Photo versus video

Learning goal

Before you start shooting a short video with your stills camera, you will be able to tell what stays the same and what changes when moving from photography to video. You will explain that knowledge of light, composition and exposure carries over to video, but that video adds three new dimensions: movement, sound and duration. You will see that a video is made of shots, and that every shot has a beginning, an end and a duration. You will notice that exposure and focus decisions, which are finished in a single moment in a photo, continue throughout the recording in video, and that automatic settings can drift in the middle of a shot, and you will think about locking them. You will keep in mind how the skin of a person moving through the light can change over the course of a shot.

The question

Thirty years have passed since the bakery opened; the baker wants to tell their customers about it with a few minutes of footage. Your friend from the club has been photographing in the bakery for months; they know the light, the angles and the baker's movements by heart. They press their camera's video button and record the baker kneading dough for three minutes. When they get home and watch it, they are surprised: the image shakes with every twitch of their hand, the hum of the oven drowns out what the baker is saying, the image darkens and brightens as the baker moves from light to shadow, and the three minutes never seem to end.

The light and composition that look flawless in a single frame seem not to have worked in a flowing image. Why do photographers struggle with video? Why do the same camera, the same light and the same bakery give a completely different result?

Context

You defined frame rate in the timelapse lesson, and saw that small inconsistencies turn into flicker when frames are played one after another (Lesson 22.6). In the correct grip and stance lesson, too, we discussed ways of holding the camera steady (Lesson 3.6). This module carries that knowledge into shooting video with a stills camera.

Most of what a photographer knows also holds in video: the direction of light, composition, exposure, color. But video asks three questions photography never asks: how does the image move, what is heard, and how long does it last? This lesson introduces these three questions; the module's following lessons will open up each one separately.

Simple explanation

What carries over from photography, and what changes?

Video mode is the way of working in which a stills camera reads images continuously from the sensor and records successive frames as a video file. The same sensor, the same lens and the same light are used; that is why the direction of light, the shadows that shape a face, the rules of composition and color knowledge carry over as they are. The window light you learned in the bakery lights the same face the same way in video too.

What changes is the role of time. A photo chooses a single moment; in video, on the other hand, moments flow one after another. In photography you think about each frame separately; in video, movement demands continuity from one frame to the next. That is why many things that aren't a problem in photography become a problem in video: a small tremor of the hand isn't noticed in a frame, but in a flowing image it shows as a frame swaying at every moment. Sound, too, is added as a dimension that didn't exist at all; a photo is silent, while video records all the sounds of the surroundings.

Why is video thought of in shots?

A shot is a piece of footage shot without interruption from the moment the recording starts to the moment it stops. A video is made of shots added one after another: the bakery door, the counter being dusted with flour, the hands kneading the dough, the baker's face. Just as a photographer builds a sequence with frames, a video is built with shots. A single long shot can't offer an opening, details and a closing as in the story structure lesson.

Shot length is the time a shot lasts from its beginning to its end. Photographers' most common habit in video is pressing the button and recording for a long time; this leaves a recording that is tiring to watch and hard to edit. Short, purposeful shots, pieces that each start and end by showing one thing, are building blocks that are easy to join together later. Thinking, when starting a shot, about where it will begin and where it will end is the video counterpart of the photographer's framing decision.

Why do sound and mid-clip drift matter?

Ambient sound is the background sounds that are constantly present at a shooting location apart from speech: the hum of the oven, the whine of a fridge, cars passing in the street. A photographer is used to these sounds and doesn't hear them; but the camera's microphone records them all and often drowns out the speech. Just listening for a few seconds before starting to film makes you notice what is making noise in the surroundings.

Mid-clip drift is automatic exposure, white balance or focus settings changing in the middle of a shot, and this showing in the video as a fluctuation in brightness, a color shift or sharpness coming and going. In photography, automatic settings decide once for each frame and the job is done. In video, on the other hand, the camera keeps deciding throughout the recording. When the baker moves from in front of the oven's orange mouth to the shaded counter, automatic exposure first darkens the image, then brightens it; this breathing brightness strikes the viewer's eye at once. That is why in video, exposure and white balance are often set and locked before the shot starts.

Mid-clip drift shows most on faces. When the dark-skinned baker moves in front of the oven's bright mouth, automatic exposure turns the image down for the bright flames and buries the face in darkness; when they move into shadow, it opens it up again. Within the same shot their skin darkens and lightens, and also shifts to orange and back to neutral. Locking exposure and white balance for the face keeps the baker's skin in its own tone throughout the shot. On light skin, the same fluctuation shows as the forehead clipping to pure white in front of the oven.

Visual evidence

You go to the bakery a second time. Instead of a single long recording, you plan six short shots: the door, the counter, the hands, the oven's mouth, the baker's face, the bread being lined up on the shelf; each a few seconds long. You put the camera on the tripod, and before starting each shot you stop the recording and set up the next one.

Before starting a shot you listen to the surroundings: the hum of the oven is constant, the fridge kicks in now and then. You shoot the shot in which the baker will speak with the oven door closed. You set exposure for the baker's face and white balance for the window light, and lock them. When the baker moves in front of the oven the flames glow, but their face stays in its own warm brown; the image no longer breathes.

Watching the two recordings side by side, the difference becomes clear. In the first day's three-minute recording, the image sways constantly, the baker's words are lost under the hum, and each time they pass in front of the oven their face is buried in darkness and reappears. The second day's six shots don't even add up to half a minute; but each shot shows a single thing, the frame doesn't move, the speech can be understood, and the baker's skin stays in the same warm tone from the first shot to the last.

Common mistakes

Summary

Video mode carries over photography's knowledge of light, composition and color but adds three new dimensions: movement, sound and duration; a video is built from short shots with a clear beginning and end, and purposeful shot lengths are chosen instead of a single long recording. Ambient sounds are noticed before recording; automatic settings drifting in the middle of a shot, especially brightness and color fluctuations that show on faces and skin as the light changes, are prevented by locking exposure and white balance before the shot starts.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will make your first short video attempt with your stills camera.

1. In a place you know, write a list of five to eight short shots telling about a job or a process; note where each shot will begin and end.
2. Shoot the shots on a tripod, each a few seconds long; shoot the same place once more as a single, long recording, and compare the two by watching them.
3. Before the shoot, just listen for half a minute and write down everything making noise in the surroundings.
4. In a place where the light changes, shoot a shot once with automatic and once with locked exposure and white balance; if someone appears in the shot, compare how their face changes in the two recordings.

Check yourself

• Can you say what carries over from photography to video and what is added?
• Does each of your shots have a beginning, an end and a purpose?
• As the light changed, did you check that a person's skin stayed in its own tone throughout the shot?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. Which carries over as it is when moving from photography to video?

• A) An exposure decision finished in a single moment
• B) The absence of ambient sound
• C) Knowledge of the direction of light and composition
• D) The timelessness of a single frame

2. What is the most common mistake photographers make in video?

• A) Pressing the button and making a long, single recording
• B) Shooting very short shots
• C) Using a tripod
• D) Locking exposure

3. As the baker moves from in front of the oven's bright mouth into shadow, the image darkens and brightens. What is this?

• A) Ambient sound
• B) Shot length
• C) Motion blur
• D) Mid-clip drift

4. What is done so that the dark-skinned baker's face stays in its own tone throughout the shot?

• A) Leaving automatic exposure on
• B) Setting exposure and white balance for the face and locking them
• C) Making the shot longer
• D) Opening the oven door

Answers

1. C — Because the same sensor and the same light are used, knowledge of light and composition doesn't change.
2. A — A long single recording leaves a video that is tiring to watch and hard to edit.
3. D — Automatic exposure keeps deciding throughout the recording and makes brightness fluctuate.
4. B — Locked settings keep the face's brightness and color constant throughout the shot even as the light changes.

Summary card

• Light, composition and color carry over to video.
• Video adds three new dimensions: movement, sound, duration.
• Shoot short, purposeful shots instead of a single long recording.
• Listen before you shoot.
• Lock exposure and white balance for the face; let skin stay in its own tone throughout the shot.

Bridge to the next lesson

The bakery video shot in short shots looked much better, but there was something strange in one shot. Out of habit from photography, your friend had set the shutter speed to one thousandth of a second. The baker's hands kneading the dough were frozen sharp in every frame, but when the video played, the hands moved choppily, in small jumps, instead of flowing. Someone at the club said the shutter speed should be tied to the frame rate. Why should the shutter speed in video be twice the frame rate? The next lesson tells about the 180-degree rule behind natural-looking motion blur.