Improving Exposure

Improving Exposure - student project

Thank you Lucy for your class, and for your guidance on fixing my underexposed headshot videos. I've learned a lot in the last couple of days and re-filmed the intro and outro of my latest class.

Improving Exposure - image 1 - student project

Top Left: The initial underexposed video.

Top Right: After adjusting the lighting and adjusting shutter speed, aperture and iso.

Bottom Left (Intro): For filming a few days later, the natural lighting had changed, so I tried to make some adjustments. It's not as exposed as the top-right image, but still an improvement on the top-left image.

Bottom Right (outro): The round frame is a feature of this class, so I thought I'd use it for the outro video. I had to zoom out in order to fit myself in the space. The framed image is a png file with a transparent hole in the middle. I placed this over the video in iMovie and applied the 'cutaway' overlay setting...

 Improving Exposure - image 2 - student project

 

Lighting wise, my favourite is top-right, but given it was a different day, the natural lighting had changed from blue sky (top-right) to white overcast clouds (bottom-left and right). I'm wishing now that I wore the striped shirt for the final shoot. It helps to lighten up the scene.

I have learned a great deal about how to adjust the lighting thanks to Lucy. I also feel more confident with my camera, and playing with the shutter speed, aperture and iso settings. I've turned AUTO off and now I'm going completely manual and feeling more in control of the camera.

Still, there is lots to learn, for example, lighting the scene in such a way as to avoid reflection in my glasses.

UPDATE

I have just re-filmed my intro and outro, and I'm much happier with the results. Thanks again Lucy for your help. I added more lights and angled myself towards the window a bit more.

Here is the setup...

Improving Exposure - image 3 - student project

And here is the result...

Improving Exposure - image 4 - student project

And here is a link to the updated intro video...