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Video/Photo Production Tips

Key concepts

  1. Film and digital sensors capture light, photons; too much light produces over exposed white images, less light produce lower exposure dark images.
  2. Exposure triange, you have to play with 1. shutter speed, 2. lens aperture and 3. ISO in order to get a good exposure, you can also add more light with a flash or led light, you can also remove light with a neutral density (ND) filter.
  3. Exposure is messured in stops, which means the double or half from a starting point.

Exposure mesurements

  1. Shutter speed: Let's asume we have an initial shutter speed of ISO 1/200, to add one stop (+1) means half the shutter speed to let pass more light to the sensor, so 1/100; to add two stops means half twice, so 1/50; to lower the exposure 1 stop, double the shutter speed, so 1/200 becomes 1/400; to lower the exposure 2 stops, double twice, so 1/800. 1/100 is a fast shutter speed with a normal amount of light passing to the sensor, 1/1000 is a faster shutter speed with less light, 1/50 is a slow shutter speed with more light, 1 to 30 is a slow or long exposure.
  2. Aperture: Let's asume we have an initial aperture of f/8, to add 1 stop of aperture means the half the current aperture, so f/4; to add two stops from f/8 means the half twice, so f/2; lowering the aperture 1 stop means f/16, and two stops means ISO f/32. f/1.2 is a wide open lens, shallow deep of field or focused areas; f/2.8 is an average good aperture; a smaller aperture is f/5.6, with a large deep of field.
  3. ISO: Let's asume we have an initial set of ISO 800, to add 1 stop to the ISO means doubling the ISO to be more sensible, so 1,600; to add two stops to ISO 800 means doubling twice, so 3,200; lowering ISO 800 1 stop means ISO 400, and two stops means ISO 100. ISO 100 is a common base ISO of many DSLR/Mirrorless cameras, with little to no noise; ISO 800 is a common ISO used for video; ISO 1,600 to 3,200 is a more sensible ISO with visible lower noise; from 3,200 onwards, the higher the ISO, the higher the noise.
  4. Flash: Depending on the total power of the flash, the power is mesured in fractions of the total power, like 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, etc.

Always check your settings before shooting.

  1. Camera mode: Manual settings to have full control, Aperture Priority (Av) and Shutter Priority (Tv) for more automated setup.
  2. Shutter speed: 1/100 for gorwn people posing, 1/250 for kids, 1/1000 to freeze a water splash; 5 to 30 seconds for night long exposures like light painting.
  3. Lens aperture: f/1.2 for blured backgrounds, f/8 to f/11 to have almost everything in focus.
  4. ISO: Lower the ISO = less noise.

Video mode considerations

  1. Try to use manual mode, all settings manualy, consider white balance manually.
  2. Alyas set shutter, aperture, and ISO in that order.
  3. Set the aperture as open as possible.
  4. Set the ISO as low as possible.
  5. Shutter speed is fixed and intertwine with the frame rate.

Shutter speeds for video considering the 180° rule

fps Standard Shutter Speed Aproximation
23.976 NTSC 1/48 1/50
24 Cinema 1/48 1/50
25 PAL 1/50 1/50
29.97 NTSC 1/60 1/60
30 PAL 1/60 1/60
59.94 NTSC 1/120 1/125
60 Cinema 1/120 1/125
119.88 NTSC 1/240 1/250
120 Cinema 1/240 1/250
239.76 NTSC 1/480 1/500
240 Cinema 1/480 1/500

Neutral Density (ND) Filters

Optical Density ND Factor Stops
0.3 2 1
0.6 4 2
0.9 8 3
1.2 16 4
1.5 32 5
1.8 64 6
2.1 128 7
2.4 256 8
2.7 512 9
3 1024 10
5 100000 16.5
5.4 262144 18