So you’ve shot a few home movies, and maybe even some scripted ones, on your HD handy-cam. But when you play the footage back on your computer or television it sounds and looks bad. Even if it turns out all right, there is still something that makes it look cheap and amateurish.

The biggest telltale sign of amateur work is audio quality. Even if the footage looks relatively sharp and clear with good color depth, bad audio will cheapen the whole experience. Crystal clear audio screams “professional.”

The second telltale sign of amateur work is image quality. This tends to be a symptom of the videographer not understanding lighting science. The subject may be too dark against a bright background, or the footage has an unwanted color tint. A well-trained videographer can shoot amazing footage on the cheapest of handy-cams; making it look like it was shot on a professional camera.

If you just want to shoot home videos of family and friends, then I recommend you stick to what you are already doing, but if you want to shoot videos that look and sound professional, be ready to invest around $500 on some extra equipment.

About HD handy-cams

First, you need to understand why HD handy-cam footage tends to look cheap when compared to professional footage.

Sensor Size

The electronic sensor that collects the light information passing through the lens tends to be very small on consumer handy-cams. Therefore, such cameras require much more light than professional cameras to capture good footage. Consumer cameras compensate for this small sensor size by boosting the sensitivity of the sensor; but this results in very grainy footage. To avoid capturing grainy footage, the auto-exposure function should be disabled and set manually.

To properly set exposure manually use the camera’s histogram function. Nearly all consumer handy-cams have this functionality, and when you activate it, a small graph will appear somewhere on the screen. The graph represents the levels of tonality in the footage. Absolute black is on the left and absolute white is on the right.

In theory, ideal footage has neither black nor white present, and the graph would be a perfect bell-curve indicating well-balanced contrast. In practice, you increase the exposure until the histogram almost reaches the right side of the graph. This prevents over-exposing the footage while maintaining rich shadows that are naturally occurring.

When setting the exposure, you do not want to go past 75 percent of the maximum; doing so will result in grainy footage. If the exposure is at 75 percent of the maximum and the histogram is nowhere near the right side of the graph, and/or the footage is definitely too dark, then you need more light.

Another symptom of a small sensor is a very deep depth-of-focus. This means that everything looks like it is in focus, or very close to being in focus. Professional cameras with larger sensors have the ability to focus solely on a subject, using a shallow depth-of-focus, that gives the foreground and background that beautiful blurry effect seen in Hollywood movies.

A shallow depth-of-focus can be faked on a handy-cam by using the tele-macro function. This must be done while using a tripod to avoid the footage turning out very shaky.

Focus and white balance

Handy-cams make life easier by automating most of the video settings required to capture footage, but a good videographer will always set things manually. Focus and white balance are two settings that can easily ruin the look of a video.

Auto-focus is very useful, but you must be aware of its limitations. It is generally very slow to respond to sudden changes in the scene. So, for example, if the subject suddenly gets very close to the camera, and just as quickly pulls back, the auto-focus will get confused and the whole scene will go blurry for a few seconds.

If you are shooting a very dynamic scene auto-focus is a must, but you must try to keep the changes in distance to the subject very gradual. By making the approach or withdrawal to the subject very slow, the auto-focus is able to cope and maintain sharp focus.

If, on the other hand, you are shooting a static scene, like an interview, then a fixed focus is a better option. Once you have set up the camera on the tripod and the subject has taken position, activate the handy-cam’s one-touch focus function. This will deactivate auto-focus and keep the current focus setting.

Auto-white balance is the devil—seriously, never use it. The problem here relates to lighting science, which will be covered in detail in the next section. Always set white balance manually by using the camera’s one-touch white balance function. All you have to do is hold a white piece of paper, or cardboard, in front of the camera and activate the one-touch white balance function. Auto-white balance will be deactivated and you may notice that the image suddenly looks more faithful to the actual scene you are shooting.

Be aware that you need to white balance again if you change location—if, for example, you are indoors and you go outdoors. While this is a good rule to follow, there are more things to consider which will be covered in the next section on lighting science.

Image processing and compression

Depending on what type of handy-cam you have, there is a plethora of possibilities for how it could be processing the footage and finally recording it to tape, hard-disk drive (HDD), or flash media.

Handy-cams tend to have a shake reduction function that reduces the amount of shake when shooting by hand. This function makes the image look more stable at the expense of reducing the quality. It is far better practice to disable this function and use a tripod or a shoulder mounted steady-cam. Both of these items can be bought for under $50 each if you search online.

Regardless of whether a camera records to tape, HDD, or flash media, there is a level of video compression applied to the footage. The compression is primarily applied to the color range and the image resolution. Most HDD and flash media cameras have a setting for how many hours of footage can be recorded; set this to the least number of hours possible, which will set the footage to the highest quality setting. Apart from this, there is nothing you can do about compression until you edit the footage, at which point you can convert it to a less compressed format and digitally enhance the color and quality.

Lighting science

When we look at the world around us through our own eyes, there's a complicated process that delivers what we see to our consciousness. The pupil in our eye expands or contracts to let in the amount of light required for us to see clearly. Even in very low lighting the human eye is capable of adjusting so we can see the environment around us. Our brain dynamically interprets the light, normalizes the information, and provides a faithful representation of the colors in the environment.

The temperature of light

What we see as white light is, at least in theory, a balanced mix of all the colors in the spectrum. In reality, the balance is never even, and one color is more dominant than the rest. In lighting science, a light source has a temperature attributed to it, measured in Kelvins (K), which indicates the dominant color in that light source. Cool light is dominated by the red end of the spectrum, and hot light is dominated by the blue end of the spectrum. For example, a standard light globe is rated at 3200K, which is quite cool, and therefore red/orange is the dominant color.

If you have your handy-cam set to auto-white balance and there are light sources of varying temperature, then the camera will continuously be trying to adjust, and you will end up with a horrible shifting color tint in your footage. You must set your white balance manually, as mentioned previously, using the one-touch white balance. You must also make sure all your light sources are of the same temperature. Remember that the temperature rating does not relate to the heat of a light source, but rather its dominant color. Here is a list of the most common light sources and their temperature ratings:

Tungsten: 3200K (red/orange tint) - a

standard light globe

3200K (red/orange tint) - a standard light globe White fluorescent: 4000K (green tint) -

standard office lighting

4000K (green tint) - standard office lighting Daylight: 5200K (light blue tint) -

this is direct sunlight

5200K (light blue tint) - this is direct sunlight Cloudy: 6000K (blue tint) - an overcast

sky including the shade

6000K (blue tint) - an overcast sky including the shade Shade: 7000K (deep blue/indigo tint) -

on a bright sunny day

Note that on a cloudy day, the temperature of light in the shade is the same as not being in the shade. This is because the clouds diffuse the direct sunlight as well, creating a uniform light temperature in the environment. On a sunny day in the shade, you get the light diffused by the atmosphere, but in direct sunlight you get the sun’s un-diffused light; two separate temperature ratings. So if you shoot footage on a cloudy (overcast) day, and the camera has been properly white balanced, you can shoot anywhere and get accurate color reproduction.