DIY: How to make better videos

		Contents Introduction Camera movement Zoom lenses Autofocus Using light In-camera editing

Using light

Use what you have
When shooting indoors, place your subjects so that they're in the available light. Too many people figure that they don't have to worry about light at all because consumer camcorders record in low light. While this is true, low-light shooting causes colours to come out wrong or barely at all, and the resulting image is grainy, with streaks of unwanted colour.

Most low-light camcorders have to increase the video gain -- in other words, amplify the electric current to compensate for a weak signal -- in order to capture the image. The effect is the same as when you pump up the volume to hear a quiet piece of music and pick up a lot of unwanted noise along with the signal. Moreover, your camcorder's lens aperture has to open wider to let in as much light as possible, which reduces the depth of field.

To avoid these problems, always try to maneuver your subjects toward the available light. Shooting in the kitchen will generally give good results, as will placing your subject near a lamp, a switched-on television set, or a window (if it's light outside).

Add extra light
If your camcorder has a built-in light, use it when shooting indoors. A little extra light can make the difference between a grainy image and a good one. And since built-in colour-enhancement lights emit only 20 watts to 40 watts, shy stars in your home movies won't be too bothered by them. However, colour-enhancement lights aren't much good if your subject is more than six feet away. They also drain battery power, so if possible, use the camcorder's AC adapter and plug into a wall socket.

Mix it up
If you shoot indoors on a sunny day with the lights on, the portion of the shot near the window may look as if it was taken at the bottom of a swimming pool. That's because you're shooting under two different types of light, also known as mixed lighting. Different types of light have different colour temperatures, which changes the amount of red or blue in them. Sunlight, for instance, has more blue than incandescent light.

To adjust for this, consumer camcorders have a feature called automatic white balance, which lets the camcorder recognise what is white under various lighting conditions. Once white is set, all other colours fall into line. Sometimes, though, the automatic white balance can't decide which white is the real white or chooses the wrong one as true.

If you're shooting in mixed light, see if your camcorder has selectable white balance options--usually labeled as sunlight, incandescent, and fluorescent. All midrange and high-end camcorders we've reviewed have this feature. You'll need to make a judgment call about which setting to choose based on where you're filming. For instance, if you're shooting people standing near a window, you'd set the camera for sunlight.

Beware of backlighting
Don't shoot facing a bright light source, and don't make your human subjects face it, either. If you shoot facing a bright light source such as the sun or a picture window during the day, your camcorder will adjust so that the background is well lit, but your subject will look like a silhouette. If you reverse positions so that your subject is facing the bright light, the subject will be well lit, but he or she will also be squinting. You can make everybody happy and get a nice, bright shot by putting the camera at a 45-degree angle to the light source.