Advice for a video newbie

[Stooly]

I was hoping for some advice. I recorded a school performance yesterday and (seeing as it was the very first time doing this and also the first time really using my Canon to record video) I also recorded with a Huawei P20 phone as a backup option.

So I looked at the end result and the phones video is just so much better. It has plenty of light and the quality looks great. Compared to the Canons video which was either a bit dark or with the higher ISO, not as clear.

I have a Canon EOS 700D with the standard lens that comes with it - EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens. I had the shutter speed at 250, ISO at 1600 and 3200 (I tested both) and aperture was at its lowest, at f/5.6.

Any advice on where I went wrong would be great! If it's just a matter of equipment limitations or not the right settings?

 

[Adam-G]

Hi there! I have no idea how the Canon EOS700D performs with video but the thing that jumps out to me is your shutter speed.

Shutter speed for video as a rule of thumb is generally double your video frame rate. If you were shooting at 30fps, a shutter speed of 1/60s would have been appropriate and would have given you way more light to play with to reduce your ISO and video noise.

Your phone is also much newer than the Canon EOS700D, video in traditional cameras has come on leaps and bounds in that 10 year period and the computational capabilities of your phone will take a lot of the work out of getting a decent output.

I'd expect if you dropped the shutter speed you'd have better results but without knowing too much about the capabilities of each device, I can't be certain how they'd both turn out in optimum shooting conditions.

 

[ecoleman]

You haven't necessarily gone wrong but you have to remember that the phone footage has already been processed by the software in the phone whereas the footage on the camera requires you to do the work. Phones are designed to spit out a good looking photo or video but in doing so you hand over control to the phone and it's built in algorithms.

As pointed out above, your shutter speed probably didn't help. Such a fast shutter speed would have caused the ISO to increase which on your older camera has caused the noise.

 

[KIPAX]

You haven't necessarily gone wrong but you have to remember that the phone footage has already been processed by the software in the phone whereas the footage on the camera requires you to do the work. Phones are designed to spit out a good looking photo or video but in doing so you hand over control to the phone and it's built in algorithms.

All the above obviously right But add to that.. the phone has a f1.8 lens which at a school play is going to let in a lot more light and less noise than filming at f5.6

 

[Adam-G]

All the above obviously right But add to that.. the phone has a f1.8 lens which at a school play is going to let in a lot more light and less noise than filming at f5.6

It's a bit more complex than that when you take into account other factors though.

With all things being equivalent, a 1.8 aperture lens will allow lower ISO use than an f/5.6 lens, however things aren't all equal in this comparison of two markedly different devices and many of these aspects will be influencing image quality hugely.

* Sensor size - the APS-C size sensor on the Canon camera will gather light far more efficiently than the tiny phone sensor on the Huawei phone with a sensor of 1/2.78" sitting between the smallest two blue boxes on the diagram below. Inefficiency in light gathering will have an effect on dynamic range, ISO range needed to expose properly and shutter speeds. High ISO's on poorer quality sensors can crush colour, introduce noise and affect shutter speeds in ways that introduce excessive motion blurring in subject movement.

* Quality of the lens - Even a decade old kit lens is likely to be far better optically than what sits on the phone. The gymnastics a phone has to go through to create a wide angle shot on these tiny sensors is insane. Admittedly, their algorithms do a great job of correction these days but it's still far more correction than is required on a larger lens.

That being said, video really wasn't a priority for camera manufacturers 10 years ago like it is now and the phone's computational features will be really levelling the playing field off. However, I'd still expect you to be able to get a good result from the camera with a bit of tweaking in your settings and maybe some post production work (Kipax's but really, in this scenario you have to decide if that's worth the effort for what could be marginal gains if any.

Someone who's used your particular model of camera will know best though. All of the above is conjecture and speculation based on general theory without having both devices in my hands.

 

[Stooly]

You guys are great, thank you so much for that! I have another tomorrow, I will tweak the shutter speed. It is actually a much better lit up area this time.

I didn't anticipate that post editing would make a big difference, but I'll definitely play around with it and see what I get!

 

[ScottT]

It might be worth trying using it at f3.5 instead of f5.6, that will probably be at 18mm so it might be a bit too wide but you can always get closer.

 

[stumac]

Not sure why your shutter was 250th assuming you don't need slowmo then you should be at 1/50 . That in its self would have helped drop the iso

 

[Stooly]

Not sure why your shutter was 250th assuming you don't need slowmo then you should be at 1/50 . That in its self would have helped drop the iso

I read somewhere someone's advice and they were adamant about keeping the shutter high. I was a little pressed for time as it was all last minute so I was a bit rushed.

 

[stumac]

I read somewhere someone's advice and they were adamant about keeping the shutter high. I was a little pressed for time as it was all last minute so I was a bit rushed.

No definitely not with a high shutter (my wife's a videographer) it's all relative to FPS . Too fast a shutter speed gives a terrible jittery look to video. She is either 25fps 50th ss or for slomo 100fps so 200th ss (double your frame rate )

 

[4wd]

Most video viewers won't notice the higher shutter speed which is only an issue with some subjects - but having it lower means you could use lower ISO as has been mentioned.
If there are any lights you'd probably want to run at 25fps in the UK as it's less likely flicker.
With that camera I don't think you will better the phone footage though.
Even my 10 year old Samsung S5 was pretty darn good in half decent light.
Presumably most will see it on youtube or facebook at 1080p and view it on phone or tablet so the key things to worry about will be audio and keeping the camera still with any intended movement smooth as possible.

 

[realspeed]

I have to say I much prefer using a proper camcorder for video work and a camera for stills. Each has its drawbacks. the camcorder is not good in darkened areas due to sensor size, The Nikon D810 often forgetting to check settings switching from stills to video or changing lenses if required, which can be time consuming..