Group: "Lighting & Sound" pages 5 & 6 in the "Making Videos" booklet

Lighting

1. The issues raised with auto-exposure are the limitations the where one can film with it turned on. You can sometimes film a great piece, but the auto-exposure could pick up on other natural sources, for example, poor or high quality lighting can have a major effect on it. Silhouettes and blurry people can sometimes be seen with perfectly clear backgrounds and vice-versa. This can be avoided by using the back-light wisely, clearing the image and improving the luminance range. It can also be avoided by flipping the LCD screen, and then shining a light from behind the camera at the actor or object. One last way that works well is using "Exposure Adjustment." This can be entered manually to adjust the brightness of the image.

2. What is Back-light? Back-lights are the lights used behind, or to the sides of an object or person, who is in view of the camera, to tint the brightness, contrast and sharpness. This helps the camera pick up an image, especially when using auto-exposure.

3. Manual Exposure is adjusting the iris of the camera. When fully opened to "f-number" appears smaller and will look like this, for example "f/1.4" whereas when the iris is smaller the "f-number" appears larger, for example "f/22." The ways to control exposure manually are:

1. Reducing or Increasing the aperture of the camera, enabling tonal levels to be experimented, freeing the user from having to tint, or use, additional lighting. 
2. Once you are happy with the exposure, depth of field can be experimented. This is the distance in front of and behind the person or object that appears to be in focus. A large aperture (small "f-number") creates a shallow depth of field. In contrast a small aperture (large "f-number") creates a long depth of field. The downside to this is closer shots appear blurry.

4. The different basic shooting modes include:

• Colour Slow Shutter - Produces a trailing effect by staying open for longer and allowing more light in.
• Night Mode - Similar effect as Colour Slow Shutter, by allowing more light, but can appear "jerky."
• Infra-red Night Mode - This can be used in pure darkness giving a green tint to all surroundings, as well as negative effects.

5. When filming the "White Balance" may need to be adjusted because the camera's automatic colour temperature can often make a messy blur due to the balance shift between rooms, scenes or live recordings. White Balancing essential limits the camera to a certain brightness.

An example of how the camera is focused on the horse in the front. Auto-exposure has been edited to exclude unwanted light and bring forward the closer horse. This is also a good example of Back Lighting  as it doesn't make the horse look entirely like a silhouette. However it is enough to see what the horses face looks like.

Sound

1. The microphones used in camcorders are very basic and can sometimes not pick up very good sound. Some errors that occur are:

• Silence - It is hard to keep quiet in handicam situations!
• Finger Noise - The microphones are sensitive and can pick up plucking sounds from you fingers touching or leaving the camera.
• Breathing
• Flapping Lens Cap - Easy to sort out though.
• Wind Reducer - One of the most distracting sounds. Most modern cameras have a built in mode that enables reduction of the windy sounds.
• Hums & Buzzes - The can be from mobile phones or other electronical equipment. Make sure they are not only switched off but also away from the camera when recording.
• Audio Mode - Within the camera this setting allows the sensitivity of sound to be edited. It is advised to check and test this before recording.

2. Care needs to be taken with sounds heard that are not seen by the camera, nor mentioned in dialogue. Cars, and planes, are prime examples. It is advised to take a cut-away shot of where the sound is coming from to allow the audience to familiarize with the surroundings of the scene.

Additional Notes: This link is very interesting and shows how to get the best sound from built in microphones as well as which external microphones to use for a "Canon XH A1." http://www.ehow.com/video_2280200_onboard-mic-audio-recording-canon.html

A screen shot from the video link above.