Setting Up a Shot

All of these settings can be set to 'AUTO'. If you're in a rush then 'AUTO' will usually give okay results. On the big black HD cameras, lightly press the 'menu' button on the screen, this will allow you to change the common settings. If one of the settings has a yellow/orange bar next to it then it's been set to manual and you ought to check that it's been set appropriately.

Exposure

This determines how bright the image is. It is done by controlling 'Shutter Speed' and 'Iris' (referred to as 'aperture' in still photography).

Shutter speed / angle, is the amount of time that each frame of the footage is exposed to the light entering through the lens. As a speed, it measures the physical time in divisions of a second that the frame is exposed for. This will be familiar to those who have used stills cameras before.

As an angle, it actually describes a piece of vintage photography from the genesis of film making. The shutter for a motion picture camera was controlled by a number of spinning disks with wedge cutouts in them allowing light through to expose onto the film. The angle of these cutouts determined the effective shutter speed of the camera. On modern cameras of course, this is all digitally controlled and can be set to the nearest 15 degrees (from 15 to 360).

YSTV almost always uses a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second, or 180 degrees if using shutter angle. This is because it is usual to broadcast at 25fps (which YSTV also does) and the normal shutter speed for shooting is to shoot at a shutter speed of twice the frame rate. I.e. so that each frame of the footage is exposed for half of it's interval. This results (at 25fps) in a shutter speed of 1/50th or 180 degrees (which would expose the film frame for half of its time as it passed through he plane.

180 degrees (1/50th) is a good rule of thumb for ~80 of content. There are situations where changing the shutter speed to ~1/60th is advisable:

• You're filming something that moves really fast and want the footage to blur less. If the view is still light enough after increasing the speed, go for it.
• To stop on-screen monitors flickering, increase the shutter speed to 1/60th. (Computer video pretty much always draws at 60Hz.) If the shutter speed is not on the main menu; you have to enter the detailed menu to alter it. See the camera operation documentation or see production or technical people.
• Filming on a green screen, shooting at a faster shutter speed reduces motion blur and so make s the key cleaner and faster

Alternately, raising the shutter angle to ~300 or so works very well for a dream sequence or other artistic effects where a lot of blur is desirable.

The iris is a physical barrier inside the camera which can be opened or closed (by internal motors) to change the amount of light that actually enters the lens and thus arrives at the shutter. In most lenses they are formed from at least 6 blades which expand and contract to increase or constrict the size of the central hole which allows light to pass.

Everybody has their own rules for ideal aperture settings and the effect intended will also influence the aperture setting of choice. Also, some lenses have a range of minimum aperture across their zoom or have aperture.

The general effects are:

• Lower F stop numbers (the term used to represent the current aperture) cause more Bokeh (blurry background past the point of focus) and a smaller depth of field (depth of the area in focus on the subject). Higher F stop numbers have the opposite effect.
• Lower F stop numbers introduce more light into the image, bigger central hole so more light, and higher F stop the reverse.

White Balance

When filming in light that isn't evenly white (ie it has a tinge of a certain colour) the camera needs to be told what it should consider truly white. If the white balance is set to auto, and the camera is, for example, used indoors where the light normally has a red tinge, the camera will assess the entire image, determine that red is the dominant colour, and reduce the amount of red in the recording.

'Auto' will usually produce useable results, or at least ones which can be improved later in editing, however it is best and easiest to set it manually when the recording is taking place.

To set white balance manually on an HD camera, press the menu button on the screen. Select 'White Balance', then 'one push' to set it. Crucially you also have to set the new white balance. Get something truly white (EG white balance card, or thick white paper on a clipboard) to occupy the whole of the screen at the position your subject will be. Then press the button on the screen which looks like a square above two triangles, keep the camera steady until it's finished changing the white balance. You can now exit the menu.

Focus

(Most of the tips in this section assume you're using the Sony HDV cameras.)

Focus on the camera can work in one of two ways; Auto and Manual. Manual involves telling the camera how far away from the lens your subject is, and that's what it'll focus on. Auto involves the camera looking at your footage and working out by itself how far away your subject is.

If you're filming in decent light and frequently changing zoom and/or composition, then Auto is advised. If you're in dark situations, or the camera shot won't be changing at all then Manual will give much better results. Remember that auto-focus can cause the camera to suddenly think it needs to re-focus when it doesn't, and your shot briefly dips out of focus.

Additionally, while in autofocus, the camera can stubbornly lock on to a completely incorrect focus. This can be solved by switching to manual focus and forcing the focus to change to something sensible, then switching back to auto and letting it carry on. Alternatively, briefly covering the lens might persuade it to change the focus. This effect is made worse by a dirty filter, as the camera attempts to focus on the dust on the filter.

To set manual focus: In the menu press the 'focus' button. Select manual. Here you can also alter the distance at which the camera focuses. Using the LCD to set the focus on your fully framed shot is very difficult, because the screen is just too small, and in the dark it's almost impossible because you have to be even more accurate. A trick that usually works better is to zoom right into the subject, switch to auto-focus, wait a few seconds for auto-focus to work its magic, then switch back to manual and zoom out.

More Complicated: In the Menu there is a 'Ring Set' option. This will normally be set to 'Focus', so that the Ring by the lens controls the focus While in Manual Focus. With 'Ring Set' set to 'Focus', the 'Manual' Button on the left hand side of the camera (IE facing you) will switch between Manual Focus and Auto Focus. This is a very useful set up for everything described above.

If using manual focus be sure that the shot is focussed, otherwise all of the recorded footage will be blurry. If you're using auto-focus, then for god's sake be careful where you point the camera!

Microphone & Sound Levels

The short answer: set everything to Auto. The long answer (for good results): More on sound setup