film making – photography – education – astronomy
A zoom lens has a wide range of focal lengths to choose from, is quite expensive, but is like having many lenses in your bag without the need of changing them every time you need a different focal length. The focal ratio usually is higher than a prime lens, for example the Canon 16-35mm USM has a focal ratio of 2.8 and is really expensive, but you can find prime lenses with focal ration of 1.2. A zoom lens is usually bigger than a prime lens.
Color correction is the technique of changing a color into another color, and color grading is actually the same things.
From what I learned, color correction is mostly referred to white balancing, the technique of correcting the white in your video with the real white we saw in real life, when light go inside the camera’s lens it gets easily blended with all the artificial lights around it, so for example if you record in some interior with yellow lights, the main tone will be yellowish in the final video, not only artificial lights but also the sun light can change the white color perceived by the camera sensor. The white tint can be fixed during recording at some degrees, using the white balance function integrated in your camera but if you keep the white balance at a fixed preset, it should be corrected later in post with an application that have color grading tools.
Whatever film style you want to make, vlog, music video, wedding, documentary, or just a family video, the gear you need to get started is pretty much the same. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to start shooting, even an entry level camera will do a pretty good job, you just need the right gear and some skills. Also as part of making videos you might need to learn about editing, even though is not the most critical part of film making you still need to process what you record, making an amateur video is not different from producing a professional film, you still need to go through a series of tasks to make your video looks good.
Picture style is one of those settings that can have a big impact on the final quality of your photo or video. You can find it under different names, on Sony’s cameras it might be Creative style, on Canon’s cameras you will find it under Picture style, they do the same thing, it alter contrast, sharpness, saturation and color tone of your photo or video.
I want to talk about video recording with digital cameras. I own a Canon EOS 200D, is an entry level DSLR camera, it doesn’t have a really high quality sensor, but I feel I can make really high quality films just making sure I have the right settings before pushing the record button. The quality of any camera is always dependent from the lenses so it can be increased simply by purchasing better lenses, so do not underestimate cheap cameras, it’s a good purchase for anyone just looking at this hobby for the first time and is always more fun to push the limit of what you can achieve with what you have.