Transcripts
1. Introduction: Welcome to your complete guide
on how to use any camera, whether we're talking
about mirrorless cameras, drones or anything else. This class is going
to go through everything you need to know and what things you can adjust in the camera to get the
footage that you want. This class was designed for
video creators and minds. So if you're a filmmaker, if you're trying to
bring on clients, or if you just want
to make videos on YouTube or any
other social media. This is the perfect
class for you to understand how to
use your camera. If we haven't met before. My name is Kevin Dover. I'm an adventure filmmaker
and I have a YouTube channel dedicated to teaching you
how to make better videos. So by the end of this class, you're going to have a
complete understanding of how to use any camera
that you pick up. One of the big things that we're gonna be
learning throughout this entire class is how
you go from auto to manual. How you'd use every
setting on your camera, and what you can
actually do with those to make some creative choices. These are the
fundamental skills that you need to master
so that you can focus on what you're filming versus how
you're filming it. Now we have a ton to unpack in the series. So
let's get started.
2. Class Project: For this class project, I want you to film three shots and you're gonna do it twice. First, you're gonna
take your camera and you're gonna film
completely on autos. So just let the camera
decide what it thinks looks best and using the skills
that you learn in this class, do those same three shots, but put your camera completely on manual so that
you are controlling everything about your image and you can make
creative choices. Now, line these
up in a timeline, and that is your class project. The goal of this project to see the difference when you go from completely auto to
completely manual, and how much of an
impact that makes when you actually make
those creative choices.
3. Resolution: Let's talk about resolution. So you'll hear 1080 HD, 724 k, eight k. There's all these different
resolutions that you can fill mat and
finish your project n. And there are different
reasons why you might use something like
for k versus HD. But depending on what your distribution method is and who the project is going to, it might not make that
much of a difference. For me personally, my
production company, a lot of our projects are still delivered in HD and ten ADP, even though most cameras
nowadays we'll film in for K. The reason for that is
they don't need for K for the distribution that
they're going after. But on my YouTube channel, I strive to put
everything out in for K. I just think the fork
looks a little bit better. It's more crisp,
it's more clear. And I upload all
my YouTube content in for k. So let
me just show you this graph that shows
you the difference in resolution between HD for K, six K, and eight K. And effectively what's
happening when you're shooting at higher
resolutions is there's more pixels which
allows you to have more detail and you can
see more in the image. So for k footage is
four times bigger than HD and eight
K footage is four times bigger than four K. Your fork a footage is going to look more clear than your HD and your eight K is going to
look clear then your fork a most cameras shoot
up to four K nowadays, but moving forward, there are more and more cameras
coming out that shooting is six K and eight K. Personally, I've
never needed to go more than four K unless I'm
cropping in on the footage. So one thing that you
can do when you're shooting at higher
resolution footage is that you can crop in on your image and you're not
going to lose any pixels. If you're cropping in
on ten ADP footage, you're going to start losing pixels and it's going
to start getting mushy. And just not as clear. Now on YouTube, that
doesn't really matter. There's a whole trend of people pushing in
on their footage and it doesn't really
make that big of a difference if you
lose some resolution. Where this matters is
when you're working with clients or more
professional projects. When I'm working with
my bigger clients and I'm pushing in
on the footage, I need to make sure that
I'm not losing resolution. So if I'm delivering
an HD project, I'll shoot in forecast. So that allows me to crop in on the footage and not
lose any resolution. Now one other thing you need to think about
when it comes to resolution is that when you're filming and higher resolutions, it's gonna be more data. So it's going to take up more
space on your memory card. And so you're going
to have to have bigger memory cards and bigger hard drives to be able to compensate for that extra data. So when you're getting ready
to start one of your videos, one of the first decisions
that you need to make is to decide
which resolution that you're going to film at HD for k or something higher.
4. Frame Rates: Let's talk about frame rates. So before you go out
and film your project, you need to make a
conscious decision on what frame rate you're going
to film your project in. There's 24 P205, P3, P, 1620 p, and there's no right
or wrong way to shoot. It depends on what you wanna do. So let me just give you a quick breakdown of the
difference between all of these different
frame rates and why you might use one over another. So the standard for Hollywood cinema is
24 frames per second. So what that means
is that there's 24 images every second. So when we're talking about frame rates were talking about how many images are flashing
on screen in each second. So Twenty-four p is
24 frames per second. 30 P is 30 frames every second. 60 p is 60 individual
frames every second, 120 p. Well, same thing, a 120
frames in 1 second. Now choosing a frame rate is going to have a
different impact on the look of the footage when you shoot in 24 frames per second, That's the minimum that you can shoot out where it's
still feels fluid. But it has this quality that doesn't necessarily feel real. It feels more like a movie. When you get into 30
frames per second, 60, it's going to start
feeling more real. And so a lot of times
what you'll see is that movies are filmed at
24 frames per second. Commercials, anything that's
trying to look cinematic. And then TV shows were typically filmed at 30 frames per second. And you get into soap operas, those were filmed at
60 frames per second. But when it comes to today with the kind of
content that we're producing on YouTube and
all across every spectrum. The frame rate doesn't
necessarily matter as much. Personally. I like the look
of 30 frames per second. It's a little bit more smooth
than 24 frames per second, but it's not so smooth
as 60 frames per second, which gives you that
soap opera quality and your frame rate is also going to dictate how you're
slow motion works. And so in the next section, I'll explain more about
how you use slow motion, but what we're talking
about in this video is all about which frame
rate you're going to choose for your project. And so that's what you're
gonna be using when you're out filming to shoot
real-time footage. So footage like this where
it's not slowed down. So let me just show you
two samples side-by-side. Here's 24 frames per second
versus 30 frames per second. Now you can clearly see in this example the difference
in quality between 2430. There's not a right frame
rate that you need to choose. It comes down to
personal decision. But one thing you do
need to think about is when you shoot at
higher frame rates, because there's more
images per second, you're actually going
to be using more data. So you're 30 frames
per second clip, or your 60 frames per second, or 120, is going to be
bigger in size than the 24. So one thing that I
suggest you go and do is do a little
test for yourself. Take your camera out, shoot
in 24 frames per second, and then shoot the same thing
in 30 frames per second. And then the same thing
in 60 frames per second. And look at them side-by-side. And you can make the
choice on which frame rate you think looks best for the
videos that you're creating. Personally, for all
of my YouTube videos, I shoot 30 and for the
majority of my client work, I also shoot 30 unless it's
specifically requested that they want that Hollywood
24 frames per second look.
5. Slow Motion: In the last video, we
discussed frame rates. Well, slow motion is going to be an extension of talking
about frame rates. So how slow motion
works is that you film more frames per second
and then you slow it down in your
timeline or in camera. So as we discussed
in the last video, every frame rate is that
amount of frames per 1 second. And if your project
timeline is 30 frames per second and you shoot at 30 frames per second
and your camera, then you're going to
have real-time footage. So what we're seeing
here, however, if you shoot in 60 frames per second in your camera and then bring it into your
editing software and slow that down two times. Well, because you have
60 frames to work with, that gets stretched out over two seconds at 30
frames per second. And so now your footage is
going to be half as slow. If you shoot in 120
frames per second, that's a 120 individual
images per second. But what you can do is then stretch that over four seconds. So your footage is
moving four times slower than your
project timeline. That's how slow motion works. You're capturing
higher frame rates, but then you're stretching that over your project timeline, which is set to 2430 or
60 frames per second. So most cameras will shoot in 60 frames per second or
120 frames per second. And there are cameras that do shoot in higher
frames per second. But for the majority of cameras
that you're working with, you'll have access to 6020, which working with
a 30 frames per second timeline is half
speed or quarter speed. Now if you're working on a 24
frames per second timeline, you can make it a
little bit slower because you only have
to fill 24 frames. So footage shot at a
120 frames per second. The footage is actually
slowed down to 1 fifth or 20% speed. So it's gonna look a
little bit slower. And that's because there's
less images per second when you're shooting on a 24
frames per second timeline. Now there's two ways that
you can do slow motion, and it depends on what
your camera shoots. And some cameras, there's what's called a variable frame rate. I shoot on Sony cameras and
they have an S and Q mode, which is slow and quick. On panasonic cameras, It's a veritable frame rate function. And so what this function
does is it actually slows down your footage to the
proper timeline in camera. So if I was shooting at a
120 frames per second while the video clip that
I'm gonna get out of the camera is gonna be
30 frames per second, but it's already slowed
down to a quarter speed. So I don't have to
do any processing in my editing software. Now, cameras will also shoot at true 120 frames per second, and they'll potentially
capture audio when you're recording at
a 120 frames per second. And this gives you
some more flexibility because you're recording audio. And then what you do in
your editing software is you slow down that footage. So there are options in whatever editing
software that you're using to be able to
slow down your footage two times or four
times or five times. And so what you'll do
is drop your footage onto your timeline and
then slow it down. And then you'll have that
same slow motion effect if you were to take
your 30 frames per second video clip and then try to slow that down in
your editing software, it's going to become
choppy because there's no frames
to fill those gaps. So if you have 30 frames per second and you stretch
that to two seconds, well now you're going to
have 30 frames per second with a frame missing
between each frame. And so the editing
software is just going to duplicate the previous frame. And so what happens is you're
going to have half speed, but it's gonna be super choppy. And so this is why
you want to shoot at a higher frame rate when you're trying to capture slow-motion. So when you're out
filming and you want a slow motion shot, you need to make sure
that you're shooting at a higher frame rate than your intended output
of that video. So if you're shooting at
30 frames per second, while you'll want
to shoot at 60 or 120 to be able to
get slow motion.
6. Exposure Triangle: So let's talk about the
exposure triangle and the three things that
are going to be the most important when you're
exposing your image. So we're talking about exposure, how bright or how
dark your images. And there's three factors
that are going to help determine how bright or
how dark your footages. You want proper exposure. Right now here in my office. I have proper exposure. So you're seeing my face, you're seeing the background, and nothing's too
bright or too dark. If you're in a scene where
things are too bright, well, everything is just
going to turn white. It's gonna be overexposed
and vice versa. If everything's too dark, well, everything's going
to turn black and there's not gonna
be any exposure. Your goal when you're
exposing your video is to make it look good so that
your people look good. They're not too bright to dark, and your background is not
too bright or too dark. Now, there's obviously
more factors than just exposure that go into
how the overall image looks. But when you're talking
about your camera, the things that you can control
are your shutter speed, your aperture, and your ISO. And so let's go over each one of these in an individual video to get a better understanding
of how you use these when you want
to shoot in manual.
7. Shutter Speed: First is shutter speeds. Now shutter speed is
basically the amount of time that your sensor
is exposed to light. And so you're going to
see this in a fraction. So 160th of a second means that there is light hitting your
sensor for 160th of a second. That's essentially what
that fraction means. And so your shutter speed can
go up and it can go down. So you could shoot at 1 120th of a second or one
500th of a second. The higher this number gets, the less light that you're
letting into the sensor, because the sensor is being
exposed to light less than, less in the opposite direction. If you shoot at 130th or you're gonna be
letting more light into your sensor
and your footage is going to be getting brighter. Now there's two things you're controlling when you're
changing your shutter speed. Number one is exposure, how bright or how
dark your images. But the second is the amount of motion blur that's
in your footage. So when you shoot at a
higher shutter speed and you're letting less
light into your sensor. Well, your image is
going to be sharper. It's gonna be more crisp. There's not gonna
be motion blur. Motion Blur is the amount of
blurring that happens with each individual image
that mix up your footage. And so when you shoot at
slower shutter speeds, there's gonna be more
blur on each image. So something moving,
like my hand shot at 160th frames per
second in 30 frames per second is going
to have motion blur. Whereas if I crank up
the shutter to say one 500th and there's something
moving in your frame. Well, what's going
to happen is it's going to freeze action. And so there's not
going to be motion blur on those images. Now, if you're a photographer or you've shot
photos in the past, you don't want blur in your photos because
you wanna make it crisp and clear unless you're intentionally blurring the
shot videos different. You actually do want blur and your images
because it makes each frame feel more fluid
when put next to each other. And so for the standard
for video and what we've come accustomed
to seeing in most videos and movies and everything else is double
that of your frame rate. If you're shooting at
30 frames per second, you ideally want your
shutter speed at 160th, and this gives you just
enough motion blur where it feels natural to have this blurring
frame to frame on whatever is moving
in your footage. Now you don't have to shoot it. This rule. And if you're trying to
darken your image and you don't have some of the
other tools to do that. Well, you might want to
crank up your shutter speed and your footage just might
be a little bit more jittery. So here's two samples
side-by-side. One is shot at what's considered proper motion blur or double
that of your frame rate. And the other one is
shot at a higher speed and see how much more
jittery footage looks. If you're just starting out,
you don't have to obsess on this double your
frame rate rule. But if you do want more
cinematic looking footage and you want that more
professional look, well, that is something that
you're going to want to strive for and
you're going to use the other tools in
your exposure triangle and ND filters to be able to
control your shutter speed.
8. Aperture: Let's talk about aperture. This is the second tool that you have to be able to
control your exposure. Now, just like shutter speed, aperture controls two things. Aperture controls how bright or how dark your images,
your exposure. But it's also going to
control your depth of field or how much things
are out-of-focus. So right now, I'm shooting
at a very low aperture. I'm shooting at a one-point
eight on my lens. If you've see in the
background, it's blurry. Whereas if you shoot
at a high aperture, say an F 16 and F22, the background is going
to be more in focus. Your aperture is
actually controlled by your lens that's
attached to your camera. So inside there's
different blades that come together and create a
small hole or a big hole. And when it's super small, it's letting less light into your sensor and your
image is going to be darker when it's super wide or the full width
of your lens wide open, you're going to be letting a lot of light into your sensor. You can think of it like
a hose, small hose, little water, big hose, Firehose, lots of water. And so you're going
to use this to control how bright or
how dark your images. If you want your image brighter, you're going to open up your
aperture, let more light in. And how the system works
for aperture is that the lower numbers are brighter and the higher
numbers are darker. So an F1 and F2, and F2, F3 and F4 and a 5.6. Those are going to let more
light into your footage. And then the higher numbers, F8, F11, F16, F22, those are going
to let less light into your image when it comes to the blurry background or the out-of-focus
sections in your video? Well, the smaller numbers, the ones that are
letting more light into your sensor are going to make more blur in the background. And the higher
numbers which darken your image are going to show
more in the background. So if you want shallow depth of field or the
blurry background, you want to shoot with
your lens wider open so you want to shoot at
the F2 point or the F4. Or if you have a prime,
you want to shoot at something like a 1.8 or two. Now that's going to let a lot
of light into your sensor. So you'd have to
use your ISO and your shutter speed
to control that, so that doesn't
overexpose your image. Now if you want more depth, say you're shooting a landscape. Well, shallow depth of field
doesn't necessarily matter. You'll want to shoot at something
like an IFA or an F 16. So you just need to make
that conscious decision of what kind of look do you
want out of your footage? Do you want shallow depth of field with
things blurred out, or do you want
everything in focus? And that's going
to help determine which aperture you shoot at a lower number or
a higher number, then you just have
to remember that lower numbers are going to
make your image brighter. Higher numbers are going
to make your image darker.
9. ISO: Now the third tool that you have for your exposure is your ISO. This tool, just like
the other ones, has kind of a dual
functionality. So it's going to help change how bright or how
dark your images, but it's also going to control
how clean your images. And so when you're
using your ISO, it's gonna be a number
like one hundred, two hundred, four
hundred, eight hundred. It basically doubles every
time you add a stop of light. But it's how sensitive
your sensor is too light. At the lower numbers, your image is going
to be darker. And at the higher numbers, your image is going
to be brighter. If you're shooting at
something like an ISO 100, it's gonna be a very dark image. Whereas if you're
shooting at ISO 3200, your image is going
to be much brighter. Now typically, your image is going to look good when
you're shooting at lower numbers because
your camera has a base ISO and the base
ISO is basically the ISO. Your camera looks the best, so there's no noise
in your footage. Now if you start shooting
at higher ISOs From that, you're going to
start introducing more noise and your footage is not going to look as clean. And so if you're shooting at night and you need
more exposure, well, you can bump up your ISO, but the issue is depending on which camera
you're working with, that might introduce a
lot of noise and grain into your footage and it's
not going to look as good. So ideally when you're
using your ISO, the rule thumb is
lower ISO numbers is gonna be a cleaner image. Now there are some
cameras that are coming out dual native ISO. So for example, my Sony camera, it has to ISO's where the
image is going to look. The most clean, one
is lower and one is higher for when you're shooting these nighttime style shots. So depending on the
camera that you have, you just wanted to know
what your base ISO is. And those numbers
are going to be where the image is going
to look the cleanest. Now, your base ISO might be 400, but you could shoot at 200 or 100 and the footage is
still going to look good. It's more when you're moving
up into the higher numbers, is when you're going
to start introducing this noise and you're
going to have you having these problems. So the rule of thumb
when it comes to ISO is shoot at the base ISO or shoot a little
bit lower if you need a little bit
darker footage.
10. ND Filters: Let's talk about ND filters. So when you're filming and
you're using your ISO, your shutter speed,
and your aperture. Well, depending on
the creative choices that you're trying to make, your image might be too bright. So if you're shooting an image and you want to have
shallow depth of field, you're outdoors, and you want
to have proper motion blur. Well, your image is going to
be completely overexposed because you have to let a ton
of light into your sensor. When you open your
aperture wide open, you bring down your
shutter speed and your shooting at the
lowest ISO possible, you're still going to have
an overexposed image. So that's where ND
filters come in. In D filters are basically
sunglasses for your camera. And there's two
different styles. There's hard stops, which are just a single exposure
stop or there's veritable that rotate and
they actually changed the exposure so that you
can go brighter or darker. Now, you use these
filters to basically bring down the exposure
of your image. So in this situation where
the image is too bright, but you have your settings
set to where you want. You would add on an ND filter and that would be able
to bring your exposure down so you can have
a proper exposure without things overexposing,
underexposing. And a lot of times you're
going to want to use an ND filter if you are getting super shallow
depth of field and you're using proper
shutter speed because those are the
two things that are going to really bring a lot of exposure to your image
and make it super bright, because you have to
open your aperture wider and you have to bring
your shutter speed down. You don't have to shoot with
an ND filter all the time. It's just another tool in your toolkit to be able to bring down your exposure so you can
get a proper looking image.
11. Auto vs Manual Focus: Let's talk about using
your focus on your lens. You'll have two options,
autofocus or manual focus. Depending on your camera, your autofocus might
be really good. Mike Sony cameras
in this setting, they work great and
I leave it on auto. The issue that comes up when
you're using a camera on autofocus is that it might not always latch
onto your subject, whatever it is that
you're shooting. And so you'll have things out-of-focus when you
don't want them to be. And so this comes from experience working with
your camera and testing it, and also the creative
choices that you're making. So if you want to shoot a scene where say
you're walking through the scene and something
that's foregrounded while the autofocus might latch onto that object
in the foreground. And you're not gonna be in
focus in the background. And so you'll want
to use a mix of manual focus and auto-focus to be able to make sure that whatever you're
shooting is in-focus. So when you flip it
into manual focus, you'll use the focus
ring that's on your lens to be able to adjust
where the focus point is, where it's super sharp. Now, depending on your aperture, that area that's in focus is gonna be longer or it's
going to be shorter. So if you're using a super
shallow depth of field, you're going to have
a razor-thin focus. So you're going to
really have to get your subject or whatever it is in focus at the point
that it's sharpest. But if you're using
a larger aperture, you'll have more space between those two points
where your image is going to be in focus. Now there's a tool in your
camera called focus peaking, which puts lines around
whatever is in-focus. And so you can turn this on depending on which
camera you have. And it's actually going
to outline whatever is in focus when you're
setting manual focus. This isn't as
important when you're using autofocus
because your camera is just going to be auto adjusting to figure out
what it thinks looks best. But if you're having a
problem with your subjects being in focus or whatever
it is being in-focus, you'll want to flip
over to manual and set that point
automatically. Now if you're moving or
your subject is moving, that focus is going to change. And so you'll have to adjust the focus while you're filming, or you'll have to
reset and adjust your focus or flip it into auto. And so a couple of key things
when you're out filming is just test your
camera's autofocus, see how it works. And then if there's times where you need to make
sure that you lock onto a single point
and you don't want your focus bouncing around. Then switch it to manual
and set that focus point.
12. White Balance: Let's talk about white balance. And this is something
that's going to help determine the color
of your image. And white balance
basically says, what is the white
value of your image? If I'm to hold up a
white piece of paper, this looks white on
my camera because I have my white balance set
to the color temperature of this light and the
lights that are actually coming through my
door in the back because this is set to daylight. Outside is daylight because
it's coming from the sun. And that means that
white looks white. Now if I'm to change
the color temperature, that's what I'm basically
setting the point at which I think white looks white. So I have control of
my camera over there and I'm going to adjust the
color temperature to 2800. So now everything looks
blue and that's because I just set my color
temperature to warmer light. And when I do that, cooler light is going to look more blue. Let's go the reverse. So I'm going to
set this to 7500. Now everything's going to
look a little bit warmer. And so you need to make sure that you're setting
your white balance to the proper color temperature of the lighting of
where you're shooting. So I'm going to set this
back to 5600 because the color temperature of the sun is 5600, That's daylight. So anytime you're working with daylight or daylight
balanced lights like this light up here. You want to have your color
temperature set to 5600. Now if you're using more
fluorescent lightings, say like an office setting, you might be somewhere more in the middle, around 4 thousand. And if you're using
warmer lighting like traditional
tungsten light bulbs, well, those are much warmer. So your color temperature to get pure white would be 3200. Now a lot of cameras have
automatic settings built-in. They'll have like the sun
is setting the shade, setting, the fluorescence
setting, the tungsten setting. And you can use these to set your white balance to
what the scene is. Or you can just dial in your white balance based
on the Kelvin number. And you also have
the ability to set this to auto in your camera. But the idea of this class
is to get you off of auto, because auto white balance, you might actually see
your color fluctuate and it's not an easy
thing to fix if you see a little bit of shift
warmer or cooler in your image when
it auto adjusts. So ideally when
you're out shooting, you want to set your white balance and you just
want to make sure that you change that depending on the lighting
that's in the scene. So whenever I'm outside, I have my cameras set to 5600. And if I'm indoors and
there's tungsten lights, I set it to 3200 and you'll know that there's an issue
with your white balance. If you're seeing all of your
image turns super blue, or all of your image turns
super orange or warm.
13. Color Profiles: Let's talk about color
profiles because this is something that
you're gonna have to set before you start shooting. Now, there's two looks that are the majority of what
you're going to find. And that is kind of a
standard look that's with all the colors and
contrast already set. And then there's more log style profiles which are flatter, more grayed out, which
allows you to do some more color grading
in your editing software. If you're just starting out, you'll just want to shoot on a standard profile,
make it easy. That way you could see in camera what you're getting when
you're out filming. Whereas a log profile
is going to give you more flexibility in
your editing software to be able to bring
back your skies, bring up your shadows, and be able to do a color grade That's going to
be more creative. The issue with shooting in a standard profile is
that there might be too much contrast
and so your sky might overexpose or the
shadows will get really dark. Whereas when you're
using a log profile, it flattens out the image and it gives you
more dynamic range. Dynamic range is going to be determined by the camera
that you're using. Some cameras only have ten stops of dynamic range
where others have 16. And so when you're
shooting in a log profile, you're capturing more
exposure valleys. So then you can go through
and color graded later. Now some cameras will have a setting that's kinda
more in the middle. So I would say it's not
a full log profile, but it's also not
a full standard. One of the profiles I like to use all the time is
on my Sony cameras. It's called as semitone. And what it does is
it just brings up my shadows a little
bit and it's not as contrasty and saturated
as the standard profile. Now in a lot of DJI drones, there's a profile
called descending like and which has
more log properties. It's a flatter image, but it's not as flat
as the log that you might find it in
like a Sony camera. And so when you're shooting
in a standard profile, your contrast and all of your saturation is
already set for you, whereas the log profile, you shoot and to preserve your dynamic range of your
shadows and your highlights. And it allows you to
be more flexible when you get into your
editing software.
14. Stabilization: Let's talk about stabilization because when you hand
hold the camera, your footage is
gonna be shaking. And there's two types of stabilization that you're going
to encounter in a camera. One is going to be internal, so your embody stabilization
and the other is in a lens. So optical stabilization. Now every camera is going to
be a little bit different. If you're using something like a 360 camera from Insta 360, they have crazy amounts
of stabilization where it looks like you're holding something like a gimbal. Whereas if you're
using, say, a Sony, they have stabilization
built in, but it's still going to be a little bit shaky when
you're out filming. It's not gonna be like super
stable gimbal light quality. Now turning on your
stabilization is great. If you're doing handheld
style shooting, there are some downsides. So you want to make sure
that when you're filming, you understand the
limitations of your camera. Some cameras will make the
edges look really warping, wobbly when the
stabilization is turned on. And there's also a different
degrees of stabilization. So when you're using an
embody stabilization, you'll get some of
this war P quality. And if you turn up
that stabilization while it's going
to get even worse. So like Panasonics and canons, I've noticed a lot
of this issue. However, the footage will
look more stable than say, a Sony where you don't have as much as this warp equality, but the footage itself
is not as stable. And another issue that might
pop up when you're using stabilization is the image might shift and jerk a little bit. So if you're doing something,
say like a pan and you have high stabilization
turned on while you might see the image tried to stay in one spot and then
jump a little bit and then stay and then jump
because the camera is trying to stabilize on whatever
frame you have. And so if you're
moving, you might have these jumps
in these jitters. And so it stabilization
is definitely a great tool to be able
to get stable footage. I use it all the time, but you just need to
understand your limitations. So I suggest whatever
camera you're working with, really test out the
stabilization and see how much it actually helps when
you're handholding or moving. And also look for
those limitations to see if it's worth turning on and if it creates any weird
artifacts on your image.
15. Connecting Audio: Let's talk about the
different audio options that you have available. So when you're creating videos, you're going to be
wanting to record audio. Almost all cameras
have audio built-in. On these cameras. It's like a little pinhole
on the actual camera itself. Same with like go
pros are 360 cameras, but something like a drone. There's no audio. You
don't need audio on a drone because it's
camera flying in the air. But the audio that's in your camera usually
isn't the best audio. You'll wanna be
recording audio in a different way so that
you can get cleaner audio. So I'm just going to talk
about two different types of audio that you might want
to add onto your camera. One is a shotgun microphone, and this typically goes
right on top of your camera. And this is going
to allow you to get clean audio of whatever
is in front of camera. Now there's different
variations of this sum that record what's in
front of that record, more omnidirectional,
so all around. And these will get
cleaner audio than the microphones that are
just built into your camera. Now the other option is
a wireless microphone. So think of something
like a road wireless go or a DJI Mike. And that's where you
have a transmitter that's on a subject. They can walk away
from camera and you have a receiver
that's on the camera, so you don't have
to be close to the camera to record audio. You can walk a distance
away and you'll still get clean audio because
the microphone is attached to your subject. So a lot of times when I'm
making my YouTube videos, I'll just use the DJI, Mike and I put it
right on my backpack or I put it right on my shirt. That way I can move anywhere around and I can
capture clean audio because the receiver
on my camera is getting that audio and
feeding it right into camera. However, if you're
someone who's just going to be talking
right to camera, or you're someone who's doing
like flog style content. Well then a shotgun mike just on top of your camera is more than enough and
you'll be able to get clean audio with
that microphone. The other cool thing about
using wireless system is a lot of times you can set
up more than one person. So on something
like the DJI Mike, you could set up two people with wireless microphones and they both go into your camera and they're both going
to have clean audio coming from their source
and the microphone and also take the microphone off of your camera and connect
it with a cable. So right now I have
a shotgun microphone up here above my desk. And I have a cable
running over to my camera and have
it plugged in. That's how I'm able to
get clean audio here in my office and I'm
a distance away. So once you know what
you're gonna be shooting, you can choose the
best microphone to get clean audio
in that setting. And you just didn't
make the choice. Does the microphone need
to be on the camera? Does it need to be on a cable away from the
camera but still attached? Or do you need to
be completely free where it's wireless
just on your subject.
16. Recording Audio: Now let's talk about
controlling your audio because you can plug
in a microphone, but that doesn't
guarantee that you're gonna be getting good audio. So there's a few things
that you can control in your camera and on the
microphone itself, depending on the type of
microphone that you have. So in camera, you're
gonna be able to turn your volume up
or your volume down. This is your gain
on the microphone. Sometimes you'll have
the same option to turn the gain up or
turn the gain down. Now the issue is when you bump the gain up in your camera, you're going to be
introducing a lot of noise. It's gonna be this hiss and
the static in the background. And ideally you're
going to want to try to reduce this as much as possible. So the rule of thumb,
when you're working with a camera and you're
attaching external audio, you want to make sure
that your gain is turned down as low as you can in the camera while you're still getting clean audio
with the microphone. And so if you have
a microphone that has gained on the microphone, you'll turn up that gain to
get to the proper level. Now, what's proper level? Well, audio is
recorded in decibels. 0 is like the top, and that's where the
audio will start clipping if you're
hitting your audio at 0. So if everything's
recorded too high, you're going to start
hearing distortion at 0. So this is audio that's
recorded way too high. You can say hi to Mr.
Fraga and you can hear how distorted this audio sounds. And so the goal when you're
recording audio is you want to be between negative
six and negative 12th. This gives you enough room to work with where you're gonna get a clean recording without a lot of noise in
the background. But you're also not going
to be distorting your audio because it's getting up into the upper level where
it's hitting at 0. So I always aim to
record my audio around negative six decibels
and a little bit under them. On a camera, you'll know you're setting because
typically cameras have an audio meter
that's going to show you where your audio
is being recorded at. Sometimes they'll have numbers. We'll have negative six, negative 12, negative
24 decibels. But sometimes it'll just be an audio meter that's
just green, yellow, red. And the, when you're
looking at this, you don't want your
audio in the red. The red means that you're
in that upper realm. It's peaking, it's
getting distorted. It's not going to sound good. You want it to be in the green
and touching the yellow. It's easy way to think about it. If you have numbers, you want to have it hit
around negative six decibels. So the process of
getting clean audio, you're going to turn
down the gain in your camera and turn up the
gain on your microphone. And if it's too low, say it's still at negative 24, well then you'll start
bumping up the gain in your camera until you're
hitting at those proper levels. And this is when you'll have
the microphone on yourself. You'll want to talk
at a normal level and just start counting
or just going through your script or whatever
you're going to be doing at the level that
you're gonna be talking. And then start adjusting
your gain so that you can get your levels at
around negative six.
17. Auto VS Full Manual: Let's talk about auto versus manual because
there's definitely times when you're
out filming that you'll just want your
cameras set to auto. Depending on the camera and what it is that
you're shooting, you can set to auto. You don't always have to use manual when you're out filming. So if I'm using a 360 camera, GoPro, and I'm just trying
to capture the scene. And I'm not really too
worried about making sure I have the proper shutter
speed or anything like that. Then I'll just set
it to auto cameras, do a good job when it's
on the auto setting. The one thing that I usually
always set to manual is the white balance
because I don't want my color to fluctuate. However, when I'm shooting with my mirrorless camera
and I'm doing like talking head a
role when I'm outside, I just set everything to
manual because I don't want my exposure fluctuating
when I'm out filming. Now there are
different levels of auto settings that
you can turn on. So you could set your
white balance to auto, and you can also set your
shutter speed, aperture, or ISO to auto as well. Now you don't have to
set everything to auto. There are different
modes in your camera that allow you to adjust one feature and let
everything else be auto. So in a mirrorless camera, you're going to find
aperture priority. Now what this means is you set the aperture and the
camera decides the rest. And there's also
shutter priority. This is where you shut
the shutter speed and the camera adjusts the rest. So if you're trying to
make creative choices, say a blurry background, you could set the aperture, but then let the camera
decide the rest. If you don't want
to think about it and you don't want
to go full manual. This is something that
you could play with and figure out what settings work best when
you're out filming. Sometimes you'll want to
just use auto and make it easy because the
camera's going to auto adjust with
fluctuating light. But if you do want to make
specific creative choices like blurry background
or proper shutter speed. Well then you can set those manually and let the
camera decide the rest.
18. Practice & Experiment: So we went over a lot of
different things when it comes to understanding
your camera in this class. And if you have any
questions or you want me to expand on any topic a
little bit further, let me know in the discussion. Now this is your
framework to get started. These are all the different
choices that you'll make with the camera to get started
on your video process. And once you set these, whether you're doing
auto or manual, depending on which setting
you're working with, it's gonna be a big factor in what your final
product looks like. So what I suggest
you do is go out and film with all of these settings and play around with
all of these settings. When I first started getting
into video years ago, I would take one concept and I would just play around
with it for the day. Let's take aperture for example. I would set my camera
to aperture priority, and I would just play
around with using different apertures
and what kind of effects that has
on the footage. I would test what would happen when I have my aperture wide open and closed down and
everything in-between. And really just play
around with that until I get a grasp
of how it works. And then I'll move on to
shutter speed and ISO. And all of these are
the fundamental things that you need to learn so that when you go out and you're trying to make a video
and telling a story, you don't think about all of these things they
just come from. So take your camera, turn all
of your settings on manual, on auto and just go back and forth and play
around with them. So you have a complete
understanding of how it works and also where the buttons are all located on the camera
that you have. The more that you get comfortable with all
of these settings, the easier it's going
to be to make sure that your exposure is proper. You have good color,
your audio sounds good, and everything's in focus. Now make sure you
check out some of my other classes
here on Skillshare. There's a ton that digs into all the fundamentals of
how to be a creator. And I just want to
say thank you for hanging out with me
for this entire class. And I'll see you
on the next one.