Keep Still
It’s a typical novice error – chasing after a moving subject with the camera bouncing around all over the place and making your viewers feel seasick. Instead, take a moment to figure out where you need to be before the action starts.
Plan Your Movie
Professional videographers don’t shoot a movie in a single “take”. It’s fine for video “snapshots”, but if your shooting a serious movie, plan a series of “clips” for editing together later in video editing software.
Focus First
How fast is your camera’s autofocus in live view video mode? It’s something reviewers make a fuss about, but it’s not as relevant as you might think – pros usually pick a manual focus point before they start filming and stick to it.
Iris Not Aperture
Video jargon can be confusing, and in video the lens aperture is called the “iris” – and it’s the principal tool for controlling exposure. The shutter speed is usually set to twice the filming frame rate e.g. 1/60s.
Don’t Zoom While Filming
It’s difficult to do smoothly and it looks amateurish. It’s much better to film for a short time at one focal length, stop filming, change the zoom setting and start again – then “cut” from one clip to the other in software.
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