Camera Skills Workshop

I attended a camera skills workshop today and learned some really nifty things:

DSLR Camera- shallow depth of field. when a focus point is established, anything closer or further away from that object will be out of focus. cinematic feel. if you zoom in/out it becomes out of focus, you can digitally zoom out.
Focus- a unit of length.
Focus pulling- taking focus from one object to another, use tape to make two marks on the camera, when actor hits his mark on the floor you can change exact from one focus mark to the other.
Exposure- how much light you let into the camera lens. makesure you try and get all the information on screen.
Camera- is a box for collecting light, just like your eye
Aperture- the hole/iris which lets light into the eye or camera, can be made bigger or smaller to balance the amount of light in scene.
Light (going int a camera)- 100 is white and 0 is black, the camera can not see above or below this.
Over Exposed- unable to see detail in subject because of excess light. This is seen in alot of Celine Dion music videos when they light her face.

Zebra stripes- A function on a handy cam which shows black and white stripes behind the image to show the area where white is overexposed (it has too much light). Lowering the aperture allows less light in and gets rid of the Zebra stripes. But it is better to make the original key light on the subject less harsh by bouncing it off a white object.
F stops- measurement of exposure the higher the number, the darker the image. F stops are like sheets of glass in front of the lens, the more sheets you add the harder it is for light to get into the camera.
ISO- finds colour in dark areas, but it brings in noise as the camera guesses what colour the pixels are.
Shutter speed- just like an eye the more you blink the less light goes in but the image is clear, if you keep your eye open, more light goes in but it starts to get blurry  The opening of 'Saving Private Ryan' was shot on high shutter speed for that action feel. Do not be tempted to add light via shutter speed because the image will become blurry. 24fps = 48 shutter speed  (roughly double your fps).

Rolling Shutter- when the camera can not keep up with the moving image and so it leaves distorted limbs of an actor in places.

Under Expose-unable to see detail in subject because there is not enough light.

White balance- white contains all the colours, so you zoom into something white and press Auto White Balance. This allows flesh tones to match reality. If you zoom in on green it will make the flesh colours pinky-magenta because that is the opposite colour on the colour wheel, and the camera uses this to counter balance  the image as it thinks green is white. This style can be used to make a warm day look cold or vice versa. 

Tungsten- a metal in filament light bulbs, tungsten light is red (glows yellow-orange) .

Florescent lights- glow yellow/green.

Sunlight- blue light.

Every time the lighting changes you need to re-white balance.

The following are  options found on a DSLR camera:

Auto WB- camera chooses white balance for you (never use this).

Day light- camera adds red.

Shade- will add even more red, sun is blue but scene is darker.

Cloudy- camera will add a small amount of red.

Tungsten- camera will add blue, but may not look correct.

Flash- not used in moving image.

Colour Temp.- manually able to adjust this from very hot (red) to very cold (blue).

Making an image look 3D on screen?- use shadow, a cardboard cutout creates 1 shadow  but we create lots of shadows which shows depth. if the light is square on then we look flat, but if the light is bounced in from the back (back light). This can be used as a key light, adding a weaker light or a fill light adds depth and more shadows. Reflectors are useful when filming outside, not much light bounces off but it makes a difference. Black side of reflectors deflects light away, lens flares etc.