Camera Basics For Video Creators | Jeven Dovey | Skillshare
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Camera Basics For Video Creators

teacher avatar Jeven Dovey, Filmmaker & YouTuber

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      1:03

    • 2.

      Class Project

      0:34

    • 3.

      Resolution

      2:35

    • 4.

      Frame Rates

      3:10

    • 5.

      Slow Motion

      3:34

    • 6.

      Exposure Triangle

      1:06

    • 7.

      Shutter Speed

      2:47

    • 8.

      Aperture

      2:33

    • 9.

      ISO

      2:00

    • 10.

      ND Filters

      1:29

    • 11.

      Auto vs Manual Focus

      2:12

    • 12.

      White Balance

      2:38

    • 13.

      Color Profiles

      1:53

    • 14.

      Stabilization

      2:00

    • 15.

      Connecting Audio

      2:24

    • 16.

      Recording Audio

      2:37

    • 17.

      Auto VS Full Manual

      1:39

    • 18.

      Practice & Experiment

      1:46

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About This Class

Understanding your camera will make you confidant every time you press record. Once you can master the technical aspects of a camera then you can focus on what you're filming vs how your filming it.

This class will teach you everything you need to get started with your camera for making videos.  We will explore all the settings and tools that you have on all cameras. The goal is to have a clear understanding on how to control your exposure and color when using any camera.

  1. Controlling Exposure - We’ll go over the exposure triangle and the dual functions each one of these settings has and how it impacts your footage.
  2. Proper Color - Knowing what settings you have available will be the difference between having good looking shots vs footage that is too blue or too orange.  
  3. Audio Walkthrough - As a video creator you're going to be controlling your image and your audio.  I go through the basics to get up and running with clean audio to use in your edits.

If you’re a complete beginner or you have made some videos then this class will go through all the fundamentals to get you up to speed so that you can go from only using Auto to controlling your image.

Who am I?

My name is Jeven Dovey.  I'm an Adventure Filmmaker, YouTuber and I run a Production company based in Los Angeles.  I've been Color Grading since I started editing back in 2006 and its an essential skill that I use on all my projects.

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Jeven Dovey

Filmmaker & YouTuber

Teacher

Hello, I'm Jeven. I create travel, adventure and filmmaking content.  My goal is to teach you new skills and inspire you to get out there and shoot some awesome videos! 

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Level: Beginner

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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.