If you are the type who doesn’t care about exposure in your videos, always leaving it in automatic mode on your iPhone, Drone or other camera, then this article is for you!
I will detail the different exposure settings, in particular the notions ofISO, d’opening, or shutter speed, for you to adjust your exposure manually. I will also explain the tools to verify that your exposure is correct, and theusefulness of ND filters.
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Why switch the exhibition to manual?
Before getting to the heart of the matter, let’s try to understand why you shouldn’t leave your exposure settings to automatic.
If you leave your camera in automatic exposure, you are going to have constantly changing brightness in the image, which will not be pleasant to watch. In a drone turn, turning a camera, passing behind an object … your brightness will change, the sky or other elements will change in appearance, and it will not be aesthetic at all.
So one solution might be to “lock” the exposure, so that it doesn’t get changed while you’re filming. It would be a lesser evil, but you would not master certain parameters which would allow you to have an even more cinematic rendering, and which we will talk about a little later in this article.
The exhibition triangle
So let’s come back to manual adjustment of our exposure. On a camera, 3 parameters influence the exposure, and make up the exposure triangle : The ISO, the aperture, and the shutter speed, or shutter speed in English.
As soon as we touch one of its 3 parameters, we will play on the exhibition of our image, and the others will have to be modified to return to our original exposure.
But each of these 3 parameters also has other characteristics that affect the exposure, and I am going to detail them for you.
ISO sensitivity
ISOs are the light sensitivity of the sensore.
The more we increase this value, the brighter our image will be. By going from ISO 200 to ISO 400, we will simply double the sensitivity of the sensor to light. However, this is not without consequences, and the more we go up in ISO, the more we will see digital noise To the picture.
This is why I often advise you to set the ISOs to a minimum on your drone or iPhone, and to set them between 100 and 400 on your GoPro via Protune.
The opening
The second variable of our triangle, the openness.
The opening will play on the exhibition but also the depth of field. The more we increase the aperture, the more we will bring out a subject and blur the background, and the more we will also increase the exposure of our image.
On the contrary, the closer we close the lens, the sharper the whole image will be.
For many cameras, the question of openness does not arise. On an iPhone, the majority of drones, action cams, the aperture is fixed, we cannot touch this setting. Just like there are fixed aperture lenses on cameras.
And for the cameras on which we can adjust this parameter, we will choose this setting according to the look that we want to give to our image. For a cinema aspect when there are objects or people, we will often tend to increase the opening to make them stand out, but we must be careful not to find ourselves too overexposed.
The shutter speed
Last point of our triangle, the most important in video: the shutter speed, or shutter speed. This is the time during which the sensor will pick up light for an image.
The longer this exposure time will be, the brighter the image will be, and the shorter it will be (ie with a fast shutter speed), the darker the image will be.
But this is not the only axis on which the shutter speed will play. Take the photo example. If I have a fast shutter speed on a moving subject, I will have a very sharp image, whereas on the contrary if I increase this duration, I will have my subject which will be out of focus.
In video, it’s the same, the shutter speed will affect the motion blur.
And there is a rule in video, called 180 ° rule, to achieve a cinematic effect and beautiful motion blur to make your images look natural and look beautiful, is to adjust the shutter speed twice the frame rate.
Resolution and frame rate – What are the best settings for filming?
If you shoot at 25 frames per second, you set it to 1/50, if you are in 30, you set to 1/60, and so on. This is also valid if you are in a higher pace to achieve slow motion.
Here are several examples, with on the left a shutter speed at double the frame rate, and on the right a higher shutter speed, which we would have had for example in automatic mode. We realize that on these stills, we have a more natural, more cinematographic aspect.
So it is very important if you want to have that little natural look to set your shutter to double the frame rate.
Adjust and check the exposure
So if I summarize our 3 exposure settings in video:
- The ISO we will set them as low as possible to avoid noise,
- The opening, if you can play on it, you can adjust it according to the look you want to give,
- The shutter speed, you have to adjust it to double the frame rate, to have a nice motion blur.
Settings which therefore seem fairly rigid, and will not suit all situations. We will therefore have to check if our image is well exposed once these 3 parameters are in place.
There are mainly two tools for this.
Zebras
First tool, the zebras, which will indicate the areas of your image who are overexposed, and that it will be necessary to try as much as possible to eliminate.
Histogram
Another tool is the histogram, which is presented in graphical form.
On the left, we find the dark and dark tones of the image, while on the right they are the light and bright tones. In the center, we see the parts that are “neither dark nor light”.
When the histogram “leans” very to the left or very to the right, it means that details are missing in the image. An area on the left, which is too dark, may be caught up a little while editing, but a part on the right, which is often said to be “burnt” will be unrecoverable.
The ideal is to have an image correctly exposed, with nice flat peaks in the center, that is to say an image with a well balanced exposure.
Correct exposure
If your image is too dark with the ideal settings, you can start by playing with the opening a bit. If you have a fixed aperture, or you can’t or don’t want to open more, the only way to correct the exposure is to increase the ISOs a bit, with the consequences we know about noise. Otherwise, no miracle solution, you will have to illuminate your scene with light.
On the other hand, and this is what will happen in most outdoor situations with the settings seen previously, if your image is too light or burnt, that your ISOs are already at a minimum, there is an accessory that every videographer should have to make up for that, it is ND filter.
ND filters
ND filters (for “Neutral Density”) also called neutral gray filters or neutral density filters, make it possible to attenuate the light intensity. They sort of act like sunglasses.
As their name suggests, they are neutral filters, so they will not alter the quality of your videos, the tint, or the color rendering.
There are some for drones, for iPhones with in particular the PolarPro kit that I had tested, and for cameras.
Each ND filter has a specific density allowing it to attenuate light. They are distinguished by their number: ND4, ND8, ND16… The higher the number, the less light the filter will let through.
As soon as we place an ND filter in front of our sensor, we will find a nice balanced histogram and good exposure without having to touch our manual settings.
ND & Drone Filters – Why Use Them and How To Choose Them?
To guide you, I put you a small indicative table of the value of the filter most often to use depending on the situation. With an ND4, 8 and 16 kit, you’ll be ready to tackle most situations.
I hope these tips and examples have made you want to ditch your cameras automatically. If you have any questions, please leave them to me in comments.
To control your camera
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