Sound:
To test the sound capabilities of the DSLR, we filmed this walking scene from Lost, first using only the microphone built into the camera, and then using a Rode microphone plugged into the top.
Camera microphone:
Because this was a walking shot, the sound we captured for this scene had to be turned up as the microphone was far away from the characters so they were too quiet. However, there was not too much background noise recorded, and the talking in the background, although still evident, is muffled.
Rode microphone:
While this microphone recorded sound that was louder, there is static in the background. To solve this, Adobe Audition could be used but to do this for every shot taken when a scene is shot with coverage could take a long time.
White balance:
To set the white balance, pre-set options could be used, as shown above, depending on the light available for filming. As we were under the studio lights the setting of white fluorescent light worked, but the white balance can also be set manually by taking a still picture of a white piece of paper under the lighting conditions that are going to be used for filming. Then, in the menu the option of custom white balance can be selected, which brings up the last picture taken by the camera, but then the pre-set option selected from the list above needs to be changed to the custom setting.
Exposure:
The exposure of an image can be affected by the ISO setting of the camera, as the ISO determines how sensitive the camera is at taking in light. The higher the ISO the more sensitive the camera is to light, so the more it takes in, causing grain on the picture. The opposite is true for lower ISOs, so there is less grain on the image, but it appears darker. The maximum ISO usually used when shooting videos is 1600, as grains begin to noticeably appear on the image once the ISO becomes higher than this.
ISO: 5000
Grain is visible in the image as the ISO is so high, making the camera very sensitive to light, so the image is overexposed.
ISO: 2500
As the ISO is half of 5000, there is not as much grain, however it is visible mainly on the background. The person in shot is also still overexposed as the image is very bright.
ISO: 1600 (used in the scenes of Lost and Once Upon A Time)
Compared to the other ISO settings, this one is much more balanced, meaning the subjects are not under or overexposed, and there is not so much grain in the image that it is distracting.
ISO: 500
The image becomes much darker, but therefore no longer grainy. However, the subject is now slightly underexposed so is not as visible to the audience as they could be.IOS: 370
As the camera is not very sensitive to light at this ISO the picture is much darker than the others, so the subject is underexposed and can barely be seen by the audience.
There is also a meter on the camera's display to show the exposure level of the image, which moves as lights are put up or taken down, and the ISO is adjusted. The arrow in the middle indicates when the exposure is balanced, the minus numbers when the image is too dark, and the plus numbers when the image is too light.
Focus:
To put all of these aspects together, we then filmed a scene from Once Upon A Time. However, as the screen of the DSLR was so small during the close-ups the characters are unfocused. This could be solved by using a monitor or by spending more time adjusting the focus settings manually using the ring on the camera lens rather than auto-focus.
However, what I enjoyed about filming this scene using a DSLR is that it wasn't stuck to a tripod, or too heavy to move handheld. Therefore, I was able to track the characters better, although sometimes the frame is not centred because of the fact it was filmed handheld, and the sound in the close-ups is louder than in the wide shot, because the microphone was closer to the person talking.
Comments
Post a Comment