Camera Workshop 1

On Monday 17th January my class and I attended a camera workshop. We were introduced to a Black magic 4K mini URSA camera as well as a tripod and we learned how to put it up effectively and safely. Matt taught us the "yours and mine" rule, whereby when we hand over heavy/expensive objects such as a camera to our peers we state whether we're holding it "mine" or the other person is holding it "yours" this rule is effective as preventing accidents from happening. 

To use the tripod correctly, it is recommended to adjust the height from the bottom up, whereby you fix the height of the lower part of the legs before adjusting the height of the higher up bit, this means that the height is A) more adjustable and B) if you were to do it the other way round, the camera would not be so stable. On the tripod, there's a spirit level that tells you the stability of the camera, this can be adjusted by a screw just below it- in order to make the camera level, you need to slightly unscrew the top of the tripod in order to make sure that the air bubble is within the circle in the spirit level, then proceed to tighten the tripod top again. By making it level this means that the shot you're filming is stable and not veering to the side at all or skewed. 

A crucial skill we learned was how to focus and zoom the camera, in order to focus the camera you need to be able to zoom... to zoom in on something you rotate the zoom ring (which is the ring closer to the lens) and point the lens at what you want to shoot, then to adjust the focus you turn the focus ring until the image on your screen is clear. It's extremely effective to zoom in before you adjust your focus because although something may look as though it's focused, by zooming you're able to get a crisp image, that's why when setting the focus point of a person we always chose their eyes as there is so much intricacy and depth that we're able to see how clear their image is, as appose to focusing on their clothing which could be misleading. 

On the camera, above the lens dismount button is a blue trigger-like button leaver which helps to adjust the brightness, this is useful when changing scenery such as going from a studio to a location. Although, on this specific camera there was a white balance adjustor on the screen whereby by pressing the "WB" button on the screen the brightness is automatically able to adjust to: being indoors, outdoors, an overcast day, and shade. In the studio the lighting is naturally portrayed as far more yellow/orange, so by changing the white balance it makes the man-made lighting appear as natural; in contrast, outdoors the lighting is shown with a blue undertone, and the white balance fixes this completely.

To conclude, "striking the kit" is necessary, as we have to put everything away in the reverse of putting it up. To begin, we had to turn the camera off, then we removed the battery pack and put the camera lens back on. Next, we carefully took the camera off the tripod and put it in the bag, and finally, we put the tripod away.