Monday, January 20, 2014

Day 1 Lynda.com notes


HD video is totally different. it has two resolutions and only two resolutions. It doesn't matter how expensive your camera is, how big the sensor is, even how many megapixels your camera has. HD video still has only two resolutions. They are simply called 1080 and 720 HD.

Photographers are used to cropping their photos, taking part of an image and getting rid of the rest, changing the shape and the format and so forth. You cannot do that with video

1080 HD video refers to a video image that is 1920x1080 pixels in size. 720 HD is 1280x720 pixels.

The mega pixels of your camera have nothing to do with the resolution of the video coming from your camera.

1080 video gives you an image size approximately equal to two megapixels. 720 video gives you an image size that is approximately equal to one megapixel.

With video, you are typically shooting at approximately 30 frames per second. That means your camera has to deal with thirty 1-2 mega pixel photographs per second and keep doing it for however long you continue to record the scene.

The resolutions refer simply to how many pixels are in the image area, not to how large or small the image will display on screen.

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A lot of video is actually shot at 29.97 frames per second, which is nearly 30 frames per second, but it's based on an old standard that continues today for the way that video is timed for broadcast.

At 30 frames a second, our mind puts them together in a way that looks like traditional video.

Film on the other hand has always been shot at 24 frames a second…it is enough to change the way our brain sees movement

We are so used to seeing films from Hollywood shot at 24 frames a second that our brain starts associating that frame rate with a film look.

60 frames per second is another option, but is a more specialized speed often used for sports to really smooth out movement.

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shutter speed choice is very different from video to still photography.
If you shot those 30 frames per second at 1/30th of a second, you end up with all of that entire 1 second filled with images.
There would be no gaps between each shot. Now suppose you shot at 1/1000th of a second. The total time used would be 30 1/1000th of a second for the 30 frames, meaning that 970/1000ths of that second, nearly the entire second, will be blank. That puts a huge gap between each frame that causes the video to stutter or chatter. Our eyes are not capable of creating smooth motion with that gap and so action looks unnatural.

But normally for video, you will be choosing a shutter speed between 1/30th and 1/90th of a second. You won't see much difference between those shutter speeds. I also find that you can get away with as high as 1/125th of a second if the motion is not too fast.

Some video purists feel that the ideal shutter speed is 2 times the frame rate. That would mean if you are shooting 30 frames per second, you would choose 1/60th of a second for the shutter speed.

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you cannot shoot RAW with video on a DSLR = need to be more careful with exposure

most DSLRs actually work best for video in manual exposure.

frequently things will be changing during the time you are recording that could make auto exposure change inappropriately.
            flickering or changing in brightness of the scene

you only have a narrow range of shutter speed that you can use.

when you are looking at really bright conditions, you're going to have to use small f-sops.

If you want wide f-stops because you want a limited depth of field, you have to cut the light and you're going to need to get a neutral density filter

most cameras today do a very good job and capture quality video at ISOs easily from 100 to 400 and even 800

the only other option is you have to bring some lights in and add light in order to get your exposure correct.

Zoom lenses are not very fast. That means they don't have a wide maximum aperture. Single focal length or prime lenses have become popular for video because they do offer a faster maximum aperture.

When you shoot wide open with a fast lens, you get some really nice selective focus effects.


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