So you have an awesome new camera, and you’re ready to get some nice video of your trip to Europe. You turn it on and press record, trusting your camera to take care of the technical stuff for you. But what if you want to take control of your video? How do you take the leap of turning your camera to “Manual” instead of “Auto?” This post will walk you through the basics of how to make your video look good without relying on your camera to do it for you.
White Balance- Have you ever gone outside and taken a picture, and everything looks blue? And then you come inside and take another picture and everything looks bright orange? This is because your camera isn’t properly white balanced. White balancing is when you tell your camera what white looks like, so that it can adjust the color of the whole picture. It’s based in an understanding of what’s called color temperature. Cool colors like blue have a higher temperature, which is what you get in daylight. And, conversely, warm colors like orange have a lower color temperature. This is what you get when you’re using a tungsten light (as in, a regular incandescent lightbulb). There are other temperatures in between these, depending on the kind of lightbulb you’re using or whether it’s cloudy or sunny outside.
Cameras usually have different white balance settings to choose from, usually labelled “WB,” depending on what the light is like around you; there’s generally one for sunny, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, or even things like twilight and fireworks. If the lighting setup is fairly straightforward—i.e., there’s only one kind of light around—you can just choose one of these options and you should be fine. If the lighting is a little weird, though, or if you just want to set the white balance yourself, hold a blank sheet of white paper in front of the lens. Depending on the camera, there’s a “custom white balance” setting, which is either a button to press and hold, or an option in the camera’s settings.
ISO- ISO apparently stands for “International Organization of Standardization.” To be honest, I’m not really sure why this setting is called that, but the ISO setting determines how sensitive the camera is to light entering the lens. A lower ISO—the lowest usually being around 100 or 200—means that the camera is less sensitive, and a higher ISO—highest around 6400, or even in extreme cases 12800—makes it more sensitive. Higher ISO settings are useful when you’re in a low-light situation, especially in making video, where you can’t rely on flash. However, the higher the ISO, the grainier the image gets, so when setting up your video, it’s best to have as much light around as possible so that you can stick to lower ISO settings.
Aperture/Iris- The aperture is the hole in the lens that the light travels through to get to the sensor. By adjusting it, you’re letting more or less light in through this hole. The aperture works in the same way as the pupils in your eyes—think about how the size of your pupil changes when you turn lights on and off. Aperture settings are measured in f-stops. Somewhat awkwardly, smaller f-stop numbers mean a larger aperture, letting in more light. The smallest f-stop numbers (largest aperture size) are around f/1.4, and the largest (smallest aperture size) are around f/8, or up to f/16. Besides setting the amount of light to let in, the aperture also determines the depth of field, which is how much of the image is in focus. A larger aperture (smaller f-stop number) makes for a very small depth of field, so that just the subject in the foreground is in focus and the background is very blurry. Conversely, a smaller aperture (larger f-stop number) means a larger depth of field, so that more of the image is in focus.
Shutter Speed- Shutter speed determines how quickly the shutter in the camera opens and closes to get an image. They’re measured in fractions of a second, like 1/30, 1/60, 1/250, or even 1/1000. Shutter speed is not the same as frame rate; shutter speed determines how long each frame is exposed, so if you’re shooting with a frame rate of 30 frames per second with a shutter speed of 1/60, you’re exposing each of the 30 frames for 1/60th of a second. Fast shutter speeds like 1/400 are great for things like sports, where there is a lot of fast motion that you don’t want to look blurry. Slower shutter speeds like 1/30 will create a slightly blurred effect. Shutter speed can also determine how much light is coming into the camera, meaning that a faster shutter speed will result in a darker image because there is less time for the light to come in, and vice versa. The rule of thumb in video is to have the number on your shutter speed at double the number of frames per second, so if you’re shooting at 30fps, you’ll want to set your shutter speed at 1/60.
These four settings are the essentials for taking charge of your camera. While the Auto mode is useful, sometimes it’s best to turn that switch to Manual and use your own judgment to decide what looks best. It takes a little practice to know what will and won’t work, but once you get it right, it feels pretty great to know how to make your photos and videos look just how you want them.