As we plan future shoots, a survey on sound - how to you feel about hearing the shutter-clicking of a still camera on the soundtrack of a WAM video?

I was a still photographer before I was a videographer, and while I recognised some years ago that in WAM, video is king, I still shoot a still photoset alongside each scene we film. I don't take as many photos as I once did, times were I'd shoot 1,400 still frames per scene, these days it's usually in the 300-odd shot range at most and I'm actively keeping the total count down. But as the still camera is a Nikon DSLR (currently a D300s) there is a noticable shutter-clack each time it takes a shot.

Tastes and desires change fast these days, so, what's your view? Select an option from the poll and feel free to comment as well, whichever option you select.

It doesn't matter much to me. Most videos (not yours specifically, just the general state of WAM videos) have awkward silence and even more awkward fake moaning so it's not like a few shutter clicks are suddenly going to ruin things.

That said--and there's really no need to spend a bunch of money on a new camera if you're just shooting stills--mirrorless cameras do have a very convenient silent shooting mode...

It can go either way for me. If I find the noises distracting, I can always turn the volume down. For my shoots, I use my Blackmagic Designs 6K Pro rig which offers a stills capture feature which is silent. The only drawback is the image stabilization isn't on par with Nikon or Canon (IMO) but that's easy enough to circumvent with the appropriate rig. The shutter sounds matter to me for my shoots but I tend not to hold that bar towards others as I kinda expect people to default to their trusty DSLR until the price of mirrorless comes down a bit more.

I picked sound on, camera clicks don't bother me, but there's a caveat.

How many camera clicks are we talking, how loud. I have seen some videos where it was done in a bathroom with some echo, and the camera shutter sounded like a belt fed M249 in a war zone.

Meanwhile, in ourdoors scenes I can barely hear them at all and they are just part of the ambient background noise.

Another third option that a number of producers have used which I'm not a fan of is either completely overwrite the sound with background music, or add background music to existing sound. It's not a John Williams production, I really don't need a memorable soundtrack. And I definitely want to hear the sounds of mess hitting, and the squeals and laughter of the people involved.

Until mirrorless prices drop significantly, I will continue using my DSLR.

-JD

I'm not bothered by camera clicks, but if heard in the recording, I want to SEE those photos.
It's so fun to see what images came from which fleeting moment of ooze & drip.

I usually watch with the sound off, but if I did put the sound on, camera clicks wouldn't really bother me, it's actually reassuring, because I really like photo sets and wish there were more of them.

Around 70% of the time I watch with the sound off but if it's a video where dialogue is relevant to the scene then I'll want it on. It's also nice hearing the sound of mess hitting sometimes along with the persons reaction too.

This is partly because I've got good speakers and the walls here are paper thin mind - some of us need to be subtle!

It's always better without camera clicks but if there are subtle then it's not the end of the world.
IF however someone is using the flash then that is a problem!

As Potatoman mentioned I have to agree that I've never seen a need for music in a WAM video - just mute it if you need to cover background noise and to go off at a tangent I really hate it when a producer feels the need to add a massive intro before the scene! I downloaded a video once and had to skip nearly 30 seconds of title screen, models name and drivel on what was only a two or three minute video!!

Photosets are not really a thing for me - Yes I like good photos but if I've got the video then I would rarely be interested in buying the photoset. If they come bundled together then great but even then it's 50/50 if I kept the set (depending on the scene I guess).
I have bought sets once or twice over the years but this is very rare for me and I think one was because the video was not available.
I do like seeing/having a few high res photos of highlights from a scene though.

Camera clicks don't bother me, sometimes there are even camera flashes, which again don't bother me. It's always nice to have an accompanying photo set, so camera clicks, flashes are to be expected.

Camera clicks are not an issue for me, it is expected when the video comes with photos and of course photos are used to advertise the video too, so no problem.

Interestingly balanced results so far, initially anti-click had a decisive lead, but since then it's equalised and at the moment if you add the three "not a problem" answers together it comes to two more than anti. However it's clear there's definite views and opinions here, thanks to everyone who's voted, and/or commented, so far, please keep them coming!

I have comtemplated ways to reduce / prevent the sound, varying from just shooting the photoset on my phone, which does have a very good camera as phones go (Samsung S20), to invesring in a mirrorless rig, to adding an external microphone above the main messing area of the dungeon rather than relying on the video camera's built-in mic 0- which wouldn't eradicate the clicks but would make them a lot quieter.

A couple of people mentioned flashes, that's something you'll never see in our scenes. We deliberately light the dungeon brightly enough (with 1200W of halogen floodlamps) that no flash is necessary, using the Nikon we usually shoot at between 1/80th and 1/100th, at f4.5 and 400 ISO (which is the camera sensor's native speed). The usual lens is a Sigma 30mm prime ("standard lens" for a crop sensor in old-style terminology), which can go all the way to f1.4, at which point it really can see in the dark, but with a depth of field so shallow that if a model's nose is in focus the rest of her isn't, hence us sticking to the f4 range for WAM scenes.

Worrying about being overheard is why I tend to watch with the sound either off or way down, legacy of being secretive as a teenager, even though that was 40-odd years ago.

Buyers will always get to see the photos of our scenes, we bundle them in the UMD store, each video scene, with a very few exceptions, will have the photoset included along with it. Plus as someone mentioned we also use pics from the stills set for promo purposes, while UMD auto-generates screenshots to pick from for its promo shots, our main websites rely on the jpegs to create previews of scenes.

Regarding removing or replacing the soundtrack, in the early days we did that, partly to make the files slightly smaller, partly because as I usually watched with the sound off I assumed everyone else did too, and mainly because we'd have copyright music chosen by the models playing while we were shooting (leaving that in would leave us liable to get sued by the RIAA), and knowing we were going to pull the sound meant the crew would be talking to and directing the models - so you'd have a background of Goth and Symphonic Metal tracks plus loud male crew voices dominating things. Eventually from customer feedback I realised lots of people wanted the sound left in, so we stopped the music and real-time direction. I also realised very few people actually wanted a 1,400-shot photoset with every scene, so I've cut down the number of shots taken dramatically, which means rather less "machine-gun-fire" shutter clacks throughout the soundtrack - these days I am for 200-300 shots for a scene, including all the "model and outfit detail" ones I take of everyone clean and dry beforte we roll the video.

The options given were either clicks ruin a video or I'm not bothered by them.

However, I'm somewhere in between, where I find them somewhat annoying but not terrible. What I don't like are the mini-poses that happen in some videos where the photographer has the model freeze for a shot, over and over throughout the scene. The scene is more like an afterthought to a photoshoot, where I prefer if the scene runs smoothly and if photos are being shot at the same time, it's no problem. (unless the photographer uses a flash)

My other comment is that most DSLR cameras have a fake electronic shutter sound that can simply be switched off. The actual mechanical camera sound is very soft.

Ok, got me, I will admit I didn't think of that, other than as a subset of "watch with sound but not bothered". Fair point.


At best a scene like that would be "behind the scenes footage of a photoshoot", definitely not a proper video. TBH we have occasionally done ones where we took no stills while the video was rolling, but then had multiple pauses between takes and took posed stills during the pauses. So the video is continuous but with noticable cuts between the takes, and the photoset is all-posed, but mostly not action shots, as those were all in the video. The result is a video that shows all the messing happening, and a photoset that shows the after-effects of each additional mess application, with the models steadily going from pristine to completely drenched.

And flash should be an absolute no-no when video is running - just light the scene well enough that flash isn't needed, lamps aren't exactly expensive.


Never heard of that on a DSLR before, all the noise from my D300s is the mirror mechanism plus shutter. Though after googling based on your comment, I've now found there is a "quieter mode" where the mirror returns to the rest position more slowly, which while not making the sound quieter, does make it a bit softer. There's even a YouTube video that demonstrates the variations - going to try this in our next shot scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkdT-CS1jzw

For me, it depends. Rapid fire clicks can ruin it for me especially if (as I have occasionally seen) the photographer wanders in to shot or is using flash. Only ever seen one video where the photographer was using flash but wandering into shot (or more often, the end of lens being in shot) seems quite common. The noise alone can be distracting if using headphones as it noticeably moves ear to ear as the photographer moves around