Read our comprehensive and precise guide on how to upgrade your filmmaking style with these five cinematic camera techniques and camera lenses that add drama, depth, and polish to every shot.
Introduction:
Speaking of cinematic camera techniques, to elevate your filmmaking game, you need to work on several key skills. Start with camera angles, various shot types, a deeper understanding of your camera settings, lighting, and the skill of selecting the appropriate settings for each type of scene to connect more effectively with the audience. All of this has been widely discussed and explained online, but there are still some “secret” techniques that need to be implemented to achieve even better results.
Below are five tips from experienced videographers who recommend these to achieve nearly the same results as one would from movie production studios. Note that these essential cinematic camera techniques are filtered from dozens of other recommendations that one would adopt as they progress through their careers.
Camera Techniques to Level Up
1. Use DoP to Highlight Emotion
If you are an indie filmmaker, you might have experienced that low-budget sets often lack that cinematic polish. To make your content appear like a high-end cinematic-grade production, you must address this background issue.
For that, the shallow DoF hides distractions and directs attention to the subject, making the shot instantly more cinematic. A messy background is instantly treated as bokeh, which helps hide details you don’t want the audience to notice. Many brands now offer cheaper anamorphic lenses, which introduce DoF like a champ and don’t cost as much as they used to.
2. Avoid solid white walls!
Because their reflection of everything makes controlling light very challenging in a shot. This becomes particularly significant in tighter spaces, where white, featureless surfaces, especially in the background, create bounce and spill that negatively affect the final contrast and shadow in the frame. Adding random paints and textures to the background is one of the most cost-effective ways to elevate your production value.
3. Stick to 1/50s to 24 fps.
First, learn the 180-degree shutter rule, which states that your camera's shutter speed should be set to roughly double your frame rate. Such a setting produces motion blur in the frame, a cinematic feature of movies that gives the content a filmic look without a jittery appearance. For this effect, consider 1/50th of a second for 24p and 1/60th of a second for 30p as a baseline.
4. Use Variable ND Filters!
We can’t stress enough the importance of using variable ND filters, especially in bright conditions. These filters are designed to dial down the light without affecting exposure settings and help maintain shallow DoF. Even budget-friendly ND filters can work for cinematic shots; you don’t necessarily need ultra-expensive cinema glass for this purpose, but do pay attention to match it with your lens filter size.
5. Use Camera Movement Often
Professional shooting doesn’t always mean being on a tripod, but the more you move, the more you bring in results for your content. In fact, a proper dynamic camera movement used in most types of scenes is often what gives a film that cinematic depth and energy. For such shots, a gimbal or stabilizer will do. To improve execution, use storyboarding so that these movements serve the narrative, not just as decoration.
Invest in a Cinematic Camera Lens
Now you know what the secret sauce is to make your content look more cinematic, but you still need a solid camera lens that can help you execute these techniques with cinematic optical quality. The SIRUI Saturn 35/50/75mm Full-Frame Carbon Fiber Anamorphic Lens kit is designed to do just that, instantly elevating your content with a justifiable price tag.
It achieves this with its anamorphic optics, designed to render video in a 1.6x squeeze factor, which delivers a classic wide, cinematic frame after de-squeezing, as one would expect in a Hollywood movie. The lens kit is built with a T2.9 aperture for ultra-sharp rendering, even in low-light conditions. It also adds horizontal light flares to the video, making it truly cinematic.
And all this happens in a camera lens body weighing less than 500 grams with a premium carbon fiber outer shell. It is built with industry-standard focal lengths to make it usable for common camera shots and techniques, and it achieves all of the aforementioned at less than half the price of a cine lens from other brands with similar specs and features.
Wrapping Up:
Pick up your notebook and write down the above-mentioned cinematic camera techniques that will help you create better cinematic content. For even better results, consider the SIRUI Saturn lens kit and unlock the full potential of real cinematic video for your next project.
