Hey guys, Jordy here
and recently there has been a major firmware upgrade to the INSTA360 One R
which gives us some great improvements to both audio and video
and also some extra features as well.
Now I'm really happy that they thought about us the filmmakers
because after all most action cameras are aimed at consumers
so they want to make their cameras easy to work with and give a good image quality out of the box.
But if you know what you're doing you can actually get so much more out of a small camera like the 1R
by manually changing the settings.
So let's get into it and by the way Insta360 is sponsoring us today, big thanks to them,
but I'm also going to make sure that you can follow along with any type of action camera.
I'm going to use the 1R with the one inch module.
Yes this is a modular camera but we'll talk more about that later.
Now guys at the moment they are doing a huge flash sale for a bunch of Insta360 products
including the 1R as well, you can get 15%off.
So definitely make sure to check the link below but it's only a flash sale,
for a couple of days so be quick if you're interested in one of these.
Starting off with the settings and some of these might be obvious
for instance stop shooting automatic and switch to manual mode.
There's nothing worse than having your camera exchange exposure all the time.
So take control over the iso and shutter speed.
As for the shutter speed try to sync it with the frame rate.
So if you're shooting at 30 frames then set the shutter to 1 60th of a second.
And are you shooting at slow motion at 120 frames per second
then set the shutter speed to 240th of a second.
And that is gonna give you a natural motion blur
and already removes that very typical action camera look.
Now some cameras like the 1R also come with something called "Flow State Stabilization"
which like the name says is a software stabilization.
Now it works amazingly well on the 1R
but what it does is shift the image to stabilize it
and this could result in these motion blur art effects.
To reduce that you do want to increase the shutter speed a little bit.
So whenever you're going to run to follow a subject and you know that your camera is going to shake a lot
it could be a good idea to set the shutter speed to 120 instead of 60
while shooting at 30 frames for that particular shot.
Now let's talk about slow motion although it looks awesome
image quality will always be worse.
For instance on the 1R I have the ability to switch the resolution from 5.7 k to 1080p
in order to get 120 frames a second.
So obviously my image quality decreases as I sacrifice that for slow motion.
So only switch to slow-mo if you're actually gonna use it.
Otherwise stick to the highest resolution you got.
And finally if your camera allows then set the color profile to Log
and with the new firmware update we also got a vivid profile
I'm not really interested in that, Log is gonna give you more dynamic range
and more color grading possibilities.
So we know how to set the camera, let's start shooting now.
Composition is one of those things that is going to make the biggest difference.
Make use of the rule of thirds and the golden ratio to align the different elements in your shot.
Always think about what is my subject and where do I want the audience to look at?
By framing your subject in the middle you're forcing the viewer to look at it.
But if you place your subject on the side and use the space around it to add other elements
you can have the viewer scout the shot a little bit more making it more interesting.
I also like to work a lot with leading lines.
These are perspective lines that guide the eyes towards the subject.
Action cameras usually have a very wide lens
which makes leading lines work very well.
Now I can actually change the field of view on the 1R but since this is a software feature
I know that it will crop into the image and actually decrease quality.
As long as you don't have a zoom lens
changing the focal length is not possible.
But since we have a very large resolution of 5.7k
that's actually not a big problem.
It reduces those curves on the edges of the shot as well so it's actually nice to have this feature.
There are more action cameras on the market that can do that
but the one thing that I really love about the 1R
is that you can actually change all of these settings in post-production.
There's even a plug-in for Premiere Pro which allows you to enable or disable flow state stabilization
and change the field of view.
Now because we have a fixed lens there's no ability to focus
and that is why these lenses are also so wide.
They are set to a certain distance so don't try to film close-ups with an action camera
As that will just be out of focus and typically doesn't look so good because of the wide-angle lens.
The same thing goes for foreground elements.
Having a branch in the foreground to create more depth is great
but when shooting this on a wide-angle lens it makes the branch too prominent.
So typically that's not going to work so well.
What you can do is have a larger surface in the foreground like the ground
and if you can add leading lines to the bottom of your shots that would even be better.
So try to take distance from everything you shoot.
That doesn't always mean thateverything has to be super wide.
Having a healthy mix of long and medium shots is great
but those close-ups you typically get with a DLSR is best to avoid.
And this brings us to movement.
Try to find various ways to move your camera
like following a subject, going sideways, rotating around an object
or even rotating your camera to reveal something cool.
You can pan, you can tilt, try to experiment.
You would have a lot of different movements so that your edit doesn't become boring.
But you also want to make sure that the movements you make match with each other.
For instance by moving back in one shot and also in the second one
we create a fluent transition
and that is really nice for a few times but your audience also likes to see some different movements.
Now working with accessories really helps to get better movements
like the invisible selfie stick from Insta360
and although it is meant for a 360 camera mod using this on the one inch also has its benefits.
I like to hold the camera upside down because of the weight of the camera
you get a more stable shot.
Now the 1R is a modular action camera.
I can swap the bevel with a new one which is probably the best thing ever
but I can also change the lens with a 360 module.
So the display or the brain of the camera stays the same.
I can now make 360 shots which opens up a whole new world
of possible movements, motion tracking, animations, and so much more.
But we're going to look at those features in another video.
For now i want to focus on the one-inch module which is a normal action camera.
Well actually not it has a one-inch sensor, giving us better low light capabilities,
more dynamic range and pretty good colors, I haven't seen such a sensor in an action camera yet.
And even though it's a modular camera i can still throw it in the water.
How cool is that?!
Also one of the new firmware features is aqua vision which enhances the colors underwater.
But since it's super cold outside i'm gonna try that out.
Alright let's do dive into Premiere Pro.
As I want to say a few things about color correction.
Now we've been shooting in Log which is very flat so we want to bring back some contrast.
Do pay attention that you don't crush the levels.
So with every adjustment do it carefully.
We're not working with raw 10-bit footage.
Now one of the things that action cameras tend to do is overexpose quickly.
I already made sure to pay attention to that while shooting.
When using the Insta360 app I even get some exposure tools like the histograms to help me with that.
Now in Lumetri I decrease the highlight to preserve those details in there.
Overexposure never looks good unless you have a light source visible in the shot
Like the sunlight or anything like that.
Finally I bring back some saturation but i mix that together with the vibrance
and the big difference is that vibrance will look at all the colors
and try to evenly change those.
Mostly this results in the blue colors that get more saturation.
As with the normal saturation control it's just going to change everything together
resulting in colors like red being way too prominent.
And this is how I do the color correction of the 1r.
Once I have gone through all of my shots then I usually add an adjustment layer to the top
and do my color grading over the entire edit.
This is going to be a specific look and flavor which is a personal choice.
But those were my tips on how to get the cinematic look on an action camera.
If you would like to learn more about the 1R then definitely check the link in the description down below.
But anyways thank you so much for watching, thank you Insta360 for the support
and as always
stay creative!
I'm probably making a ton of people anxious right now.
No worries guys it's pretty sturdy.
All right enough for today, let's wrap it up!
Thank you for watching!