Video Adjustments on DSLR?

[Android who?]

Hi,

I remember hearing something somewhere about shutter speed and f-stop affecting how your video looks. The first by light and the second by how much is in focus. I can understand the second working, but don't know about the first... are they true? If so, how do I set it for video? Do I just go to manual, put in the settings and then switch over to video?

Thanks!

 

[e1me5]

The best way to understand how shutter speed affects the look of you video is to read this --> http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/shutter-angle-tutorial

Shutter angle and shutter speed are the same thing, in case you get confused, they both calculate the amount of time the sensor on a digital camera or film on a film camera, gets exposed to light.

The "rule of thumb" about shutter speed is to set it at twice the speed of you frame rate. Like, if you are shooting a 25 frames per second video, you set you shutter speed at 50 (as most of the DSLRs show the shutter speed), which is 1/50th of a second exposure time.

Now, I don't know what brand is your DSLR, but I am using both Nikon and Canon and to adjust the shutter speed for video, you put your DSLR to video mode and then adjust the shutter speed with the same button you use for stills. But I think all the DSLRs are the same anyway. (same thing goes for the f-stop)

Extra tip: if in case you shoot a scene that includes a TV or a computer monitor or a projector and it's flicking, try to adjust your shutter speed to match the refresh rate of the monitor. Go through the different values until you see the monitor to stop flicking. Or do the opposite if you want to introduce flicking as a part of the storytelling.

Just experiment!!

Hope this helps and sorry if I am not clear enough.

 

[Android who?]

The best way to understand how shutter speed affects the look of you video is to read this --> http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/shutter-angle-tutorial

Shutter angle and shutter speed are the same thing, in case you get confused, they both calculate the amount of time the sensor on a digital camera or film on a film camera, gets exposed to light.

The "rule of thumb" about shutter speed is to set it at twice the speed of you frame rate. Like, if you are shooting a 25 frames per second video, you set you shutter speed at 50 (as most of the DSLRs show the shutter speed), which is 1/50th of a second exposure time.

Now, I don't know what brand is your DSLR, but I am using both Nikon and Canon and to adjust the shutter speed for video, you put your DSLR to video mode and then adjust the shutter speed with the same button you use for stills. But I think all the DSLRs are the same anyway. (same thing goes for the f-stop)

Extra tip: if in case you shoot a scene that includes a TV or a computer monitor or a projector and it's flicking, try to adjust your shutter speed to match the refresh rate of the monitor. Go through the different values until you see the monitor to stop flicking. Or do the opposite if you want to introduce flicking as a part of the storytelling.

Just experiment!!

Hope this helps and sorry if I am not clear enough.

That helps! I guess the only question I have now is how to change it while taking video... I'm using a Canon rebel t2i and when I try to adjust the shutter speed or the aperture using the same functions used to do it while taking photos, nothing happens... at all. :/

Help is greatly appreciated. I have googled this all over and I have found all the benefits of changing these while shooting video, but can't for the life of me figure out how to actually do it.

 

[Android who?]

Phew. Finally figured it out. All the videos I watches just said to change your f stop, but it took a while to find a video that said how to change to manual video settings so that you could.

 

[AcesHigh87]

Something you might want to invest in as well if you don't have one is an ND filter.

With your aperture wide open (for the depth of field) and your shutter speed relatively slow a lot of light will be introduced. ND filters help bring that down a but so that you can get a natural looking amount of light while keeping the settings you want.

 

[Android who?]

Something you might want to invest in as well if you don't have one is an ND filter.

With your aperture wide open (for the depth of field) and your shutter speed relatively slow a lot of light will be introduced. ND filters help bring that down a but so that you can get a natural looking amount of light while keeping the settings you want.

Well, that's one thing I do have. At least I'm not entirely out of the loop...

 

[Meister]

Phew. Finally figured it out. All the videos I watches just said to change your f stop, but it took a while to find a video that said how to change to manual video settings so that you could.

If you are using a cine lens then aperture is changed by turning the aperture ring.
You can push your shutter speed to 4x of your framerate, despite everyone spreading the 2x rule.

 

[sevoneone]

Memorize the exposure triangle and the effects of each side on your final image. When you know the 'look' you want, you can balance the three sides to achieve what you want. The most effective way to do it is to not focus on memorizing the exact numbers, but learn how each corresponds to stops and count when making adjustments

ISO:
Smaller Numbers = Less light sensitivity. More details, more natural colors and less noise/grain.

Bigger Numbers = More sensitivity. Fall off in detail and color accuracy and increaed noise. The acceptable max depends on the type of video, personal oppinion and the camera and sensor you're using.

Each doubling of the ISO number equates to a doubling of light sensitivity (or one stop): ISO 200 is twice as sensitive as ISO 100.

Aperture (f-stops):

Smaller Numbers = LARGER lens diaphragm openings, more light trough the lens, shallower depth of field which is the range of distance from the camera that objects appear in focus, in this case the range is smaller.

Bigger Numbers = Smaller lens diaphragm openings, less light, deep depth of field, the range of acceptable focus is larger.

Most lenses, especially zoom lenses, tend to not perform as well at the extreme limits of their f-stop range. Focus tends to not be as sharp and other things like ghosting, vignetting and flares can be worse. All of which can be a positive or a negative depending on the look you're after.

Shutter Speed (sometimes in angle degrees ex: 180° shutter, often in fractions of a second ex: 1/48)

The two numbers work inversely from each other and converting between the two depends on your frame rate. The link to the RED site explains it much better than I can here