footage I’ve done looks fine at 30fps.

Noting it does it progressive, so 720/1080p60 is actually 60fps. If you convert for DVD or a standard def TV, it will need converting to 30i (interlaced), which can result in jagged edges on motion. Or for HD you can convert to 24 or 25p, but it’s dropping a lot of frames and will look very film like. If the video is epic scenery, wide shots, slow motion, then it may suit it. Fast action may be better with high frame rates.