Camera workshop 1

The camera we will be using is called a Black Magic Smth. 

The "yours" & "mine" rule is a technique that ensures that all heavy equipment doesn't fall and helps with communication in the group. 

The spirit level is for ensuring the camera is straight and in the middle of the tripod. 

The way to set up a tripod correctly is by unfolding the tripod out of the bag. Once the tripod is out of the bag carefully open the legs and place it on the ground. Then unlock all the bottom levers and lift it up by pulling the top of the tripod to adjust the height. When happy with the height re lock the levers again. Once happy with the height of the tripod, set up the camera.

To carefully set up the camera on the top of the camera you must take the camera out of the box ensuring you carry it close to your body. Then push the button on the platform of the tripod while slowly sliding the camera onto the tripod, releasing the button when the camera securely in place. Once this is done adjust the levers on either side of the pan and move till the camera is in the your wanted position.

To get a successful focus and zoom, you must first zoom in as far as possible on the main target in the shot and then focus the image while slowly zoom out to the desired shot size. It is very important to do this for every shot because otherwise the camera will lose focus on the different subjects within the shot and won't produce such a clean crisp image.

White balancing is changing the colour of an image to make it look more normal and realist to the human eye. Lets say a scene starts off inside a room but then works it way to outside, the image will appear a blue colour so it needs white balancing to look normal. This always works the other way around, for example filming outside and then going indoors can make the image overly orange. To change this there is a symbol on the screen that has symbols for the environment you are filming in. This symbol includes being outside, inside, in the shade, under fluorescent lights, under cloud and a custom options.

Exposure is how much light is let into the lens and how bright the image turns out. A low exposure lets in less light meaning a darker image and a high exposure lets in more light meaning a lighter and even an over exposure image. There is a blue slider by the camera lens which allows you to change the exposure. When filming in a dark area you will want a higher exposure to allow more light in and when filming in a bright area you will want a lower exposure to make sure you don't allow too much light in. It is important to change the exposure to ensure you get the perfect amount of light in a it will benefit the image by making it look natural and clear.