Don't Make These Five Filmmaking Mistakes

If you're just getting into video, you're likely discovering it's an entirely new world full of its own rules and good practices. This helpful video will get you off on the right foot with five mistakes to avoid when working as a filmmaker.

Coming to you from Aputure, this great video details five things to be aware of when you're first getting into filmmaking. Though there's a lot of similarity to still photography, video work has its own challenges and quirks that you should be aware of. My favorite tip was exploring other apertures beyond the widest your lens offers. Though we're often used to defaulting to a wide aperture for its ease in isolating a subject, there's of course more to life than f/1.4, and the benefits of working at a narrower aperture are definitely worth considering. The most obvious benefit is increased sharpness as you stop down closer to the lens' optimal aperture, but in addition, I personally think there's a lot more storytelling potential. With more depth of field, you can include more recognizable features in the frame, and this allows you to create more meaningful interactions or symbolism. Give the video above a watch for more. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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5 Comments

Interesting. Can anyone point me to where Canon advises that the 5diii's native ISO is 160? Before seeing this video, I had assumed it was 100.

Well, Canon sensors are not ISO invariant so using ISO 160 is like pulling down the exposure of ISO 200 in post. It's definitely slightly less dynamic range but better noise performance!

I understand ISO invariance but I still have no idea how you figure that the 5d3 has a native ISO of 160.

it's not. native ISO is 100.
but today anyone can say anything on youtube , and with good background music , it becomes a fact.

ISO 100 native
ISO 125 digital push , +0.3EV from ISO 100
ISO 160 digital pull -0.3EV from ISO 200.
ISO 200 native
etc..

My first mistake was speaking waaaay to fast! :-)