Camera Problems

We have made several shoots thus far, most of which we have been able to execute successfully. However, in the process, we unsurprisingly encountered a few problems with our cameras. We of course made attempts to rectify these issues; with varying levels of success.

One small issue was some grainy footage we encountered when initially shooting at The Millennium Gallery. We hadn't noticed that this was the case until we began post-production, where the noisiness of the shots became much more visible. Thankfully however, this was only the case in the first few shots as after around 5 or so shots, I realised that I had forgotten to white balance the camera (which was especially foolish since the room was rather dark). After white balancing, the images thankfully became much sharper and much more usable. As a result of our deliberate overestimation of how much footage would be required, this issue thankfully did not cause us many problems as we were easily able to replace the grainy footage with another shot. Unfortunately however, there was a point in the interview with Michael Holmes in which he mentions the cutlery made in the Sheffield steel industry. The grainy shot above would've been ideal, but we were unfortunately unable to replace it with another version. Though its graininess is not particularly noticeable on the above small image, it is indeed very visible when viewing the clip on a full screen.

We also had another issue when filming outside Forgemasters the following week. We found that the camera was shooting at an incredibly white exposure; obscuring most of the image. This would normally be fixed by manually changing the exposure, although strangely, the camera vision was still very white even when the exposure was set to its darkest setting. Unfortunately, I am not particular experienced with many of the camera's functions, meaning that I was unsure of how to fix the problem; as was my group. We were able to provide adequate lighting by changing the camera's shutter speed; not finding any other solutions (as seen in the comparison above, the left being the one with the altered shutter speed). Fearful of what consequences of changing this setting might incur, we shot every shot that day in the camera's normal settings, and again with the altered shutter speed. It is likely there was a solution to this problem; the problem likely being caused by some incorrect settings. However, my lack of experience meant that I was unsure of how to fix the problem; being unsure of the effects that changing the shutter speed would have on the overall shot. Nonetheless however, seeing the shots in post-production, it seems that the shots with the tweaked shutter speed provide much clearer and sharper shots that those on the settings the camera was already one, hopefully meaning that my risky solution was successful.