Light Up Your Diwali Home Video With These Shooting Tips

Lights, camera and action! This is it. The basic process of shooting a home video is no different from a professional one. So if you are planning to capture you Diwali festivities on a video camera, PropGuide helps you do it in style.

Get the basics right

Before you start your shoot, you need to understand the nuances of a camera. One basic thing to remember is that a camera reduces the light by 1/8 per cent of what you perceive with your naked eyes. This means an object will seem 1/8 times darker through a camera in the absence of appropriate lighting. So, it is important to light up the atmosphere before a video shoot. These four fundamental camera settings will help you shoot better:

• Aperture is the hole through which the light passes in a camera. When you increase the aperture, the hole fastens. The higher the aperture, the lesser the light, and vice versa. By adjusting your camera aperture according to the colours, you will be able to capture your shots better.

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• ISO is a camera's sensitivity towards light which means the lower the number, the lesser the sensitivity. ISO functions on an image sensor, which is responsible for capturing images with the available light. For indoors shooting, a higher ISO is preferred but it works inversely with shutter speed. For capturing bright Diwali decorations, 800 ISO is advisable. Gaurav Nagesh, filmamker, says: “Increasing ISO is the easiest way to increase exposure, but it results in a grainy footage.”

• Shutter speed is the speed at which the shutter of the camera will open and close. Shutter, as the name suggests, is a curtain in front of the sensor. To capture moving objects, one needs a high ISO and fast shutter speeds.

• White balance is another important feature that sets the colour temperature of the room. Generally, a camera can detect all colours present in the spectrum of visible light which our naked eyes can't. Hence it becomes important to instruct your camera towards white light in that room. White balancing helps in colour balancing, avoiding unnecessary light casts, etc. Hold a plain white paper in front of your camera and then set the white balance.

• While you have an option of shooting your videos on an automatic mode, it has some drawbacks.

Many applications are available for mobile phone users who want shoot on manual mode using their phone camera. These include Camera FV-5 Lite (free), Camera FV -5 Full (Rs 150), A Better Camera (free), Manual Camera (Rs 188.19), Open Camera (free) and Google Camera (free).

Things to remember

• A few cost-effective lighting tips like use of tungsten bulbs, indoor flood lights/LEDs, mirrors, reflectors and diffusers can add a spark to the home video while capturing Diwali festivities.

• To shoot a specific object avoiding too much light, use a diffuser. A butter paper can act as a good diffuser.

• Colourful rice bulbs (mirchi lights) are a popular home décor lighting option. Cameraman Jag Mohan Rawat suggests using the 'bulb' mode for shooting them. He also suggests this mode for shooting outdoor lighting decorations.

• If you happen to confront white bars in your shots, especially shot under tube lights, increase the shutter speed.

• Capturing oil lamps (diyas) and candles might be little tricky, as the flame may grab all the attention of camera fading other objects in the background. Video producer Mradul Gupta says that such shots should be taken with the help of mirrors; they control the exposure.

• If you feel an external source of light is needed, tungsten bulbs are recommended for your Diwali home video. The yellowish shade of tungsten will match with the oil lamp and candle lights. “Bursting crackers have always been a part of celebrations. They can beautifully be covered using slow shutter techniques or bulb mode” says Nagesh.

Other tiny tips

• Plan your video shoot well in advance.

• Make a recce video to understand the light sources in a place. Plan your decorations accordingly.

• After you are done with decorations, shoot another recce video to understand your decorations on camera. Identify dark and over-exposed shots. Over-exposure can be controlled by decreasing the aperture. You could also play with ISO here.

• Capture the mood of every room individually. This way the chances of shaky shots can be avoided. You get more stabilised shots. Make sure white balance is set individually for every room.

• Different colours in different rooms shall be treated fairly by setting white balance individually for different rooms.

• After your shoot is complete, edit and assemble the video. A number of video editing software are available on the Internet for free. While Magisto, Montaj, Viddy, Cute CUT, Qik Video, Cinefy and ReelEditor are for mobile users, desktop users can use Windows movie maker, VSDC Video Editor, etc.