Cameras, Tech Dem

During this week’s tech dem we looked at the cameras we will be using. Looking back over my notes I made it’s a bit of a mess so I’ve tidied them up and bulleted pointed them to make sense of. The two cameras we looked at were the Canon XL1 and the Panasonic 3CCD. Both of these camera record to tape. After these first four weeks we will begin to use digital cameras. The way cameras are set up all run off the basic principals of settings and layouts untill you get to the higher end cameras and still then they are the same sort of settings.

Canon XL1 

·         Always set the settings to M, Manual as opposed to having it set on A=Automatic, where the camera automatically changes the settings. By having it on manual means you can adjust the settings. 

·         Exposure Dial - by adjusting this it changes the amount of light let into the camera. This can is also known as Iris control. The gain standard is +0db which makes it more sensitive to light but it can lower the quality.

·         Neutral density filter (NDF) - on or off. Sunglasses for camera.

·         Stability function - for handheld camera use, when this setting is switched on it reduces shake of the camera but dependant on the amount of movement it wont always look natural.

·         AF button- When you press the button it focuses in one push, this isn’t always an efficient way to focus it the camera.

·         White balance, use a white piece of paper in front of the lens you press the button next to gain button.

o   Light bulb= indoor.

o    Sun= outdoor.

·         Audio Inputs.

o   Audio 1, left - mic plug in.

o   'line' is for mixing desks.

o    'mic' is for microphone 

·         Gain - increasing sensitivity. Audio and video gain.

·         Zoom. W- wide(zoom in). T- telephoto(zoom out).  Need to bare in mind the more you zoom in shakier the shot will be if not set up on a tripod. 

·         Eye piece - near and far settings. 

·         Use record button on SIDE.(learnt this from last week.)

·         Lower the lens, the wider.

o   25mm= stretches perspective.

o   50mm = observer.

o   100mm= tighter crop and foreshortens perspective.

·         Canons do not use phantom power, so when filming and needing sound using this camera I need to take out a Rhode Mic so I can power it using a battery. 

As most cameras are the same I’m going to talk about the differences in this camera.

Panasonic 3CCD

·         There is more control over the NDF filters. 

·         Zebras - exposure range. 85% for white skin. 70% for black skin. 100% overexposed. Striped lines appear on the screen so that when you adjust the settings they disappear when it isn’t over exposed.

·         Shoots in 4x3 aspect ratio conversion option in the main menu under the video setting.

·         Progressive -  filmic but tears and ghosting if movement too fast.

·         Interlace - fast action and can fix tears but can cause artefacts/blur.