UQD 10201

VIDEOGRAPHY
Chapter 3 Camcorder Operation

Charge Coupled Device

(CCD)
Video cameras use a CCD (Charge Coupled

Device), to translate light into an electrical signal.

A CCD is an array of photovoltaic sensors which
each produce a consistently variable electric signal
that changes in response to the amount of light
striking the sensor.

Video cameras generally use either 1 or 3 CCDs, and are

referred to as Single-Chip or Three-Chip.

1CCD record all three primary colours of light (red, green
and blue),
3CCD splits the light, into separate colours and uses one
chip to record each colour.

CCD
1CCD to keep costs down (consumers)
3CCD to produce the best images

(professional)
3CCD reproduce colours more
accurately than 1CCD, however1CCD
camera will generally respond better to
lower light levels (because the prism
reduces the intensity of light reaching
each chip)

CCD
The most common CCD sizes are 1/4",

1/3", 1/2" and 2/3".

Smaller CCDs are less expensive, but
larger chips can produce higher resolutions
and less noise at a given gain rate.
Consumer cameras generally use 1/4"
chips,
Prosumer cameras may use 1/4" or 1/3",
Professional cameras use either 1/2" or
2/3" chips.

Gain
Process of electronically amplifying the signal
coming from the CCD

increases the sensitivity of the chip to lower light levels.

While this allows a camera to record an acceptable

image with little light, it also introduces noise to the

video image.
Low levels of gain produce little extra noise
High gain result in visibly inferior images.
The increased noise from high gain can cause
problems when compressing digital video later, so it
is generally preferable to shoot with the lowest level
of gain possible.
Gain is expressed in decibels, with common gain
levels being 3db, 0db, 3db, 6db, 9db, 12db, and 18db.

Manual vs Automatic
Most consumer/prosumer digital video

cameras offer fully automatic operation

of all camera settings.
Prosumer cameras will also usually offer
manual control over all settings
consumer cameras may or may not
offer manual control over some or all
camera settings.
The better (usually more expensive)
your camera is, the more manual control
you will have over it.

Manual vs Automatic
The cameras' automatic systems generally
work by comparing the current image
information with preset "average" scene
data, then adjusting the settings until the
current image matches the average scene.
This basically results in average video.
Home videos are usually shot using the
automatic controls.
This means that if you use the automatic
controls, your video will look like a home
video.

Manual vs Automatic
There are occasions when it may be neccessary to use
the automatic controls. For instance:

In a documentary or news setting where events are occuring

so fast that you may miss them if are messing with your
camera settings all the time.
In a situation where you have little or no control over the
subject or environment (lights, movement, etc)
In a situation where you cannot directly view your scene
through the camera's viewfinder or on a monitor (hidden
cameras, camera is mounted on a pole or vehicle, held
overhead, etc).

When possible, avoid situations that will require you to

use the automatic settings.
The more control you exercise over your camera and
scene, the better your final video will be.

Manual vs Automatic
In general, when trying to create

professional quality video, you should always

use the manual controls on your camera.
By using the manual controls, you are able
to tailor each individual setting to your
particular scene, ensuring that you get the
best possible image for that scene.
You also are able to "lock" specific settings
in, so that they don't change every time
something in the scene changes.

White Balance
Different light sources will give off different

colors of light, and it is important to calibrate

your camera to the particular lights in a scene.
Light color is expressed as a function of
temperature, measured in degrees kelvin.
Sunlight is approximately 5600k, while
incandescent (indoor) lights are around 3200K.
The higher the color temperature, the bluer a
light is, and the lower the temperature, the
redder it becomes.
Sunlight has a very blue color, while indoor
lights are somewhat yellow.

White Balance

The woman is lit with

incandescent (household)
lights

The same woman lit with

fluorescent lights. If you saw
them separately, your probably
would not recognize either as
wrong. But side-by-side you
can see the difference

White Balance
Manual white balance lets you adjust
your camera to your primary lights.
If you do not white balance your camera,
your video will have a color cast to it.
If you let the camera balance itself, and
you have several different colors of light
in your scene, the color of the scene will
shift as the camera tries to compensate
for the different lights.

White Balance
To set your manual white balance you will
need a sheet of white paper or a white
shirt.
Place the white object so that it is evenly
lit from your primary light source.
Point the camera at the object, and zoom
in until all you can see is white.
Now hit the white balance button, and
the camera will adjust itself so that the
paper appears white.

White Balance
Many cameras have preset indoor and

outdoor white balance settings.

In many cases these will work, because
unlike auto white balance they do not
change once they are set.
However, they will not exactly match your
lighting, so if you have the time you should
always try to balance manually.

White Balance
How often should you white balance?
Every time your lighting source changes.

So if you shoot 20 shots of your friends football

game, you only need to white balance once.

But when you go inside the Pizza Hut to shoot
the victory celebration, you will have to white
balance again.
Some consumer camcorders dont have balance
control, they instead have circuitry to
automatically try to guess at the correct colours.
This works OK sometimes, but its not as
accurate as the procedure described above.

White Balance

This is what you get if you

forget to white balance

The true colours of a properly

white balanced shot

Focus
When an image is in focus, it is sharp and

detailed; when it is out of focus, it appears

soft and blurry.
Usually you want the most important
element of your scene in focus.

Focus
On autofocus, the camera must guess what to focus on.
Because it doesn't know what part of the image is most

important, it will usually focus on whatever is in the center

of the frame, or on the largest object in the frame.
Often, this is not what you want to focus on.
Additionally, if the camera or subject is moving,
autofocus will attempt to constantly refocus to keep up
with the changing scene.
As this happens, the image may quickly snap in and out
of focus.
If the camera cannot find something to focus on it may
continue to adjust itself, or "hunt", for the correct focus.
This will be very obvious to your viewers, is very
annoying, and it can easily ruin an otherwise perfect
video.

Focus
It can be difficult to achieve perfect focus using the small,

low resolution viewfinders and LCD screens on most MiniDV

cameras.
Whenever possible, you should use an external television or
monitor to check your focus.
Some cameras have a "push auto" button which will
temporarily switch on autofocus, usually until you release
the button.
This can be useful if you do not have an external monitor to
check focus on.
With the camera on manual focus, center your subject, hit
the "push auto" button, let it focus on your subject, then
release the button and recompose your scene.
This way you let the autofocus work for you, but then lock it
down so it doesn't start to "hunt" if the scene changes
slightly.

Iris/Exposure
The "iris" or exposure setting on your camera

lets you adjust how bright the image is.

In digital video, when any pixel in your image
hits 100% brightness, it is essentially pure white
- there is no more room for image information.
In general, you want to adjust your iris control
so that everything is below 100% pure white
except for highlights (such as the sun glinting off
of chrome).
This way you maintain image detail even in the
brightest portions of the image...a white shirt, for
instance, will still show the texture of the cloth.

Iris/ Exposure
A typical exposure problem involves a shot of a person
standing in front of a window.
In real life, your eye can take in the brightness

differences of the subject (fairly dark) and the outside

stuff you see through window (really bright)
But even the most expensive camcorder completely
fails when it tries to shoot this scene.
Typically the camcorders automatic exposure control is
fooled by the bright window and thinks Hey, this is an
outside scene its really bright and then reduces the
amount of light going into the camera.
The unfortunate result: it scales back the incoming light
so much, it cant get a good picture of the person, and
so she is now seen in a silhouette.

Iris/Exposure
Because the out-of-doors is
much
brighter than the indoors,

this shot is messed up when you

use automatic exposure. The
camera reads the bright window
and closes down the aperture so
very little light enters the camera
(sort of like how you squint on a
sunny day).

The only way to fix the shot is to

manually
override the exposure
setting.

Iris/Exposure
The solution to this common situation is to

manually adjust the exposure to let more light in.

With some camcorders, you can precisely adjust
the exposure
Cheaper camcorders just have a button called
backlight
Either way, increasing the amount of light
entering the lens means the camcorder will get a
much better shot of the subject although
everything in the window will now be overexposed.
So solution B is to get away from the window.

Iris/Exposure
Some prosumer and most professional cameras

have a "zebra stripe" setting. Zebra stripes are

diagonal lines which appear in your viewfinder
over portions of the image which have hit 100%
white.
You can use them as a guide, adjusting your iris
control until almost all the zebras are gone.
Once you have adjusted your iris for the
brightest parts of the image, you may find that
other parts of the image become too dark.
In that case you should use lights and/or
reflectors to brighten up the darker areas in the
image and balance your exposure.

Shutter
On film cameras, a shutter opens and allows

light to strike the film, thereby exposing the

film and recording an image.
By varying the length of time the shutter is
open you can allow more or less light to
reach the film, which determines how bright
the recorded image is.

Shutter
Shutter speed is the measurement of how

long the shutter is left open, expressed in

fractions of a second.
Common speeds include 1/4, 1/8, 1/32, 1/60,
1/150, up to 1/10,000 or higher.

Shutter
On video cameras, the same effect is

achieved electronically by varying the length

of time the signal from the CCD is sampled.
Although there is no physical shutter, this is
still referred to as shutter speed. The default
speed on most video cameras is
approximately 1/60 sec.

Shutter
The slower the shutter speed, the longer the

period of time which is recorded in each

frame.
If your subject is moving quickly it will
appear blurry in individual frames.
This effect is called "Motion Blur".

Shutter
The higher your shutter speed, the less

motion blur you get, while lower shutter

speeds produce more blur.
Some motion blur is usually good; the
viewer is not conscious of the blur, but
motion will appear smoother on screen.

Shutter
Too much motion blur makes the blur

obvious to the viewer, which in some cases

may be desired and used as an effect.
With higher shutter speeds the image will
be much sharper, which can be useful when
extracting still images from your video.
However, this generally does not look
natural when watching the video, but again,
it may be a desired effect.

Shutter
In general, you will want to lock your

shutter speed in at about 1/60 for the

most natural looking image, because this
approximates the human eye's level of
motion blur.
In extreme lighting situations you may
need to use a higher or lower shutter
speed in order to compensate for too
much or too little light, but be aware that
the image may look odd to your audience.

Shutter
Additionally, very high or low shutter speeds

can result in interesting effects which may

change the mood of your scene;
you should experiment with and become
familiar with these looks so that you can
determine when and if you want to use
them.

Zoom
Every camera you can buy now has a zoom lens.
This lets you frame your subject tightly from various

distances, and usually has an optical magnification

factor of 10-20x.
Many digital cameras have "digital zoom" settings
which go up to 100x or higher.
Instead of using the lens to zoom in, they actually
enlarge the pixels electronically.
Unfortunately, the more you enlarge the pixels, the less
resolution you have, and the worse your image will look.
You should not use this setting...if you need to zoom in
more than the lens allows, pick up the camera and walk
closer to your subject.

Zoom
The zoom should be used to change the

composition of your shot before you begin to

record, not during recording.
There is no equivalent to zooming in the human
eye, so when you zoom it tends to draw
attention to the camera rather than the subject.
Additionally, the proliferation of zoom lenses on
camcorders has led to the zoom being
particularly associated with home movies.
Once again, avoid the zoom if you don't want
your videos to look like home movies.

Basic Camera Handling

On/off, tape, camera/VCR mode
Shooting mode
Handheld- movement
Tripod static

Setting
White balance
Auto Focus
Tripod