Equipment part 2- the DSLR

     Asking for equipment from shortcuts worked out, so I went to pick up everything I needed after school.

    It was a lotta stuff.

    While there, the man who loans out all of the student equipment, Jim, explained to me his camera settings and how to change anything if needed, as well as how to use the other equipment I checked out.

    Some of these things, I already had a pretty good idea about after having learned the filmic pro app inside out last year. That meant it was more so an experience of learning how to manipulate these settings on an actual DSLR.

    The first thing we talked about was frame rate. Just as I never thought about strategically choosing lenses to fit my purpose, I wasn't used to really thinking about frame rate either. I was used to just going with 24fps because that was the film-y option (I learned today that that came from the fact that it was cheaper to do back in the days of physical film rolls), but after thinking about my specific needs for this project, I thought I'd change that. I figured I should shoot in 30fps, because I knew there would be some slow-motion shots. This way, I could film the slow-mo sections in 60fps, slow them down in post, and still have a consistent frame rate throughout the entire piece.

    He also explained shutter speed. I was familiar with the concept and we generally went by the rule of thumb that it should be set to twice the frame rate.

    Aperture was another thing we discussed. He gave me a tip h described as not fully accurate, but easy to remember: the smatter the f-number, the more shallow my depth of field would seem.

    We went over ISO briefly as well. Without going into very much detail, it was described as the final element of brightening/darkening the image. I also read this article to learn that it's best practice to shoot at the lowest ISO possible to reduce noise, and only to bring it up when you can't properly brighten the image by adjusting the aperture, shutter speed, and extra lighting equipment.

    Focus was what I was most familiar with doing manually, and it worked quite similar in-camera to how it did with my app. A turning dial that moves the focus closer and farther. There were also ways to turn on guides for the focus and zebra stripes for exposure just like in my app.