- Hey, it's Mike Brown from Primal Video.
Yes, this is my first video here for Primal Video.
I like what Justin's done with the place.
I actually set up Primal Video
with Justin a little while back
and have been working behind the scenes since then.
But it seems like he must have left
the basement door unlocked, because I found my way out.
And now I've found a camera
and I'm producing my first video.
But enough about that, let's get into it.
Now, we've released a ton of videos in the past
showing people how to produce great video content
with their iPhones or their Android smartphones.
Now, from all of those videos that we've released,
there's been one tip in particular
that a lot of people are just completely surprised about
and had no idea that they could do.
And this is actually a pretty major one
that helps you get good lighting in your videos.
So today we're just gonna run through that one tip
so you don't have to go out look anywhere else.
I'm talking about using auto exposure lock
to prevent under or over exposed shots
when shooting with your smartphone.
It's a simple tip that can make a massive difference
to your lighting and really make or break your videos.
Here's how to do it.
(upbeat funky electronic music)
Now, by default, when you open the camera app
on your iPhone or Android it's going to fault
to having auto exposure on.
Which is a good thing in most circumstances
because it basically means the phone
is going to constantly be looking at the shot,
figuring out what it thinks you wanna be focusing on
and then adjusting the exposure
and the lighting around that.
So that's great if you're shooting your kid's football game
or you're out with your friends and shooting a quick video
where you're all moving about and the lighting
can constantly adjust through the scene.
But if you're shooting a video like this one here
and the lighting's changing behind you,
it can completely darken you out and lighten you up
as the lighting changes behind you.
So if I'm sitting here now with my smartphone
and somebody walks behind me, the phone may decide
to go and focus on that person for a split second,
adjust the lighting to really darken my face,
and then come back to me, and I've just got
this massive change in lighting through my shot.
So what auto exposure lock lets you do
is basically predefine which spot on the screen
or which area you want the camera to focus on
and to set the lighting around
and then lock it to that point
so it isn't constantly adjusting throughout the shot.
So you can see here that I've got
a pretty bright background here.
I'm actually shooting out the window.
Now, if I was to move the camera around
and do a bit of a pan, you can see, as I come indoors,
the lighting changes quite dramatically.
Now, if I pan back to the window,
you can see it changes again;
and everything inside gets much darker
while everything outside actually comes into focus,
and the exposure gets calibrated to the outdoors.
What we can do instead is enable auto exposure lock,
and that'll basically let us determine
what level of exposure and focus
we wanna set at the beginning of the shot.
And then it will maintain that throughout the shot.
So let's go ahead and enable auto exposure lock
to prevent those changes in lighting throughout the shot.
I'm gonna focus on this wall here,
because this is gonna give us
a great level of exposure indoors.
But it's going to completely wash out what's outdoors,
as you'll see when we start to do the pan.
To do that, I've just got to tap on screen on the wall here.
Now, if I hold down for about a second, though, or two,
you'll see the AE LOCK notification will appear.
That means that auto exposure lock is enabled,
and it's calibrated the settings and the exposure
based on that point that I just selected.
So now that we've locked the exposure level,
we can step back and do the same pan again,
and you'll notice that the lighting
won't change throughout the shot.
So the background that we're looking at
is pretty washed out, but the inside
of the apartment we can see perfectly well.
So if you're shooting a video like this on your smartphone
and there's variable lighting in the background
or you notice the lighting is changing as you shoot,
then you can easily just calibrate where you want
the auto exposure lock to be enabled before you shoot
and it will remain consistent throughout the shot.
So this not only prevents any changes in exposure,
but it will also give you the control to determine
what point on screen you want the camera
to calibrate the exposure around before you even shoot.
If you'd like more tips like this one
then you should definitely check out
our Complete Guide to Filming with iPhone.
I'm gonna throw a link on screen somewhere now.
But if you're an Android fanboy, don't worry.
We've got one for you as well.
I'm gonna throw a link up in the cards
as soon as this iPhone one's done.
There it is.
And I'll throw them both in the description below as well.
Now, if you found this helpful,
we'd really appreciate a thumbs up or a share.
It really does make a big difference.
Leave us a comment below.
If you've got any questions or your own tips,
feel free to share them down there.
As for me, I'll be back soon with some more tips
and tricks just like this one.
I'll still leave all the heavy hitting to Justin.
Don't worry, he hasn't gone anywhere.
But we'll see you guys soon.