Sony V1 Camera Techniques Lesson With Ashley

Today we had a lecture with Ashley on camera techniques with the Sony V1 (the camera we've used for the past year) and refined what we had learned last year about the Sony HVR V1.  We were taught about settings on the camera, lighting, focus and steady camera movement.

Below is the rear view of the camera.  You can see the LCD screen with the menus on it and the buttons on the side.  I'll go through the buttons from top to bottom:

Switch at the top with 3 settings: 

• Auto (on auto-lock and manual settings can be changed if required, but most of the settings are decided by the camera)
• Manual (user specified.  The camera should always be on manual so that we can change settings according to what we want)
• Hold (automatic - user can't change settings)

Gain - adds artificial light that isn't really there and it's measured in dB.  dB ranges from 3-18, if the camera goes beyond 12 dB, the film will appear grainy.  

Shutter Speed - User has control over how many frames per second (fps) should be taken.  In video, the  fps is 50i - equal to 25 fps, but it varies depending on what format you use.  PAL, NTSC and SECAM are the 3 formats used.  

NTSC = 30fps

PAL = 25fps 

SECAM = (roughly the same as PAL)

 White Balance - Makes the image on screen look normal.  There are three types of light: Tungsten (artificial), Outdoor and Manual Custom (for sequences that involve transitions between outdoor and indoor).  To normalise the colour, zoom in on something white and press the white balance.  There shouldn't be any tint in the colour, so all colours should be balanced.

Menu - Used to check for the resolution (which should be 1080i) and make sure that volume is equal and that the correct outputs are used.

Use the scroller right at the bottom to scroll up and down the menu and press down on the scroller when you find the setting that you want.

The next two views of the Sony V1 have buttons which have essentially the same effect as when you press the buttons on the back of the camera.  There is one button however that is different: status check.  Use this to check that you have all the settings correct for the outcome that you want.  

Visual

There are two rings right before the lens.  The bigger ring of the two is the focus ring and the smaller ring is the zoom ring.  The zoom ring doesn't affect the quality because it uses optics rather than digitise the image and as a result, distort it.  The user can use both of the rings in conjunction: when you want to focus in on something, zoom in to someone's hair (hair has the most detail: texture, shadow, colour, highlight etc.) and move the focus ring until the image isn't blurred.

There's a focus button for manual focus at the bottom of the camera.  Press it and you should see a hand come up (close up focus) or a mountain symbol (distant focus).  If you want to quickly check whether you're in focus or not, without having to use the zoom ring, press 'expanded focus'.  This will zoom in for you and you can set the focus from there.  Alternatively, should focus not be such an important issue, press 'auto focus'.  this will automatically focus on objects for you.  

There's also find an 'Exposure/Iris' button.  This widens the aperture to let more light in.  The aperture works like the pupil in your eye:  the wider the aperture, the more light let through, the smaller the aperture, the less light let through.  This is a more feasible option because the image won't look distorted in any way.  However - there's a limit to how much the aperture will open.  If you open the aperture more than it will allow, the camera starts adding artificial light (gain - dB), which will make the image look blurry.  To change the aperture at any time, use the scroll, located directly under the button. 

Audio

There are two audio inputs in the camera: input 1 (ch1) and input 2 (ch2).  All buttons should be left the same (switched up) -  apart from the one on the very end.  To use 2 audio inputs, the first switch should be down.  For only 1 audio input, the first switch should be up.