This year, we have some new media hardware at our disposal; the Canon Digital DSLR-600D cameras. They're much smaller and more compact than the cameras we used last year, the Sony HDs, but when used properly, produce much better quality footage. They have a more advanced focusing system, and have exposure settings that we need to set prior to filming to make sure the footage isn't underexposed or overexposed. The settings you need to manipulate to correct exposure are Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed.
Above, you can see the exposure triangle, symbolising the three factors of the camera settings you have to alter to get the right exposure for the footage. If in doubt, it's better to make the video underexposed (darker) then overexposed (brighter).
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| Picture with Correct Exposer |
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| An Overexposed Picture |
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An Underexposed Picture
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The three pictures above here show examples of the same scene with three different exposure settings. Changing the ISO and Aperture will change the exposure levels, whilst shutter speed is not really meant to be changed when filming, but set to a set level: twice the frame rate. We use 24fps, so double this is 48. However, the cameras don't have a shutter speed setting of 48, but it goes up in 10s. So, we choose the closest setting, which is 50, and keep it there. Then, we change aperture and ISO to change the exposure to fit the scene.
We watched around 40 minutes of tutorial videos, and above is one of the five we watched. We took notes on these and applied the knowledge and skills when we filmed the practise task, the litter documentary. During the filming of the documentary we had issues with focusing, but that was it, because we were quite good at using it other ways, like movements and shot types.
Our shooting sessions for the litter documentary went rather well. All members of the group did what needed to be done, like filming, taking photographs and sound. We worked well and have quickly found each other's proficiencies in filmmaking so we know what to expect of everybody when it comes to different parts of the filmmaking process.
