I don't want to pester just Patrick with this question :) , and in actual fact i'd love to know answers from lots of people in the industry!

I've shot so many weddings in Auto mode for most of the day with the XH-A1, i'm not afraid to admit it. Obviously I have the odd tweak of manual functions when need be.

But the ability to get better footage by knowing the camera's technical capabilities can be beneficial, e.g. for dimmly lit churches (gain settings, shutter speed, aperture, WB etc etc etc).

So how do you all tend to shoot? Any preferred settings or rules? Auto or Manual?

Richard - I wince when you tell me you shoot weddings in auto - really I do. OK, as a one-man-band there's a limit to the disciplines you can keep under manual control, but auto exposure? Nevernevernever.

The white dress will under-expose her face, and even more so if she's dark skinned. His dark suit will over-expose his face. The huge windows behind the best man as he speaks, the sky above the church's bell tower, the chrome glinting off the limo's trim, the white iced cake on the silver tray, the white girl in white dress getting out of a white Rolls Royce that's fitted with white-walled tyres.

How does your auto exposure cope with that little lot? I can tell you - by constantly jiggling about with the iris blades in an effort to feed those chips a constant dose of light it levels the playing field, but at huge visual cost. This isn't what life's about. It's dynamic range that keeps your movie visually and audibly interesting.

tom.

Tom: sorry, before you assume the worst of me, i DON'T rely on AutoExposure...it's the one thing i'm constantly looking at and manually changing....

i basically film in Auto Mode, but alter things as and when i need be (maybe this is wrong and i should stay in Manual?). my question is, what do others do?

The A1 is not a good auto camera. I shoot manual all the time but you can shoot in TV or AV mode. i always have my auto gain off and i set my gain from -3 to 12, i don't go above 6. other than that it is a fab camera.

i basically film in Auto Mode, but alter things as and when i need be (maybe this is wrong and i should stay in Manual?)

Er - you mean the focus, white balance and audio levels are left to the automation and the shutter speed, gain and iris are locked down good 'n' proper? In which case I forgive you :-)

Always lock shutter speed and exposure in the church as well as white balance each camera. You know when you have forgotten to lock exposure and you move the camera to a window and........well you know!

I use exposure controls as often as I can but do get caught from time to time when I have much to think of.

I nearly always use manual focus.(Very rarely leave it in auto) for me it opens up the creative and artistic shots which I like to get while moving and pulling and shifting focus from one point to the next. something I missed with the flycam!!!

I also go manual with audio and monitor audio through headphones.

I believe the sooner you can go fully manual the quicker you will see the difference and your camera will become your best friend!

Cheers,

John De Rienzo

Alright John

I do all the things you list there, so maybe i shouldn't say i'm mostly filming Auto! :)

In Auto Mode I continually override auto-focus with manual to be creative, and lock exposure, change white-balance etc.

I'm trying to find out what people do as habit? A mixture of modes (TV, AV, Auto), or stick to one, or...?

As you know were running FX1's but they all have the same features.

Full manual most of the time but never full auto. Not sure how much control you have on the Canon's as the FX you can go full auto, full manual or choose which bits the camera controls and which bits you have.

FX1's have the abilty to set an A and B whitebalance so we do one for inside the venue and one for outside so we can quickly switch. We always whitebalance both cameras against the same piece of paper in the same location. If were stuck we use the brides dress. As long as there both the same its easier to fix later.

Manual iris as it often under exposes to compensate for her dress. In the church unless its sunny always full open f1.6.

Gain, always always try and avoid it if possible. It makes everything so grainy and you can get away with shutter speed and iris. Its not until it gets dark the FX1's need some and by tthat point its going to make it grainy no matter what.

Manual audio. Find a nice setting without too much hiss and so their levels are high and lock off.

Shutter speed. Now this is a good one. Normally lock it off at whatever you need to but on days where the suns in and out I tend to lock everything else off but set the shutter speed to auto and let this control the light.

Focus, always manual. To focus I tend to zoom right in and use the 'Push Auto' button. This nearly always finds the focus and then release, locked off. Why the zoom? You zoom out and focus manually or using the same tequniue, looks ok. zoom in and you will see its not as sharp as it could be.

When using the glidecam I may go auto if Im doing a shot which goes from one focal point to another but often its a moving around glide and pull away so the fixed focus will do.

In dim church
f1.6, no gain, shutter speed 50

[QUOTE=Danny O'Neill;919541]Manual iris as it often under exposes to compensate for her dress. In the church unless its sunny always full open f1.6. Shutter speed. Now this is a good one. Normally lock it off at whatever you need to but on days where the suns in and out I tend to lock everything else off but set the shutter speed to auto and let this control the light./QUOTE]

OK Danny - if you need f/1.6 in the church for correct exposure it means you can't use the zoom at all - and this must be pretty limiting picture-wise. At full tele it would give a picture a good 1 ½ stops under-exposed - not good.

Next point - if you don't have the shutter speed (1/50th) visible in the v'finder then the camera will vary the shutter speed to control exposure - i.e. you'll be in auto-exposure mode and will suffer the same problems of under-exposure of the white dress and so on.

tom.

I could go into all the tiny specifics about why and how I shoot on certain modes, but with weddings especially, there are so many different circumstances, cases and situations that can really change those at any time. For the most part, I shoot M: manual and leave it on there all day. This gives you sooo much control and believe me, if you start using it, you'll learn a lot, a lot faster. You have so much more control over every aspect and it may seem like a large order to be constantly monitoring each setting all day, but it will become natural and second nature if you make yourself do it. Then, of course, you'll start producing much better images overall..making every shot count and not relying on the camera hoping that it will choose the right settings for you.

Just my 2 cents..good luck!!

Matt

Also worth mentioning richard is here in the UK so we have clouds, sun, clouds, rain, sun, blinding sun, clouds, rain.

cheers Matt, that's the sort of answer i think i wanted to hear...i'm making an executive decision then to start using this camcorder in full Manual, and learn it inside-out!

like the clips on your site btw

If you shoot run 'n' gun stuff Richard (and I include all sorts of event video in this) there are limits to what a human being can keep tabs on. Of all the auto facilities on your camera I'd say that it's the auto exposure that makes itself most obvious, so lock that down.

Now the focus. It's ok to let the camera find focus in its auto mode (and the Z1's 'focus assist' is a boon at such times) but good to lock it once the camera's found it. The auto focus will always turn the right way, will never need to rock 'n' roll like you will.

Then there's the white balance. So easy to set indoor or outdoor, so only worth manually setting it in difficult (marquee) situations.

The auto facility that's least likely to be noticed is the audio. With a limiter in place it's the one discipline that I'm happy to leave to the automation, especially if I'm composing the shot, choosing the focal length, checking the zebras and the focus, switching the NDs in and out and making sure I don't drop to smaller apertures than f/5.6.

tom.

Tom, great tech talk!.

Bottom line is get to know your camera inside out. Know where every button is and what it's used for so you don't have to fumble trying to find it mid shot.

This will become second nature in time with practice, and the benefits gained, as well as the expereince and joy in getting that sweet shot is worth it.

Cheers.

If I am moving around a lot I put the camera in TV mode.

I keep the exposure lock on all the time (so it is effectively in manual mode) except when I want to change the exposure. If I push the exposure lock button the camera goes into auto exposure; another push and it goes back into manual (I picked this idea up off DV Info but can't remember who posted it).

I keep the focus in manual and use the push autofocus button to focus.

I always white balance manually.

If I am using a Steadicam Merlin I put it all in auto.

Zebras, cant believe I forgot to mention them.

Love the zebras.

I shoot in full manual unless I'm on the steadicam. Even then, I tend to try to use as much manual as possible.

I shoot manual everything except focus. I ride the focus all day but give priority to the auto. Everything else is manual. Thing is, you are trying to control what you do. Don't let the camera do it for you.
Bill

I shoot Auto Focus outdoors and well lit places when I am moving around lots(unless I am doing pull focus shots), when I am stationary or low light I go manual. All other settings are manual always like shutter, exposure, sometimes I use white balance K option rather then white balance to a card as indoors I find the lighting varies lots and I can just set the temp instead. Zebras at 95%. Sometimes I use the push auto focus if I really don't have time to adjust or its difficult to see on the lcd what's in focus although peaking is on all the time for me. So the auto functions are great as an assist tool but using all the time will not give you the best results.

great thread Richard! I am soaking it all in.

BTW I used to shoot in full auto, but have now made the transition to TV and AV modes. Hopefully as the work begins to pick up, I will gain the experience/confidence to shoot in full Manual. This seems to be the way to go.

-JS

The way I see it is - How can you get what you want out of your cam unless your in control? Auto is great if you don't really know what you want out of the cam, as it will always get you pretty close BUT if you don't know what you want out of your cam and your okay with pretty close, then I think there are some other things to think about first before learning manual controls.

We all shoot in manual and when we use Auto, it is used as a tool, just like the many other functions in a cam. When any function is relied on too much though, you certainly can do more damage, and that certainly holds for Auto vs manual control. So problem one is that your just getting decent images from your cam, but problem two, and this is the biggie, is that it severely hinders your creativity in that you see things in a much more monochromatic way when your now riding the controls.

Many of shots we do at every shoot have evolved only because we stuck with manual controls and here and there started seeing things different and finding news ways to shoot them. Auto will always shoot the same thing in the same way, and to me that really sums up why it is so bad.

Sorry, thats a little more philosophical than it is practical tips.

Hey Richard,

With my A1s I almost always shoot in TV mode and the Exposure Lock button is my best friend - something I've carried over from my XL2 days. Auto focus a lot of the time unless the camera is struggling or I want control.

For inside situations where the lighting is fairly constant I'll go manual mode. But for 'run & gun' situations it's TV Mode + Exposure Lock for me. 99% of the time I want my shutter speed locked to 50 (PAL) anyway.

My experience was that I missed too many important moments by running in full manual - especially at weddings. While I was fiddling around with the iris to get the exposure right I missed the moment.

As most of our shoots are outside using natural light, the technique I use most often iis to quickly point the camera at somewhere that is correctly exposed, hit the Exposure Lock button and away I go. Takes me way less time that trying to nail it in full manual mode. Plus, hitting Exposure Lock puts me in manual mode anyway - so if the camera is confused or I just want to full control then I've got it.

Ultimately, it comes down to understanding your camera and the results that it's going to give you, both in camera and then in post - i.e. if I do this ... then I'll get this result. Or if I use XYZ settings on my camera in XYZ lighting situation then I can do XYZ in post.

Like Patrick said "How can you get what you want out of your cam unless your in control?" Smart guy that Patrick. If only he was an Aussie then he'd really have it made ;)

i REALLY regret not making myself clearer now!....i DO press Exposure Lock all day long at a wedding, i DON'T rely on AF, and yes i DO 'know what every button is' on my camcorder....d'oh!

but yes, Matthew has hit it on the head for me: FULL manual for a wedding 'may' mean missing a few of those spontaneous shots until the time i can very quickly know what exact controls to go for in every situation. So until then, i think going for TV mode for example is a good suggestion, cheers.

Sony guy here. What does the TV mode give you control over? Just the shutter speed?

TV is shutter priority, and is always the way movies should be shot.

TV is shutter priority, and is always the way movies should be shot.

Oh man! All this time I thought that by shooting in TV mode it meant that my footage would be compatible with TVs. Gosh, do I feel stupid ;)

So in TV your effectivly lock off the shutter speed and control the light with the iris (which you also lock).

Yes. Lock down the shutter speed (at the default) and the gain. Select a ND filter that will allow you to shoot at apertures wider than f/5.6. The iris button will then toggle between auto and manual.

Ask the camera - what do you think? Then lock in this auto-selected aperture reading and use the wheel to open or close the aperture depending on the zebras present and your experience.

tom.

Why the f5.6 limit?

The camera uses really tiny 1"/3 chips Danny, so diffraction sets in really early. Think of it this way, the lens is designed to perform at its best wide open. Internal flare and vignetting (less exposure given to the edges of the frame - easily shown by the zebras) mean that at about two stops down the lens is at its very best.

We're now at f/4 or f/4.5. Go any smaller than this and the pictures get softer and softer. It's not Canon or Zeiss or Leica - it's the laws of optics. And the shorter the focal length, the bigger the problem - that means more sharpness loss at small apertures.

tom.

One thing to think about though is shooting at lower aperture can have its advantages though, you can get more of a film look creating shallower depth of field, I personally think sharpness shouldn't prioritise over composition of the shot.