Hands on with Some Gear

Hands on with Some Gear...

Today I was able to try out some of the film equipment that I will be working with over the next coming months. I was fairly familiar with the Vinten tripod, which we learnt to raise, drop and level using the spirit level. However the Black Magic camera was new to me. Having been taught how to connect the camera to the tripod, I learnt the most basic part of camera work - focusing. To focus a camera like this one, it's not as simple as the touch of a finger like on an IPhone. You first have to zoom in on the object you want to film, make sure the image is clear using to focus wheel, and then zoom out as far as you want.

Following this I learnt about exposure, which is basically how much light we want to allow into the lens. To expose the shot, I used an exposure wheel, which was an add-on and so not part of the original camera hardware. It wasn't incredibly well designed, and not only was it difficult to move in order to gradually change exposure, but it was also directly over the lens release button which could cause a major issue in the future if I'm not careful.

Then I was shown shutter angle, which on these cameras is normally set to 180. The shutter angle determines the clarity of fast moving objects. So, for example in sport, a high shutter angle is used in order to reduce motion blur and have a sharp picture.

Finally I learnt about white balance (WB) which is the process of altering the light in order to make the image look more realistic and to remove colour casts. With the Black Magic camera I used, the white balance is usually best at 3000 for indoor shots and 5600 for outdoor shots