Five Mistakes Photographers Make When Switching to Video

More and more photographers are either switching to or beginning to add video to their services, and while there are lots of similarities between shooting photos and shooting photos, there are enough differences that it's important to take the time to learn to do it properly. This helpful video will show you five common mistakes photographers make when switching to video and how to avoid them yourself.

Coming to you from Teppo Haapoja, this helpful video details five mistakes photographers commonly make when they begin to learn how to shoot video. There is certainly a lot of overlap between the two, and having solid fundamentals in photography can do a lot to give you a head start when you make the move to video, but there are also enough differences that it's important to take time to make sure you have a good foundation. In particular, the way you treat the exposure triangle is quite a bit different in video, and you don't always get the same freedom in setting the parameters as you do in stills work. Check out the video above for more on the topic.

And if you really want to dive into both shooting and editing video, check out "Introduction to Video: A Photographer's Guide to Filmmaking" and "Introduction to Adobe Premiere: A Video Editing Tutorial" in the Fstoppers store! 

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.

Log in or register to post comments
8 Comments

He forgot to mention, that you need slomo b-roll of a person, which looks sideways, upwards or to the ground and puts on the typical b-roll face ;-) Otherwise some good basic tips

Mistake #6. Do not shoot head and shoulder close-ups with a wide lens. It distorts the face terribly.

That's a look people like on YouTube.

This is a vblog about beginner's errors. Wrong lens choice is one of them - YouTube or no YouTube.

What about simply using a Camcorder when starting out? Medium to High End Camcorders can do just as well as DSLRs for video. Their batteries last much longer. And they are built for filming for hours without overheating. The pro camcorders have interchangeable lenses.

Because the video is about switching from photography to video. Photographers already have the DSLR and probably have the lenses for video anyway. Why pay for another device?

Mistake #6 - Not focusing enough attention on high-quality audio capture.

Yes. There is a freaking reason why there are three separate Oscars for sound. When I added video to my repetoire, audio was the biggest new area to learn.