Videography Tips for the Beginners

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Gather Your Equipment

Fortunately for beginners, we live in a time where high-quality digital cameras are made to be affordable for personal and recreational use. You can practice videography with gadgets that you may already have, like your smartphone, as long as you keep these simple things in mind:
Use the back camera for better quality footage
Shoot in landscape mode (horizontally instead of vertically)
Turn on the overlay grid on your screen, if you have it, so you have a guide for keeping your phone level

If you have the budget for it, we definitely recommend purchasing a gimbal stabilizer for your camera for steadier handheld shots, an external microphone for better audio, and a reliable video tripod.

Plan Your Shoot

If you’re going to shoot a music video, commercial, or short film, you’ll have much more freedom to plan it from start to finish. To really do it like the pros, create your own storyboard with illustrations of your scenes in sequence. This will help you pre-visualize your final footage and outline your desired shots. It will serve as your guide during shooting and editing, plus it can help you determine the perfect time of day for shooting, your desired venues, and the right cameras to be used (in case you have several options) prior to filming.

On the other hand, if you’re covering an event, you’re going to want to be as ready as you possibly you can. For instance, in wedding videography, the wedding videographer should have a good idea about when and how to take videos of the bride, groom, and the wedding party.

A few helpful wedding videography tips to remember:
Make sure that you know the timeline for the entire wedding day like the back of your hand — from the ceremony to reception program.
Have a shot list prepared. This list should include the first kiss, the cake cutting, and other key moments that the couple would want to be immortalized.
Just as there are wedding photography styles, there are also certain shooting styles for wedding videography. Stick to a specific style. Be consistent and use the right one that fits the couple and their event for the perfect cinematic wedding video.

Have Good Lighting

One of the biggest secrets to achieving professional-looking videos is to use lighting for your storytelling. During conceptualization, try to be intentional about your lighting. Determine the types of lights that you need and where you will place them to achieve the effect that you want. Or if you’re on a budget and are working with existing lights (like lamps and the sun), think of how you can make it work for your particular scene.

For example, if you want a dramatic-looking scene, you’ll want shadows in the right places. On the contrary, having plenty of light can add cheer and create an ethereal feel, depending on your light placement.

Keep the Background Simple
Don’t just film anywhere. Make an effort to use a simple background or improve it by removing as much clutter as you can. Many use solid-colored backgrounds — be it a wall, a bedsheet, or backdrop paper — and place themselves (or their subjects) a few feet away from it to avoid casting a shadow.

The key is to minimize elements that will make the scene look cluttered and take attention away from your subject. Although there are themes and storylines that benefit from having a cluttered scene, you may want to focus on improving your videography with the basics and then level up and experiment from there.

Improve Your Composition

A true pro may be able to spot the work of an amateur during the first few seconds of a video project, even if high-end camera equipment was used. So what gives them away? It’s their lack of proper framing and composition.

What many beginners don’t realize is that good videography (especially cinematography) involves more than just aiming your camera at your scene or subject. It involves arranging and allowing visual elements to tell your story and changing your camera’s framing in order to make the scene look aesthetically pleasing.

Among the most important cinematic videography tips and compositional rules is the Rule of Thirds, where you place your subject’s head a little higher (not at the center) of the frame and give them visual breathing or walking space when facing the sides. Another is to remain on the same side of two people talking when taking over-the-shoulder shots, as well as having a foreground and a background to create depth within a scene.

Some of these are similar to basic photography compositional techniques, so you may want to read up on those.

Observe Proper Camera Placement

A common mistake that beginners make is not minding how the lens’ focal length and the camera’s relative distance from the subject are affecting the look of the scene. For close-up shots, never place your camera close to your subject as this can create unattractive facial distortions and make it more challenging for you to crop out the edges of the scene. It’s much easier to place your camera a couple of feet away and carefully zoom in with your camera lens.

But before you go and zoom with your camera, know that you should do this optically (with the lens) instead of digitally (by pinch-zooming your screen) as the latter will degrade the quality of your video clips and possibly make them look pixellated.

Use Manual Focus

While the autofocus feature on your camera can be very handy, it can ruin your recording when it goes in and out of focus while trying to locate your subject in dimly lit scenes. The key is to use the exposure/focus lock on your smartphone or switch to manual focus on your standalone camera, so you can use your own eyes and set the focus yourself.

Setting the focus also allows you to add cool effects to your video, such as with the use of the rack focus technique where you can focus on different objects successively (with the help of a shallow depth of field blurring everything else out) to direct your viewer’s attention. When used properly, it can be a very powerful tool for storytelling.


Set Your White Balance

A real challenge that many professionals go through is temperature and color correction. If you’re using more than one camera to record the same scene, it’s possible for the cameras to have different default color temperatures. Can you imagine how distracting it would be to see alternating bluish and warm yellow clips? Set the white balance on all cameras before recording to produce more consistent, professional-looking clips. This will help speed up the editing process and reduce post-production costs in the future.

Bonus Tip: The “correct” white balance is subjective and can depend on your desired output. For example, you could intentionally set it to look even colder to give the scene a more chilly or scary vibe. Use it to work for your story, as long as you practice consistency in each unique scene.


Evenly Expose Scenes

Another problem that you may encounter when using multiple video cameras to film a scene is ending up with clips that don’t look the same in terms of exposure. The same scene can look darker in one camera and brighter on the other if you don’t set the same exposure settings, like your frame rate, ISO levels, and aperture. This is why dedicated cine lenses have t-stops, which stand for exact aperture values, instead of the more theoretical f-stop value on regular photography lenses.

For beginners, it may be easier to shoot in controlled settings where you can have the same lighting no matter the time of day and use the same camera with the exposure locked. It may take longer to record, but at least it will save you the headache of correcting your exposure during post-production.

Bonus Tip: If you have to shoot outdoors, do it quickly and on a clear day so the sun doesn’t end up setting on you and the clouds don’t get in the way of your lighting.

Apply Cinematic Techniques

A truly professional-looking video project incorporates a mix of basic camera movements that will not only enhance the storytelling but will also keep your viewers interested. If you want to bring your videography to the next level and really impress your audiences, you may want to apply a few cinematography techniques.

The techniques you choose to use will greatly depend on your level of creativity and how you want to present the scenes, but it’s always ideal to choose just the essential few that will best tell your story. You don’t want to overdo them and end up overwhelming your viewers with the visuals rather than with your story.

Avoid Shaky Shots

Whether you’re panning, doing a crane shot, or dollying from side to side, you don’t want your shots to look shaky. Aside from possibly making your footage look like home videos, it could make your viewers feel seasick. Keeping your camera on a tripod or any steady surface is key.

Once your camera is set up, try not to move your camera unless you have to. When you do have to start panning or zooming, treat your camera as a full cup of coffee — keep your speed consistent and don’t make sudden stops.

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Time Your Shots

Here are a few tips from professional cinematographers that you may not find in many how-to articles: keep your shots longer than 5 seconds but not longer than 10 seconds to effectively hold your viewers’ attention. At the same time, remember to keep your shots steady for at least 10 seconds, which means no panning or zooming before then. Many beginners find these to be extremely helpful in minimizing camera movements, reducing recording time, and keeping their sequences simple during post-production.

Shoot to Edit

This particular “pro tip” simply means that you should think like an editor when filming. When recording a scene, you’ll want to capture several angles and a few “safety shots” so you’ll have choices for later. This will save you time and effort that you might otherwise spend on refilming and prevent you from settling for subpar shots that will make your work look unprofessional.

And when you edit, use a simple video editing software that you can get used to before moving on to more complicated programs. You can learn from our video editing tips, which includes simple yet professional techniques aside from the simple cutting, clipping, and correction of video clips and audio levels.

Photography Abbreviations & Acronyms

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A

• AE: auto exposure. This is a camera’s automated system that determines and sets exposure by changing the aperture, shutter speed or ISO.
  AE-L: auto exposure lock.  Usually used on a button or menu function on a camera.
• AF: AF stands for auto-focus. When using the auto-focus, you are letting the camera and lens find focus instead of manually adjusting it via the turning mechanism on your lens.  There are different kinds of auto-focus, AF-C and AF-S.
  • AF-C: AF-C is auto-focus continuous. It is also known as continuous servo.  With AF-C your camera focuses on a subject but will continue to refocus on your subject as it moves, as long as your shutter button is held halfway down.  Use AF-C when photographing moving objects like sports games, wildlife or fidgety toddlers.
  • AF-S: AF-S stands for auto-focus single. This means the camera is locking the focus on a stationary object.  You can then fire the shutter or recompose and take the shot.  AF-S is used to photograph subjects that don’t move.  It is often used in portrait, landscape and still life photography.
• AF-L: auto focus lock. Usually used on a button or menu function on a camera.
• ASP-C: Canon’s term for their smallest camera sensors, or crop sensors. The sensor is 22.3×14.9mm large.
• AWB: Auto white balance. Enabling auto white balance lets your camera read the light temperature in a scene and adjust its settings accordingly.  See WB: White balance below for more information.

B

• BBF: BBF is an acronym for back button focus. You can customize many cameras now to use a button on the back of it to achieve and lock focus instead of holding your finger on the shutter halfway down.  You’ll see this photography abbreviation often in discussions on focus or sharpness.
• B&W: black and white.

C

• CA: Chromatic abrasion. CA is basically color fringing, the discolored portions that appear alongside high contrast edges in an image.  It is also known as dispersion.
• CC: Constructive criticism. Photographers will use this term when they want other photographers to critique an image.
• CF: CompactFlash. This term describes a memory card with high capacity and fast processing time.  It has nothing to do with the lighting kind of flash.
• CMYK: CMYK is an acryonym for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. This is the standard for the printing industry.

D

• DNG: DNG stands for digital negative graphic, Adobe’s proprietary image standard, created to store images in a generic, highly compatible format. Some camera manufacturers such as Leica and Pentax have adopted this standard and use it for the raw image files coming out of their cameras.  See the discussion on RAW files below.
• DOF: DOF means depth of field. It describes how much of your image is in focus from front to back of your scene.  The size of that zone is determined by your aperture, lens, camera and distance from camera to subject.
• DPI: dots per inch, meaning technically how many printer dots per inch. Many photographers use this term interchangeably with PPI, or pixels per inch, although they are not actually the same.  DPI is a printing term, PPI is a digital resolution term.  You will see DPI or PPI used when discussing how to export images for printing.
• DSLR: digital single-lens reflex. In a DSLR camera body, a mirror reflects the light coming in from the lens up into an optical viewfinder, usually by means of a prism.  This is why you can see what you’re shooting.  DSLR cameras work similarly to 35mm cameras of old, except the image is recorded digitally instead of on film.
• DX: DX is Nikon’s name for their smallest sensor. The DX is the smallest sensor of Nikon DSLR cameras at 24x16mm.  It is also called the crop-format.

E

• EF: EF is short for electro focus. This is Canon’s term for lenses that have an internal focusing motor. Canon EF lenses are compatible with all Canon EOS cameras and are designed to cover 35mm full-frame image circle.
• EF-M: Canon’s designation of lenses designed for use on mirrorless cameras.
• EF-S: Canon’s designation of lenses designed for use on cameras with an ASP-C sensor, or crop format.
• EOS: Eleoctro operating system. This is Canon’s marketing term for their auto-focusing system cameras and can be used to describe a mirrorless and DSLR camera.
• Exif: exchangeable image file format. Exif is another standard.  It is used to describe the format for sounds, images and digital tags used by digital cameras and scanners.  This data accompanies your image and tells the viewer things about how the image was shot, including the shutter speed, ISO, lens, camera brand, aperture and more.  You will also see it printed as EXIF.

F

• FPS: Frames per second. This is how many unique images a camera can record in one second.
• F-Stop: This term is used to describe the numerical representation of the size of the aperture in the lens. This is known as the focal number, also called an f-stop, f standing for focal.  You’ll see f-stops expressed numerically like f/2.8 or f/5.6.
• FX: FX refers to Nikon’s largest format. The Nikon FX is the largest sensor format of DSLR cameras at 36x24mm and most closely resembles a 35mm film format.  It is also called full-frame.  Photographers use the term full-frame to describe many brand’s largest format camera, not just Nikon.

H

• HDR: high dynamic range. In photography this term is most often used to describe a technique that aims to add more dynamic range to a photograph, meaning a bigger range of intensities of light from shadows to highlight.  In HDR processing, three or more images taken at different exposures are combined during post processing.  Digital software basically takes the best parts of each photograph and combines them into one image.  The HDR image then has a greater dynamic range than any of the single images alone.  HDR images more closely represent how a scene might appear to the human eye.
• HSS: high speed sync. This is a term used in flash photography.  Instead of firing the flash at the start of the shot, HSS pulses the flash throughout the shot.  Using HSS allows photographers to shoot flash at higher shutter speeds than they could with standard strobes or speedlights.

I

• IS: image stabilization. This technology compensates for camera shake (through mechanisms in the lens or the camera) allowing photographers to shoot at slower shutter speeds without blur than when shooting handheld.  Each camera manufacturer offers some sort of stabilization technology.  The exact mechanisms, how they function and what each is called varies by manufacturer.  Below are the most common.
• Canon – IS, image stabilization
• Pentax – SR, shake reduction
• Nikon – VR, vibration reduction
• Sigma – OS, optical stabilization
• Sony – OSS, optical steady shot
• Tamron – VC, vibration compensation

• ISO: ISO is your camera’s sensitivity to light. It actually stands for International Organization of Standardization, although many modern photographers don’t know that.  The International Organization of Standardization was a governing body responsible for standardizing sensitivity ratings for camera sensors (among other things.  To date, the ISO has about 22,000 standards across industries of all kinds).  In the days of film cameras, the ISO body would rate film’s sensitivity to light, giving it a speed and ASA.  When the photography world made the switch to digital cameras, it retained the ISO standard to describe a digital sensor’s light sensitivity.

J

• JPEG: JPEG is a method of compressing digital images. In photography, JPEG most often describes an image compressed according to a universal standard.  Technically JPEG stands for Joint Photographics Expert Group, the body that created the file-squashing format.  JPEG files usually have the file extension .jpg or .jpeg.

K

• K: Kelvin. In photography, Kelvin is a measurement unit of the color temperature of light sources.  It is generally expressed with a number, like 2000K.  The Kelvin scale ranges from 2000K to 9000K.

L

• LR: Lightroom. Adobe Lightroom is a software used by photographers to catalog and edit their photos.

M

• MF: manual focus.
• MP: megapixel. 1 megapixel is equivalent to 1 million pixels.

N

• NB: newborn. Some photographers specialize in photographing very young babies.  In photography forums, a photographer might as “Who else is a NB pro?”
• ND: neutral density. In photography, the term ND describes filters that reduce the amount of light passing through them without altering the hue, color or polarization of the light.
• NR: noise reduction. Noise in photography refers to visual distortion in an image.  Noise reduction can be accomplished through software in your camera or in post-production.

 

O

• OCF: off camera flash. OCF uses speedlights or strobes not physically attached to the camera via the on-board hotshoe.
• OOF: out of focus.

P

• Photog: photographer.
• PPI: Pixels per inch. See also DPI.
• PNG: PNG stands for Portable Networks Graphic. It is another system of digital file compression, similar to JPEG. Unlike JPEGs, however, PNGs do not lose quality when they are compressed.  A PNG file is larger than its JPEG counterpart.  PNGs are used almost exclusively on the web and not in print.  The PNG format also allows an image to retain a transparent background.  The file extension is usually written as .png.
• Post: short for post-production, meaning the work done to an image or video after it has been recorded by the camera. Photographers usually use this when referring to how an image was edited via digital software, as in “I adjusted the contrast and exposure in post.”
• PS: Adobe Photoshop, the high-end digital photograph editing software.

R

• RGB: Red, green blue.  This is the system computer monitors and camera LCD screens use to display colors.  Digital cameras record images in the RGB system.
• RAW: Raw is not technically an acronym or an abbreviation. Raw files are uncompressed and unedited, so named simply because nothing had been done them, similar to raw meat before it is cooked, ground or otherwise transformed.  Photographers write the term as both raw and RAW, the latter leading people to believe it is an acronym of some sort.  Adobe, along with most camera manufacturers, has its own proprietary raw file format, expressed as a unique file extension.
  • Adobe – .DNG
  • Canon – .CR2
  • Nikon – .NEF
  • Sony – .ARW

   

S

• SD: Secure digital. Used to describe a type of small memory card used to store images and files.  Phones, tables and some cameras like the GoPro take very small SD cards known as micro-SD cards.  Memory cards also come in SDHC (secure digital high capacity) and SDXC (secure digital extended capacity).  These terms all describe the same basic size and type of memory card but each is slightly different.  Check your camera’s manual to see what type of memory card it can use.
• SOOC: straight out of camera. This means an image that has had no post-processing techniques applied to it.  In discussions, the term SOOC discerns what techniques are accomplished in camera vs. what techniques are accomplished using digital editing software.
• SS: shutter speed. This is the time between when your shutter opens and closes.  It is expressed in seconds or fractions of a second, such as 5, 3, 1, 1/200 or 1/1000.

T

• TIFF: tagged image file format. This file format is used for storing raster graphics and sometimes photographs.  TIFF files do not lose quality when compressed.  Photographers working  in Photoshop or between Photoshop and Lightroom use TIFF files.  Avoid using TIFFs because of their size.  Some printing houses will require photographers to submit their images as TIFFs for printing.  The file extension is .tif.
• TOG: short for photographer.
• TTL: through the lens. This term generally refers to a camera’s ability to “talk” to the flash and change the flash output automatically based on the availability of light.  Think of it as auto-flash.

W

• WB: White balance. White balance is the process of removing color casts from your images to make them look more natural.

X

• XQD: Another memory card format. This format is the successor of CF cards.  XQD cards have very high speeds for reading and writing images.  Many very fast shooting cameras use XQD cards to record and store images.

PHOTOGRAPHY CHEAT SHEETS