- Hey guys, what's going on, welcome to Travel Fields.
This is part two of the camera settings tutorial.
If you haven't already done so,
go and check out part one, where we went through
frame rate and color profiles.
Today, we're going to be looking at
the most cinematic settings for
Shutter Speed, f-stop and ISO.
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Like we talked about in part one,
camera settings are super important
to get the most cinematic image out of your camera.
These are things that you have to do.
Some of them are guidelines, but some of them
are pretty hard fast rules that you should stick to
for the most part, 99% of the time.
Up first, we have Shutter Speed.
Shutter Speed is a little bit different
in videography than photography.
What Shutter Speed does, is it determines
the amount of time the shutter is
open for each frame of your video.
What this means is that, the slower the Shutter Speed,
the more motion blur you'll introduce
and the higher the Shutter Speed,
the less motion blur you'll introduce.
Where it differs in videography compared to photography,
is that in videography, you almost always
want to keep the Shutter Speed,
double whatever your frame rate is.
This is what's called the 180 rule.
This is the most optimal amount of motion blur
that you can have in your footage.
It's basically the mount of motion blur
that's the most realistic or life-like to us.
It's what's most pleasing to our eyes.
For example, if you're shooting in 24 frames per second,
you should have a Shutter Speed of 48 or 50
if your camera doesn't do 48.
Or if you're filming in 60 frames per second,
you should have a Shutter Speed of 120
and so on and so on, always
doubling whatever your frame rate is.
Shutter Speed also affects your exposure.
The slower the Shutter Speed,
the more light you have coming in
and the faster the Shutter Speed,
the less light you have coming in.
But Shutter Speed should not be
the way that you change exposure.
So if it's way too bright, don't switch the Shutter Speed
to a higher number, even though that changes the exposure.
You're changing the look of your footage by a lot.
The same goes if it's too dark,
don't just make your Shutter Speed slower
because this affects how your image looks.
If you make your Shutter Speed too slow
or below the 180 degree rule,
you get too much motion blur.
It creates almost like a dream-like effect to your footage
and it's just not as cinematic.
If you put the Shutter Speed higher than the 180 rule,
then you're decreasing the amount
of motion blur in your footage.
Which adds that kind of staccato, chaotic look,
which can be used to your advantage.
This is not a hard fast rule,
but most of the time, you're going to be
shooting at double whatever your frame rate is.
The exception to this rule would be
when you want to do it for stylistic reasons.
Let's say you have a dream sequence in your video,
then maybe you do want to play with slower Shutter Speeds
to create that different kind of look.
Or you have an action scene and
you want it to be a little bit more chaotic
and energetic, then you might want to
bump the Shutter Speed higher.
But if you're going to stray away
from the 180 degree rule, make sure
you know what you're doing and why you're doing it.
Don't just choose whatever Shutter Speed randomly.
Make sure that you're doing it for a reason.
Remember with Shutter Speed, double whatever
your frame rate is, for the most cinematic image possible.
Next, we're going to look at the f-stop or aperture.
What the f-stop changes, is the
size of the iris on your lens.
The bigger the iris or opening is,
the more shallow depth of field you'll have.
Which means that a smaller area in z space will be in focus.
Whereas if you have a higher number f-stop,
the smaller it is, the deeper your focus will be
and the area in z space that
will be in focus will be larger.
Just like with Shutter Speed, if you change the f-stop,
you're also changing your exposure.
With f-stop, the lower the number is,
the bigger your opening is on your lens
and more light is coming in.
That means your exposure is going to be brighter
and the higher the number f-stop,
the smaller the opening is for the light to come in.
Which means that the exposure will be darker.
But again, you don't want to change the
f-stop just to change the exposure.
The reason for this again, is that
it changes the look of your footage.
If you want that nice, shallow depth of field look
with that nice bokeh blur in the background,
you're going to have to shoot at lower f-stops.
For example, one of my favorite lenses
is the Stigma 35mm f1.4.
It can go to an f-stop of 1.4, which is pretty fast
and it has a really nice shallow depth of field to it.
Pretty much all of my lenses that I own,
are at least f2.8 or faster.
So what f-stop should you be using?
In general, you want to shoot at lower f-stops
and the reason for this, is that
it really helps to separate your subject
from the background or foreground.
So the eyes are automatically drawn to whatever
you want the viewer to be focused on.
Not to mention, it just creates a really beautiful look
and really just cuts out a lot of the noise
of the background and everything else that's going on
and just focuses on your subject,
the person or whatever you're filming.
I also think that, the shallow depth of field
is really appealing to the eye because
it's something that we can't really do with our own eyes.
I mean, we can get a bit of a shallow depth of field look,
but we can't actually look at the blurry areas
without changing the focus on our eyes.
It's really interesting for the eye
to be able to look at those really out of focus areas.
I would say about 95% of the time,
I'm shooting between f1.2 and f2.8.
I don't go too much above f2.8,
I think that's when just everything
starts to be in focus and it just doesn't look as nice.
The exception to this rule would be,
if you have, let's say, something in the foreground
and something in the background, way back
and you need both to be in focus.
Well, for that you're going to have
to use a higher number f-stop.
But in general, I would stray away from this,
I would use a lower number f-stop.
The f-stop in my opinion, is the biggest creative
choice you have to make when you're filming something.
Out of all things, it influences
the look of your clip the most.
Now, you might be wondering, if you're not supposed to
change exposure using Shutter Speed or f-stop,
how are you supposed to change exposure?
Indoor, night time shooting, you don't
really have to worry about this.
But, what if it's a broad daylight shot
and it's really bright outside,
but you still want to shoot at a lower number f-stop
and there's a lot of light coming in,
then what are you supposed to do if you can't
crank up the Shutter Speed and
you don't want a higher f-stop.
That's when ND filters come in.
An ND filter is basically just like
sunglasses for your camera.
I like to use variable NDs, where you
can actually change how much the
ND filter is influencing your image.
So you can crank it up and make it darker,
or you can make it brighter by going the other way.
This is how you should be changing your exposure
when it's a really bright day.
Not using your f-stop or your Shutter Speed.
You want to keep your Shutter Speed at the 180 rule,
double whatever your frame rate is
and you want to keep your f-stop to whatever
your creative decision was there.
So usually, a shallower depth of field.
If it's way too bright and you need to make it darker,
then use this, an ND filter to make it darker.
This is a big pro-tip, you need to have an ND filter,
especially the variable NDs, grab one
if you don't have one, you need one.
Next, let's look at ISO.
ISO is one of the settings that doesn't influence
anything creatively, it simply
just changes the exposure of your image.
Now again, to make the most cinematic image,
you can't just choose whatever ISO you want.
Typically, you want to shoot with the lowest numbered ISO.
Let's say your camera goes from
ISO 200 all the way to 6,400.
You want to be shooting at 200, if possible
and the reason for this, is that
ISO is basically just changing
the sensitivity of your sensor
and what happens is, if you make it more and more
sensitive, you're introducing more noise to your image.
The higher the ISO, the more noise will be in your image
and it also starts to affect things like
resolution and your image just starts falling apart.
So you really want to be careful with ISO.
The only time you want to be bumping up your ISO
is if it's just way too dark in your environment
and you're just not getting enough exposure on your image.
Even then, you only want to increase the ISO
to the point that you need it.
You don't want to just arbitrarily choose
whatever ISO and go with that.
You want to keep to the lowest ISO number that you can.
Now, there are some exceptions to this.
Every camera has a base ISO, the base ISO
is the ISO that the camera performs best at.
That's where the colors are going to be the best
and the dynamic range is going
to be the best for your camera.
Some cameras, like for example, my C300 Mark II,
have a higher base ISO than what the minimum ISO is.
So, you can go below 800 ISO but
the camera performs best at ISO 800.
So I always try to stick to ISO 800, if possible.
The Sony also has a base ISO of 800,
but you can go below that like on the C300.
I would only ever go below 800 on my C300,
if that was the only way that I could decrease the exposure.
But again, if I need to decrease
my exposure, I would use an ND filter.
ISO is not a creative choice, it's just a necessary evil.
If you need a higher one, because it's so dark,
then you can bump it up a little bit
but be careful, because the higher the ISO,
the worse your image will look.
To recap, your Shutter Speed should stay at
double whatever your frame rate is.
Unless you're changing it for creative reasons,
your f-stop, you want to keep
to a low number f-stop, if possible
and your ISO you want to keep to the lowest number possible.
To change the exposure, you use an ND filter.
If you're new to videography, this can
feel like a lot of stuff to think about.
But, the more you practice, the easier
it'll get and you won't even be thinking about
what Shutter Speed or what f-stop I should be using,
it becomes almost like second nature.
But in general, when I go to a new situation,
I have my Shutter Speed at double the frame rate,
so if I'm filming in 24 frames per second,
I have it at Shutter Speed 48 and I have my
ISO the lowest it can go and the only
real creative decision that I'm doing,
is what my f-stop will be.
So if I want a really out of focus background,
I'm going to go to the lowest number possible on my lens.
Or if I want to keep a little bit more in focus,
then I'm going to go a little bit
higher to something like f2.8.
Now if it's too bright, I put on the ND filter
and if it's too dark, I bump up the ISO a little bit.
That's it, simple as that, it's really easy to figure out
and the more you practice it, the easier it'll get for you.
That's it for today, I hope you learned something new.
I know this is really basic information,
but I really hope it helped some of you
and it's always good to go through a little refresher
and to think about what you're
doing in your filmmaking process.
Why are you choosing these settings
and when should I break these rules.
I hope you enjoyed this little mini series
on camera settings and if there's something
that you want to know about filmmaking,
comment down below, ask a question
and I'll try to comment and answer those questions
or I might just make a tutorial on your question.
Thanks for joining me, enjoy the filmmaking process
and go make some travel memories.
See you next time.
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