Manual Camera Adjustments (White Balance, Shutter Speed)

The first thing you should do is to consult your user manual, find the appropriate dials, and get familiar with the adjustment and their effects. Next time when you shoot the ultimate video, you get the desired results, fast. The most common adjustments you can manually change on your camera are the focus, the iris or aperture, white balance and shutter speed. Modern camcorders and cameras have very efficient electronics to adjust for sudden changes in light temperatures. Over the years the automatic adjustments in video cameras have improved dramatically. A modern camcorder delivers excellent results in automatic mode.

Shutter Speed

However, there may be some occasions, where you want to achieve a special effect with your shutter adjustment, the backlight is so strong, that you need to compensate a little with the manual iris adjustment and keep the focus on manual, so the auto-focus doesn't get irritated with a constantly changing scene.

So what is a fast shutter speed for?

If you select a high shutter speed, the camcorder will capture very quick snapshots of the image as it is moving, meaning it appears sharper. There is a downside. Because the image is captured in short bursts, the result is, that the picture will seem to jump from one frame to the other, giving the clip a jerky movement. A good application for this effect would be any sports video-making. When watching the footage frame by frame afterwards, you have an excellent tool to analyse your golf swing or tennis technique. With slow shutter speed fast moving objects become a blur.

Playing around with shutter speeds is the best way to see what they do, each camera is different. Take some time to see exactly what yours is capable of, and then use the different shutter speeds, which produce the effect you desire. Another interesting effect is the writing on a passing truck. Next time you see one, try it. The signage becomes more readable with certain shutter speeds. Waterfalls and fountains can look amazing, especially when filmed against the brightness of the sun. Using a fast shutter speed freezes the water droplets as they fall down. A slower shutter speed creates a more flowing and softer scene.

White balance

How can we see the differences between sun and fluorescent light?

White balance can be best judged on the human face. If you think it is not right, change the white balance manually. Keep in mind, if you decide to use your camera on manual white balance and you go into another room with different light conditions or outside, you must adjust manually every time or you will definitely see red or blue faces.

Summary

Even though automatic camera adjustments are pretty much perfect on a modern camera and camcorder, manual adjustments are the ideal way to add some creativity and special effects to your video. However, it is the camera adjustment together with the right framing and timing, which makes up a good video production. The same attention and even more needs to be given to the right sound recording. Bad audio recordings can ruin your whole video production. To get more detailed knowledge about these points and much, much more, check out my complete course 'Video like a PRO' on my website.