| Related to the Camera: • Camera Parts & Features - these are standard or basic features on a camera. Your camera may have different features. If you have any questions, please e-mail me. • View Finder - A small eyepiece or screen on the camera that allows you to see the image you're recording. (The camera also acts as a VCR, so you can play back and watch what you have already recorded through the view finder). • White Balance - If you ever ended up with yellow-tinted video, chances are you forgot to white balance. It's worthwhile to white balance every time you use your camera to get the highest quality video. If your camera doesn't have this feature, it may have an automatic or internal system. What white balancing does is adjust the intensity of the colors being recorded according to the existing light. Make sure you white balance every time the lighting conditions change; if you record video inside and then go outside, your lighting conditions have changed and you need to instruct the camera on how to "see" the colors. How do you white balance? You can place a piece of white paper under the light you will shoot under for reference - focus on the paper in the view finder, and press the "White Balance" button. Or you can focus on someone's white T-shirt (make sure it's all white). Or, your camera may have an automatic white balance setting you can use by simply adjusting a switch or pressing a button. • Battery - power source. Make certain you charge them! • Fade - a gradual increase or decrease of the image and sound. You can fade an image to black, or do the reverse. • Focus - There are two ways to focus - auto and manual. When you focus in "manual", you control the focus. To make sure your shots are in focus, zoom in and focus up close first, then zoom back. This insures that what you are shooting is focused to the greatest extent possible. Manual focus is good to use when there is a lot of movement of dominant figures. When the camera is in "auto focus" it will automatically focus on the dominant figure in the center of the view finder. Because it focuses automatically on the dominant figure, it will adjust to whatever becomes dominant. For example, if you are focused on a person several feet away, and someone walks in between the camera and the other person, the camera will adjust to focus on the new dominant figure - the person who walked in front of the camera. • High Shutter Speed - this feature, usually a button on your camera, allows you to capture objects that are moving at a high speed when you use this feature. • Boost (gain)(back light) - this increases light sensitivity for recording in dim conditions. Often results in "grainy" video. • Stand by - the equivalent of a "pause" button. This is often faster than "stop," because the camera does not have to completely restart the movement of the video tape. • Time Code - this is a number (could be seconds or frames) that helps you determine where scenes are located on a video tape. You will see this when you look through your view finder. You can use this, or the counter, when logging your tape and editing. • Frame - a single, complete video image that lasts 1/30th of a second. There are 30 frames in a second. If your camera or editing system can measure frames, you can use this as a counter to log your video tape. • Date/Clock - generally much easier than setting your VCR! This will show the date and time - sometimes the date and time will not only appear through the view finder, but also on the video (which you may not want). You can use it as a time reference for logging if your camera does not have time code - just turn it on and then off at the beginning of each shot, or let it stay on. • B-roll - this refers to certain video you collect. B-roll is any video that isn't the main action, that illustrates or shows examples. You might think of it as Background-roll. For example, if you are interviewing someone and they're talking about the Golden Gate Bridge, you might then show video of the Golden Gate Bridge (after they are talking, or while they are talking). This is called B-roll. (And no, there is no A-roll). |