Before you press record, you need to lock in the fundamentals. These settings ensure your footage looks natural, cinematic, and easy to color-grade later.

🎛 Camera Exposure (The Correct Order)

Always adjust your exposure in this order:

Step 1: Shutter Speed

Set your shutter speed to double your frame rate

• 24fps → 1/50

• 30fps → 1/60

• 60fps → 1/120

This creates natural motion blur that looks cinematic. Once set, do not change it.

Step 2: Aperture

Set your aperture as low as your lens allows to let in more light and create a shallower depth of field.

Step 3: ISO

Set ISO to the lowest value or your camera’s native ISO

Lower ISO = cleaner image with less noise.

If your image is:

• Too dark? If your aperture is as open as it can be, increase ISO
• Too bright? If your ISO is as low as it can go, close your aperture

*Note:

If you want to follow the 180° rule, you can use an ND filter to lower overall exposure

📊 How to Expose Correctly

Don’t guess, use your histogram.

A histogram shows the distribution of how bright or dark the pixels of your image are.

How to read it:

• Left = shadows
• Middle = midtones
• Right = highlights

If your scene is dark, the data will lean left.

If it’s bright, it leans right.

For a balanced image, aim for a soft bell curve in the middle.*

*Keep your scene in mind. If you’re filming a darker environment, your histogram will naturally lean toward the left. If you’re shooting in a bright, high-key scene with lots of light, it will lean toward the right.

What matters most is avoiding crushed shadows and blown-out highlights, not forcing every shot to look perfectly centered.

🎨 White Balance

White balance controls color temperature.

Set it and lock it. Never leave it on auto.

Why?

Auto white balance will shift colors mid-clip, making footage impossible to match during editing.

Match your white balance to your lighting using a preset or custom temperature:

• Daylight
• Cloudy
• Tungsten
• Custom Kelvin

💡 ISO Rules

Turn Auto ISO OFF

Your ISO shouldn’t change while filming unless you’re shooting run-and-gun footage.

Auto ISO causes exposure flicker that ruins shots and also makes color grading painful.

🖥 Editing Workflow

Here are my suggestions to keeps your edits clean, fast, and professional.

📁 Organize Your Files

Before editing, ensure your files are organized. Here are my file directories for projects:

• Raw
• Assets

🎞 Match Your Timeline

Your timeline settings should match your footage:

• Resolution
• Frame rate

⌨️ Learn Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts let you cut, trim, and move clips without breaking flow.

My custom shortcuts for faster editing

• S = Split
• D = Trim Start to Playhead
• F = Trim End to Playhead
• < = 1 second back
• > = 1 second forward

🔢 Editing Order

This is my recommended order for a video project:

Step 1: Find the soundtrack

Step 2: Sequence the clips/trim

Step 3: Color grade

⸻

⚡ Final Notes

Set your camera exposure correctly.

Lock your white balance/exposure settings.

Organize your files before starting a project