Digital Video Recording

Sometimes good digital video recording tips are in your manual, other times they are not taken from the user’s manual but from more experienced photographers and videographers. Sometimes you can be as good as a pro, while in other cases, you can make big blunders. The important thing is to learn from every experience if you really want to improve your digital video recording skills.

The Importance of Lighting

Natural light is the best for digital video recording provided that you shoot from the right place. If you are in the shade or next to an open window, your scene will get bluish. When there are mixed lighting situations, the camcorder cannot adapt to them all, and the colors will get distorted. The best way would be to limit the light sources and set the white balance in the camcorder so that the camera adapts to the most powerful light source.

Shading the Lens

Too much sunlight shining directly on the front of the lens will alter the image quality. It’s just like walking out of a dark room in full daylight. The captured image will also be washed out if you get lens flare. There are custom lens hoods available on the market and they do a great job at blocking the harmful sun rays. Without the hood, you’ll have to shade the lens with your hand.

The Problems of Back Lighting

Shooting a back lit subject is a pretty common mistake in digital video recording and lots of amateurs make it. When there is a strong light at the back of the subject, then everything else becomes darker. You can increase the illumination by adding video lights. You can also lock the exposure on the subjects so that you prevent silhouetting when a back lit scene occurs.

Don’t Rely on the Inbuilt Microphones

The problem with inbuilt mics is that they capture the noise from the camcorder’s drive mechanism during digital video recording. It’s much better to use an external microphone because it does not damage the audio of the video.

There are numerous other digital video recording tips that you can learn from Internet sources. You can thus find out how to soften the background by the right choice of the filters. You can also learn a lot about digital video recording by paying attention to professional work. Watch a documentary or a film on television, and analyze it with a critical eye. Then you will be able to tell what makes the difference between amateurish and professional techniques.

If you can do that, you are well on your way to being a professional yourself at digital video recording and you will be pleased with your results.