How To Use Your Camera In Manual Mode For Better Videos

If you are using a dedicated camera to make your business videos then you are probably using it in automatic mode. This makes it quick and easy to shoot content but it also makes problems more likely to occur like your shot suddenly getting bright or your movement looking a bit weird as you can see below.

In this article, I am going to show you how to use your camera in manual mode to get better results. Watch the video below or scroll down for the old fashioned text version

The manual mode setting will look different depending on which model camera you are using but it is usually an M symbol.

When you go into this mode you will have full control over your ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Don’t worry I can see the blank look on your face, I’m going to break it all down and make it easy to understand.

ISO

Technically ISO is how sensitive your camera is to the light that it is capturing. If your shot is too dark, increase the ISO to brighten it up.  

The problem is that the higher you crank the ISO the worse the colours look (they normally get washed out or the colours shift) and the more noise it brings in to the image.

Let me show you an example of the same shot at 2 different ISOs. The first clip is at ISO 400 which is perfect for this shot, it’s nice and clean with good colours. In the second shot, we are using ISO 3200 you will see that the colours don’t look as nice and there are all these little crackly bits which we call noise.

Bonus Tip! If you need to make your shot brighter, the best way to do it is bring in more light, that could be as simple as moving closer to a window.

How Video Works

Now before we talk about shutter speed, it would be a good idea to talk about how video works. Video is made up of a series of pictures shown to you in a fast motion. The number of pictures it shows you in a second is called the frame rate or frames per second, shortened to FPS.

The 2 most common frame rates are 24 fps (or 25 fps if you are in Europe) which is used on most films and 30 fps which is mostly used in TV. These 2 frame rates have different feels which affect the mood of your video. If you want your videos to look more cinematic, film in 24 or 25 fps. If you want a more realistic look, use 30fps.

What About Slow Motion?

A quick aside, to film a slow-motion video you shoot above these frame rates like in 50 fps and then play it back at 25 fps making the footage half the speed. This will be important in a moment.

Shutter Speed

On old SLR cameras, the shutter speed was literally how long the film was exposed for, it’s the same for digital, it’s how long the sensor is exposed to light.

As a general rule, you want your shutter speed to be double your frame rate. So if you are filming in 25 fps your shutter speed should be 1/50. If you are filming slow motion at 50 fps your shutter speed should be 1/100.

You can break this rule but it will give a different look to your video. For example, if we film at 25 fps and have a shutter speed of 1/25 you will see there is a lot more blurriness in the motion. This could be good if you are trying to depict a dream-like state.

On the other end, if you are filming in 25 fps and have a shutter speed of 1/100 this is going to get rid of a lot of motion blur. This would be good for sports, action or fast movements.

Aperture

The last setting we are looking at is aperture. In your lens you have a ring that opens and closes to change the amount of light being let in, this is called your iris and the amount of light you are letting in is called your aperture.

Aperture is measured in f stops like f2 f2.8 f3.5 f5.6 as so on. The higher the number the less light is being let in.

So why wouldn’t you have your aperture wide open all the time? There are a couple of reasons.

First of all, your aperture changes your depth of field which is the distance which remains in focus. The smaller the f-number the shallower depth of field you have.

This is great if you want to blur out the background but what if you want to have a large area in focus at one time? The best thing is to bring down your aperture to something like f11 which will mean a lot more of your shot remains in focus.

What if you are outside on a bright day, your ISO is the lowest it can be and you don’t want to change your shutter speed? You can knock most lenses down to about f22 which is only letting a small amount of light into the camera. Just remember that it is going to be harder to blur out the background and separate your subject.

That’s A Wrap

So to recap, ISO controls how sensitive your camera is to light but the higher the ISO the worse the image will look. Your shutter speed controls the amount of time your camera is exposed to light, as a general rule your frame rate should be double your shutter speed. Your aperture controls how much light comes through your lens, the lower the f stop number the more light comes through the lens and the less distance you have in focus.

Do you want to make sure your YouTube channel is bringing in profits for your business? Then make sure you check out our new video series ‘Your Essential YouTube Checklist - 5 ways to make sure your channel boosts your business’ right here!