When you get a new camera, the first thing you want to know is: what are the best settings to make it look like a million dollars?
The short answer: you’re already asking the wrong questions.
This does not mean there aren’t ways to tweak your camera, but those are final touches to some much more preliminary understandings. The radio station you listen to while you drive your car is a much later choice than learning how to drive your car in the first place.
To give you a visual example: if you took away Ansel Adams medium format cameras and gave him a $2 point and shoot disposable camera, he would still deliver an image that would look better than most professional photographers could achieve; conversely, if you gave a $100K RED Epic to a new filmmaker, they will shoot footage that looks like very similar to footage shot with a $200 Flip cam.
The reason for this is because the secret of amazing video from your camera is not it’s settings, it’s knowing the camera inside and out. While your cinematographer should know the camera well, it’s important for directors to know their cameras nearly as well so they know what they can shoot for!
Mike Figgis was the director of the Academy Award winning film, Leaving Las Vegas, and he works with his cameras so much that he created a well known camera stabilizer called the Figg Rig. In his book, Digital Filmmaking, he brings up how necessary it is, not to get the best camera on the market, but to get a camera you personally own that you can learn all of its strengths and weaknesses with. Then you know how to push it to its limits, where the camera can shine, and avoice the places where it falls apart. Even the most expensive rigs on the market fall apart in certain areas and even the cheapest rigs have things they can do better than many more expensive cameras. (Figgis’ great overview book can be picked up for less than $10 here. )
- With the right knowledge and right project in mind, even a security camera can create compelling images!
With that said, there are some important things you can understand so that you can get off on the right foot with your new camera. First the general concepts behind the different cameras, not the hype their marketing people push!
HD/HDV vs. SD
Most people think that if they jump to HD, they’re going to be making beautiful pictures. The truth is that many people create wretched, grainy images with HD & HDV because they don’t understand the reality beyond the hype.
The recording sensors for most cameras are crammed onto a microchip between 1/6” and 1/3” in diagonal length. Interestingly enough, in almost all cases (with the exception of Video-enabled DSLR cameras and a few cameras based on that technology, like the new Black Magic camera that showed up at NAB this year), the size of the sensor does not change between the SD and the HD model. For example, the size of the sensor on the Panasonic DVX100 series is 1/3” while the size of the sensor on the HVX200 series is also 1/3”. However, the HVX200 series crams WAY more information onto that same 1/3” chip.
What this means is that, each individual sensor on the chip has to be much smaller on the HD camera than it is on the SD camera. This means that HD & HDV require much more light to be exposed properly than SD does. I can’t tell you the number of films I’ve seen submitted where they shot HD and their footage looked like a million bucks in outdoor lighting and then looked like 2 cents when it got indoors because the filmmakers didn’t understand this fact.
If you’re at all familiar with film based photography, this means that HD/HDV footage behaves like ISO 100 film for a film camera, whereas SD cameras are more like ISO 400 or even 800 speed film. Considering how much stuff is watched on the internet through laptops, iPhones, and tablets, SD footage is still amazingly versatile!
CCD vs. CMOS
I’m not going to explain the technical differences between these two technologies, because there’s plenty of articles out there you can check (including ones at the end of this article). The practical differences are that CCD have less likelihood of having weird artifacts if you move them than CMOS cameras do. (This is widely known as the Jello-Effects.) There are post-production plugins designed to help with this, but they are not perfect. As such, it’s better to use CMOS cameras in locked down positions than as handheld cameras.
Video-Enabled DSLR vs. Lens Adapters
Lens adapters can be added to any video camera to allow you to attach film lenses to your camera and get a more film-like look. The advantage is that you can use them on CCD cameras (most of which have professional audio connections, as well) and have fewer restrictions on movement and the like. The disadvantage is that they’re heavy, can have artifacts, and lose additional light when you use them (usually equivalent to 1 to 2 f/stops). (To see an example of this, look at my own film, Day 419, which was shot with an HVX200 and a Redrock Micro M2 lens adapter.)
Video enabled DSLRs, on the other hand, are recording without any additional interference between the lenses and the image sensor, which means they can be lighter and the image can be more accurate. Additionally, many of them have sensors that are double or quadruple the size of most video cameras, which means they can shoot in lower light and still look good. The downside is that most of these are that moast of them are not actually designed as video cameras, so you’ll have to record additional audio and sync it and, because most are CMOS, you’ll want to limit the amount of movement in the camera unless you have a stabilizer of some sort. (To get an example of this work, check out Mike Flanagan’s film, Absentia, which just got released in Redboxes across America.)
With those things explained, let’s look at the general settings and rules of thumb for your camera:
White Balance
The first rule when shooting with any camera that has manual white balance is that you need to set it to manually white balance and then activate this feature while aimed at a large white object that is being illuminated by a similar light to your subject. Every time lighting changes, you need to adjust the white balance in your camera by re-white balancing. If your camera won’t manually white balance, be sure to familiarize yourself with the white balance preset options that are there and test them thoroughly ahead of time.
Frame Rate
If your camera will shoot true 24P, then setting it to this is a good idea, as that’s more similar to recording frame rate of film. (If it won’t, try to shoot in progressive if that’s an option, because interlaced footage requires some post processing to look as good as progressive for most digital work.) If you need to shoot slow motion, look to see if your camera will shoot 60 fps and, if so, what resolution it will do this at. (Only a few cameras will do 1080P at 60 fps.) Just remember that, the more frames you are shooting per second, the less light is hitting each frame, so the more light you will have to add to the scene for it to look good.
F/Stop & Focal range
If your camera will let you adjust the f/stop, then the higher you set it, the less light gets to the sensor and the wider your focal range (the more things will be in focus). The lower you set it, the more light gets to the sensor and the shallower your focal range (the fewer things will be in focus).
Shutter Speed
The faster you set the shutter speed, the less light light hits the sensor and the more staccato (clean and unblurred) your images will be. (The fight scenes at the beginning of Gladiator are a great example of this.) The slower you set the shutter speed, the more light hits the sensor and the more blur there will be to your recorded images.
Stabilization
Unless you have a good stabilizer or are amazingly talented, don’t handhold the camera when you’re getting started! Nothing shows amateurs from professionals like too much shake to the camera or rocket whips from subject to subject. Put it on a tripod or even a stack of books, as you’ll be more likely to think through how to compose the shot well
True Secret
With any camera you get, the biggest secret is to test it out thoroughly in different environments, capture it, edit it, and export it to get down what you like the best. Because of the power of digital, you’re only out the time it took you to test these things and your final projects will be far better!
If you’d like to learn more about getting started with your camera from an intrinsic perspective, I highly recommend Digital Video Secrets from Tony Levelle (which you can pick up for less than $10 currently.) You can also check out our archives on camerawork here.
Final Note
As the editor of MFM, I’ve got to remind you: get the best imagery you can, but remember that visuals are no more than 50% of the equation (and, really, more like only 30%) of the equation. No one will watch a beautiful movie with awful visuals, whereas, if the Blair Witch Project and Paul Greengrass’ films have taught us nothing else, films with really problematic visuals but great audio can be blockbusters!
To read more about how to get good audio, go to: Audio Tips That Every Microfilmmaker Needs
Jeremy T. Hanke
The director of two feature length films and half a dozen short films, Jeremy Hanke founded MicroFilmmaker Magazine to help all no-budget filmmakers make better films. The second edition of his well-received book on low-budget special effects techniques, GreenScreen Made Easy, (which he co-wrote with Michele Yamazaki) is being released by MWP in fall 2016. He's curently working on the sci-fi collaborative community, World of Depleted, and directed the debut action short in this series, Depleted: Day 419 .