To our surprise, professional development was changing in order to help us create our film showreels for the end of the year. To do this, we are going to be taught how to properly handle a camera and what each aspect of the controls do. Additionally, we will be learning key skills such as how to work in an unfamiliar group, like photographers who are placed in new teams and have to adapt, flexibility and how to get used to new hardware. In this lesson, we explored and experimented with the manual camera operator.
Camera Skills
Automatic vs Manual
A key camera skill is to know the difference between and be able to operate with both automatic and manual control. Automatic means that the camera determines its own values for shutter speed, iso and aperture, whereas manual means that the camera operator is the one who decides on the best settings to use. Both have their benefits and drawbacks, but in the industry, cameras are used in manual mode to ensure consistent footage and a cinematic result. It depends on how the settings are used, but generally, it is best to rely on ourselves rather than a computer, since we can adapt and change the settings to what is best according to the subject, lighting, time of day and other factors. An example is that there are no sudden jumps in brightness or colour temperature, something that happens often in automatic mode because the camera cannot comprehend the changes in the environment as well as we can.
Shutter Speed
This determines how fast an image is captured by changing how fast the shutter operates the camera. This is mainly used to control motion blur with moving objects.
ISO – Image Sensitivity
As the name suggests, ISO allows you to choose how sensitive your image is to light. A lower value means less light and a higher value means more light, so a brighter image. High values also introduce noise however so it is best to keep them as low as possible.
Aperture
Also known as your F.Stop, this setting relates to how narrow or wide your aperture is and therefore how much light you allow to pass through the camera onto the sensor. It controls the brightness and depth of field of an image.
Lower values = brighter image, more depth of field
Higher value = darker image, less depth of field
– Task –
In our groups, we explored Confetti and captured images and videos (although our group forgot to do this) around the building, with an aim to get some interesting footage to edit afterwards. Our group had difficulty using the camera, which was realised afterwards when we saw what we shot. Half of it was too bright or too dark and all of the ‘photos’ actually came out as videos, each a second each. We were really confused because when viewing what we took on the camera, everything seemed in order, except for the settings like ISO which we messed around with quite a lot in order to get something decent.
– A Few Favourites –