Training with the Digital DSLR-600D Camera
This year for our A2 media course instead of using the Sony HD cameras like last year, we are using new Digital DSLR-600D Camera.
These cameras are more advanced than the previous cameras and require a lot more training to use them effectively. Much of this training we did in our own time as research and watching videos, whilst we also had practise training by doing a small documentary on litter. They are much smaller than the Sony HD ones that we used, which were very large and bulky; which made them incredibly hard to manoeuvre about and to get the shot you want. That is where these DSLR cameras are a major improvement to last year. Furthermore, these DSLR cameras allow you to set your own exposure to suit your location, whilst performing a focus pull is much easier now as the focusing is more effective on these cameras.
The difficulties with the DSLR Cameras for me is to get the correct amount of exposure and to get the focus exactly right - as this is a major part of course that we get marked on in our film. For this we will be going out for focus training sessions to make sure we master this.
This was one of the videos we had to watch to have a brief understanding of how to use the Canon 600D cameras.
Exposure
When using the Digital DSLR-600D Canon cameras you need to pay close attention to the exposure. This differs from the Sony HD Cameras of last year because we didn't need to manually alter these settings as it wasn't a digital camera; it did it automatically. The exposure is often depicted as a triangle in a diagram, with three settings that each work together to ager the exposure. As you can see from the diagram below, if the shutter speed is fast (meaning that the duration of the shutter being open is a short amount of time) it allows less light to filter into the lens while if the Aperture is narrow it allows less light also into the lens - causing the exposure to be dark. However on the other hand if the Aperture is wide it allows more light into the lens and if the ISO is high, more light is able to get in and so causes the exposure to be too bright. You need to get the right amount of each setting to make the exposure be correct.
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| Exposure diagram |
Here are some examples of different types of exposure:
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| This image is under exposed, meaning not enough light is coming into the lens. |
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| This image is over exposed, meaning too much light is being let into the lens which causes the objects in the image/film to seem overpowering and much too bright. |
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| This is the correct level of exposure, where just the right among of light is entering the lens. |
Aperture
The aperture - or depth of field - is basically how much light gets into the lens. If you want the aperture to allow more light into the lens you need to make the depth of field wide, which means you must lower the F-stops, whilst if you wish to make less light filter through into the lens you must make the depth of field narrow which means the F-stops must be increased. The recommended aperture depends on where you are filming. During filming my documentary I used any where between 10-13 depending on how bright the location was. Indoors you would lower this as there is normally less sunlight to affect the exposure.
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| This shows the depth of field of the shutter as you widen and narrow the aperture by lowering the F-stops and increasing the F-Stops. For example, the f/1.4 shows the lowest F-stop with the widest depth of field, allowing more light into the lens. f/16 shows the highest F-stop with the narrowest depth of field, allowing less light into the lens. |
Shutter Speed
The shutter speed is the duration that the shutter is open for. This means that for more light to be filtered through it is important that you increase the shutter speed so that the shutter is open for longer, allowing the light to get into the camera for more amount of time. To make the the exposure darker, you need to make the duration of the shutter speed shorter, meaning that shutter is open for less amount of time. The recommended shutter speed is 50. It also depends on what you are filming and the effect you want to get.
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| This image shows how you use the aperture and the shutter speed together to film a certain object. In the first picture you can see how narrow the aperture is and how short the shutter is open for so film something of small movement - in this case a few drops of water. Whereas on the other side you see that the aperture is widened (so the F-stops are reduced) and the shutter speed is lengthened so that the shutter speed is open longer so that the light can filter in and film faster paced items, for example the stream of water into the bucket. |
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| This chart shows the different shutter speeds used to film certain objects and to get a certain effect should you want any. |
ISO
The ISO is how sensitive the sensor is to the light. For more light needed in the lens to get the right exposure you need to raise the ISO, especially if you are outside and there is bright sunlight. If you need less light you must lower the ISO, normally this happens if there isn't much light around in the location.
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| This image shows you how in lower lights in the location - so at night time - you use the lowest ISO, which is 100 so get the best exposure, whilst if you increase the 1SO you could get rather a grainy film. |
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This diagram shows you what each ISO level does - so if you set the ISO to 100, you get less amount of light in the lens, while if you set the ISO to 1600 (the highest ISO) you get the most light into the lens.
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The next post is evaluating our training task: the Litter Documentary.
