Production Skills- Intro to Canon Camera

On our course we use primarily two brands of digital cameras, the first been the Canon camera and the second been the Panasonic. We were introduced to the Canon camera first and were explained all the technical aspects the camera has, we were taught how to set the camera up for specific shoots and even a little intro to microphones and how they work with the camera. The Canon camera has custom presets that you can customise to your liking so you don't have to keep reconfiguring every time you use it, you can save your chosen settings under custom presets. The Canon only shoots in 4:3 unlike some more modern cameras that can shoot in both 4:3 and 16:9, this is important to remember so you don't film with this camera if you want to shoot in 16:9 because it's not something that is easily fixed in post-production. The camera also has a zoom grip that you want to keep the same speed throughout filming, the options the zoom grip provide are Variable, Low, Medium and Fast. When going deep into the settings you can change and adjust modes such as Rec Mode and Audio Mode which need to always be Rec Mode- Short Play and Audio Mode- 16 Bit, this is compatible with the rest of our equipment and gets the best out of our equipment. An interesting new setting I learned was Zebra Levels, these are zebra lines that appear when above the set number on the camera and are affected by light exposure, commonly you'd have it set to 85% because this is the recommended setting for skin so if you start to see zebra lines your light exposure is too high. The camera also has features such as Manual Focus and Auto Focus (Manual Focus is the better option, Auto Focus should not be used when filming). White Balance is a key feature the camera offers as well because it helps you achieve the right colour for your film and can be adjust for whenever your filming outside in sunlight or inside with studio lights.

This was my basic intro to the Canon camera and I'm sure I'll pick up more when I have more experience at handling and using it on projects.

-Mikey Barker