Frame Rates - Should You Care?

This 3 minute read is all you need!

Most people I talk to about smartphone video have no idea what a video frame rate is and to be honest most don’t really care!

That’s ok – it does not have to be complicated. You can happily shoot on your default smartphone settings.

If you want to know a bit more without all the boring tech speak then here’s a short and sweet breakdown of the key essentials.

What is frame rate?

A video frame rate is simple the number of images that appear per second.

Remember when you were a child and you flipped quickly through a book of images and they looked like they were moving? Well shooting video is just like that!

Why do frame rates matter?

A frame rate can impact the look and feel of your video and determines how realistic your video is.

Three things to note before you change your frame rate

1. Your eyes are used to a certain amount of motion blur in real life such as when you watch a car drive past or see a ball being thrown.
2. We have been trained to watch videos at 24 FPS and watching video in a higher frame rate can seem odd. Some people call this the “soap opera effect”.
3. If you choose to shoot at a higher frame rate it will require more storage space on your smartphone.

The Easy Frame Rate Guide

24 FPS

This is the standard frame rate in the film industry. Films are played at this speed in a cinema. It’s a good setting for most shooting purposes and has a classic cinematic feel. You can’t go wrong with this.

25 FPS

FPS settings used to have different rates for different countries and their broadcast settings. 25 FPS was used for UK, Europe and Australia and 30 FPS was for the USA. This rate can be useful to avoid any flickering from lights in your shoots.

30 FPS

This is the standard frame rate for TV but some TV shows have now moved to shooting on the more cinematic 24 FPS. If you are shooting sports they often benefit from using the extra frames per second.

DO NOTE: Social media platforms use 30 FPS as their norm but you are also fine to shoot in 24 FPS or 25 FPS for social media.

60 FPS

This is used for recording busy scenes with a lot of movement in them or fast moving sports. Anything you want to show in slow motion can be shot at this frame rate because the slow motion replays will look crisp and clear.

Some smartphones will offer you these options:

120 FPS

Use this setting for slow motion if your phone does not offer you a specific slow motion option.

240 FPS

This is the highest FPS that smartphones will offer.

How to check the FPS setting on your smartphone

Go into your camera settings and see what your smartphone offers you. Most modern smartphones default to shooting at 30FS.

iPhones:?Offer a choice of 24FPS 30FPS and 60FPS and slow motion options.

Google:?Offer 30FPS and 60FPS and slow motion options.

Samsung:?Offer 24FPS 30FPS 60FPS and slow motion and ultra slow motion.

If your smartphone does not offer you want then you can download the?Filmic Pro app

This app turns your smartphone camera into a professional shooting device and is available for both iOS and Android devices. It costs around ￡11 ($14.99).