DSLR Camera Induction

Setting up the tripod.

The tripod should be extented from the bottom first, rather than middle. This simply makes it easier to extend again from higher up the tripod, rather than having to bend down and lift the majority of the weight of the tripod. The stabilizers will take care of small jumps in footage, but not emphasized ones, this should be be done with the plate attachment. Ensure the plate is located at the center of the cameras wight, its CG (Center of gravity.) This will keep the camera much more steady on the tripod.

The In-Camera Menu's

Firstly, to get back to shooting, just press the shutter button. I personally would always format the card, this will delete any footage that is left on the card from last time (which when hiring from a college like I do, is very useful.) You can also press the 'Clear Camera settings' option to refresh the camera to its standard set up. This will delete any setting someone else has left it on previously.

The Auto Power setting will often be at 1 minute, this can be very frustrating as then all you're doing is flicking it back on all the time, it dose however save power. Having this feature disabled or at a much greater setting like 30 minutes, and turning the camera of manually more useful, but this option is up to the user.

Usually you would shoot in RAW, and in Movie Settings you can change the grid display, and the movie read size. The top left selection Inter-frame 1920 25 ALL-I is the highest quality option, it runs at 25 fps (frames per second,) has a 1920 x 1080 screen size to capture most detail. However, due to its high quality it creates large files and will fill up the Memory card quickly. But as I am making a one minute film, I don't believe I'll fill up the whole memory card in one shooting session. There are other options available, such as the 1920 24 ALL-I, which is identical but shoots at 24 fps, A 1280 - 50 option, this shoots at 50 fps, so its more suitable to slow footage down, but not ideal as 50 fps isn't really enough frames to make a smooth slow motion clip. there is also a 640 25 option, which has very small resolution and quality, but can fit more footage on the camera, I find this not particularly useful as footage will not look up to standard.

You can also change the video settings to NTSC or PAL. PAL is the UK and European standard frame rate (24, 24) and NTSC is the American (30.) The NTSC dose have advantages though, such as the option to change to shoot at 60 fps can allow a smoother slow mo option, but to use this you would have to interpret footage at what the rest of your film is shot at, (typically 24/25 fps) then slow that NTSC footage down. It will however certainly make any audio recorded at this setting useless. I would stick to PAL for European users, and use slow motion effects or clow motion cameras to capture that desired shot.

There is a sensor lens cleaning option, that moves the shutter to remove dust stuck to the lens, this was a feature I find useful.

This was a rough guide to how some settings should be, but changed where necessary. Firmware 1.2.1, This is the most up to date version of firmware. Also ISO should be at approximately 100, the shutter speed at 50, and the aperture at 4.0. The Aperture should not be confused with the Exposure, both  concern light but are very different settings.

If you need to let more light into the lens, the ISO option dose reach 1280, this is however very light and creates a lot of noise in shot. 2000 should be the limit used, and for best results 100 - 800 will allow very little to no noise. ISO and the aperture do need to be balanced thou, so raising one usually should mean lowing the other.

The White Balance option will allow the colours to change. To get the right colours in shot, most people use paper for the camera to capture as white. You should however use a grey and adjust your camera to see that as the same grey you see. Auto white balance should be nearly never used as the camera is constantly analyzing for more white. This means that somethings as simple as a cloud coming in shot can change all the colours you're capturing and ruin you're shot. For best results you should use the colour wheel, labled K in blue at the right hand side of the camera screen. this will allow you to determine the colours manually.

If you have your aperture fully open, the depth of field can be very limited. to gain more depth of field, you should close down the aperture. This is because the less aperture, the less light is being allowed in, and this results in less black outs in your image because all elements of the shot are more focused.

Sound

If you are not going out to capture audio, still collect reference audio, this will help in post production. For good quality audio, an external microphone should be used. This will capture audio coming towards the camera but not much from either sides. Also for this headphones should be worn to accurately hear the audio being captured. However, for best results I would extend the external mic wire and attach a Boom Mic, this will allow you to get as close as possible to dialogue and dieagetic sound without getting the mic in shot.

You can also adjust the sound record level in the Menu option, to minimize or maximize the volumes and amount of audio you're capturing.

Lastly, when transferring you footage to computer, I would advise taking the memory card out of the camera and using a memory card reader. Using a USB cable requires more software and unnecessarily wares the USB socket.