Learning the basics on the camera and other settings...

Today we learnt how to do the basics on the camera and how to set up the tripod professionally. First you make the tripod taller to what height you want it keeping in mind that you do it from the lowest legs and tightening the catches on the legs.

Once you have done that you have to ‘bubble it’ which is where you match the bubble in the middle of the circle. This tells you that the platform is straight and that when you put the camera on the shot isn’t wonky. To make sure this is secured you tighten it by screwing the catch directly beneath the platform.

Now the tripod is steady to put the camera into place, at the bottom of the camera there is a thing which is specially designed to fit into place. You slide the bottom of it into the top of the tripod whilst holding the button on the side which allows it to slide off and on, and it should click into place. Once you have heard the click you tighten the catch on the side so the camera will not fall off. Then just to check, you give the camera a little shake to make sure it won’t come off.

Moving on to the camera side of it, we learnt how to change the white balance. To do this you point the camera on to something white in the room so you are able to capture the lighting and the darkness in the room. This is essential because if you don’t do this all the colours in the shot look strange and not what we are meant to be seeing.

We also learnt how to change how many frames there are per second. A camera is usually set to 50 frames per second, however sometimes this is changed to create and effect in the scenes. The frames are changes to 250 frames per second in the opening of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ where they are coming in on the landing crafts on to the beach.

There is also a sunglasses mode where you can change the setting of the camera that when you are filming outside and it is sunny, it will darken the lens making it adjust to the light.

Also on the screen there is information that tells you how much battery you have left and there is a time code which tells you how much you have filmed it also tells you how much space is taken up. In the bottom right there something that tells you how loud an how much the mics are picking up.

We learnt how to use the zoom and the focus on the camera. There are two wheels on the nose of the camera and the one at the front is the zoom. There is also another way of using the zoom which is located on the top of the camera. It looks and acts like a seesaw, if you push it forwards the camera zooms in and if you push it backwards it zooms out. Anyway to focus your shot you need to zoom all the way into something in the room and hen focus on it, then zoom out.

We also got told why there are two recording buttons, well to be specific more about the one on the top. This is there because you are doing a hand held camera shot or when you are doing a low shot.