Manual Settings
White Balance
There are a number of presets for white balance and exposure on this camera: “Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Flourescent, Flourescent H (daylight bulbs)”. Of course for filmmaking, we want to get a good stable manual white balance. Most consumer video cameras have auto-tracking white balance that constantly changes the color interpretation depending on the color of objects currently in the frame.
Manual White Balance
For filmmaking, we want stable color for the duration of a shot so that we can perform color correction on the footage. And we want to be able to use a standard target for white balance so that footage from one camera can be color-referenced to footage from another camera shooting at the same time, so that clips can be intercut without color inconsistencies.
The HF10 provides a manual white balance mode. After telling the camera to set the white balance, the control blinks until the white balance is set. If you move the camera off of the target before the icon stops blinking, the white balance won’t be properly set. The time it took for the white balance to set on the HF10 varied, and at times took up to 10 seconds. This is the longest time I’ve seen to set a white balance on any camera. I also noticed that the camera is sensitive to color differences between light and shadow. So if you are shooting in a place with lots of shadows, you need to position the white balance target so that some shadow falls onto it or the shadows will be slightly bluer than expected.
In the final analysis, the manual white balance worked fine to create color correctable footage. I wasn’t looking for perfect life-like color rendition, I just wanted correctable, stable, color. And the HF10 delivers on that.
I tried a few presets. There are times when you can’t get a true white balance because there isn’t a suitable target available or there isn’t time. And I wouldn’t hesitate to use one of the presets under these conditions.
Focus
In still image mode, the focus system draws green boxes over points of interest. It’s really a very sophisticated auto focus system that I’ve only seen in more expensive still cameras.
The HF10 has three focus settings, auto focus, instant auto focus, and manual focus. I think one of the core skills for a videographer is knowing when to use auto focus and when to use manual focus. Film cameras are built for manual focus, and should be used that way. But video cameras can do a much better job of focusing than the human eye most of the time, and especially on HD cameras.
The LCD panels on most HD cameras don’t have sufficient resolution to actually perform a manual focus. They are typically 1/3rd the resolution of HD. So if it looks like it’s in focus, you could still be up to 3 pixels away from true focus with no way to know that. You really need a full resolution HD monitor to manually focus an HD camera. On the HF10, manual focus operates the lens servo motor from the joystick control. The control is not great, but it can be used in some circumstances where the auto focus can’t function properly, or to force an effect, like a focus dissolve at the end of a shot. The control isn’t accurate enough to perform a rack focus. But you could pull a slow focus through the focal plane and find the end focus point in post to simulate a rack.
Most consumer cameras do not have a focus lock, and as a result, the camera will change focus during a scene as actors change position in the frame, a clear sign of amateur video.
On the HF10 the focus is easily locked and unlocked using the joystick control during auto focus. This is very useful for composing a shot. You first frame up the objects you want to be in focus, and perhaps zoom in a little if necessary. Allow the focus to settle, then lock it. Then reframe the shot. This is exactly the kind of control you need to have to get professional-looking framing.
Exposure
The HF10 has a number of “Programs” to automatically control exposure with names like: “Portrait, Beach, Sports, Sunset, Spotlight, Night, Snow, Fireworks”.
One of these programs is “Cinema Mode”. The Cinema Mode exposure ensures that the exposure settings produce a “film look”. And it works quite well.
For filmmaking, you will probably leave the camera in “Cinema Mode” and use the joystick “[SET]” option to lock the exposure during a shot. About 85% of the time this is how I used the camera, only going to manual exposure for specific shots.
Manual Exposure Controls
I never liked the Canon exposure control. It attempts to be clever and help, when in fact it gets in the way if you want full control. The idea is that you can choose to set the “Shutter Priority” OR the “Aperture Priority”. Whichever one you set, the camera “auto-magically” sets the other to achieve what it thinks is an “ideal” exposure.
Now the problem with this approach is that shutter speed doesn’t just change exposure, it also alters motion blur. And aperture size doesn’t just change exposure, it also alters depth blur. And very often I want to control it all. I don’t want the camera setting one or the other automatically. I want a shutter setting and an aperture setting where the camera simply takes instructions. It complicates a shoot when the camera is making adjustments to itself all the time. And I often find with Canon’s approach that I have to work hard to defeat the automatic assistance to get the exposure that I want. And then, in some cases, the exposure that I’m looking for is impossible to set on a camera without full manual control.
Here is an example where the Canon exposure system failed me:
