Camera workshop 1

 Camera workshop 1 

 

In my first Camera workshop I was taught the basics of setting up a camera and tripod in preparation for my opening sequence. 

The cameras used at my school and he ones I will be using are the ‘Black magic 4K mini URSA’ as seen in the pictures below. 

 

 

We were taught the rules on set when handling this type of camera equipment. As accidents can happen on set with expensive things such as cameras, when passing things from one another you say ‘yours’ and the person receiving the item says ‘mine’ this is to insure that after the transition that the thing is your responsibility in case of a accident. 

 

The tripod used to hold up the camera has a spirit level on the side to align the camera with the tripod and thus the ground to make sure the shot is straight and does not look off. The spirit level is adjusted through a bold on the underside allowing small movements to adjust the angle of the camera. 

 

The tripod has two ways of adjusting the hight on each of the three legs, begin adjusting from the bottom to extend the base first before extending the top half to create a Steady base. For some shots it is important to match the camera with the height of the actor, on a film set normally a body doble will be used. The pan handle seen on above on the right, must be attached to the right side of the camera so that it does not interfere with the screen and other buttons on the left side of the camera. As seen below there are two little adjustable switches, these lock the pan and tilt of the top part of thee tripod that the camera sits on. The one next the spirit level  

 

As seen below on the bottom of the camera, there are little ridge like grooves that slide onto the top if the camera, a button is then pressed on the left side of the tripod, this allows the camera to slide onto the platform. Once the camera in placed in the right place there is a little screw on the right that only turns 90 degrees this tightly secures the camera in place. 

 

 

Zoom and focus rims are found on the lens of the camera, the big one being the zoom, when zooming the size of the lens will increase or decrease depending of how you are zooming. To focus on the subject, you must zoom all the way in and use the fine smaller rim to focus up the camera then zoom out to desired position to focus the camera. 

 

White balance removes unrealistically colours as outside has a blue tint to the light whereas inside lights can appear orange with studio lights being whiter. Therefore depending on where you are shooting you must use the touch screen to adjust the white balance as seen below to make the shot look real otherwise you will get an different type of shot that could look off. 

 

 

Exposure is the amount of light that the lens lets into the shot, to adjust this use the blue switch seen below, be careful on these cameras as the exposure adjuster is right next to the lens release so must be punctual on where your hands are. Exposer can completely change the shot so it is important to accurately adjust the switch to a desired place.