Video Darkness

[toby39]

Hi, 

I have a Canon T3i that I use to shoot videos in my office which is mounted to a tripod. I use the standard lense that came with the camera. I have a cowboy lighting kit and I shoot my videos with a whiteboard as a background that I speak to while filming. Most of my videos are only 3 - 4 minutes long. The video set up never changes.

To shoot the video I press the button and run over to the whiteboard, wait a few seconds, then begin speaking.

The problem I'm having is that the videos start out dark and 15 - 25 seconds into them the camera figures out it needs to brighten the image which it does. My question is, how can I just start out with the better brightness right away instead of the darker video and avoid having the camera brighten part way through while filming?

Thanks

[Mykolas]

Hi toby39!

Thanks for the post.

Since you seem to have lighting and background under your control, I strongly recommend that you shoot with Manual Exposure rather than let the camera automatically choose the appropriate exposure.  To do this, press MENU, then set Movie Exposure to Manual.  Now, set the desired aperture, shutter speed and ISO speed that properly expose the scene.