DV Filmmaking

The Importance of Setting an Aperture

Exposure is a film term describing the way light interacts with a negative to create an image. Too much or too little light produces images that are either too dark or too light. In DV camcorders, exposure works in a very similar way. Depending on the aperture you set, greater or lesser amounts of light reach the sensors that produce an image in a DV camera (if you have a digital still camera, it works the same way). Wider apertures let in more light, and smaller apertures allow less light to pass. Prosumer DV cameras allow cinematographers to manually set an aperture, rather than rely on an automatic setting. To some people, manually setting the aperture may seem like extra work—to a professional, manual exposure settings provide precise control over one of the most important camera settings. (Racecar drivers don’t have automatic transmissions under the hood at the Indianapolis 500.) Even if you’re not shooting the most important shot of your life, manual aperture settings provide valuable control. The aperture of a camcorder functions much like the iris in a human eye—both expand to let more light in or contract to keep light out. For this reason, filmmakers often say “iris up,” to capture more light in a darker environment, or “iris down,” to close a camcorder’s aperture setting in a bright area.

Note

The key to using zebra lines is to adjust your exposure so the lines are just barely visible in the brightest areas. If you can see zebra ...