We were thrown into the deep end in the first week, as we were given the opportunity to try out the Sony EX3s, which are the best quality camera I had ever used. It was quite daunting to be given these cameras without much experience, and I think the end result of what we filmed is reflective of that. The main issue we had was balancing the exposure of the shot, especially with having the overcast sky in the background, as without the knowledge of knowing where the zebra lines are on this camera, we were basing everything on what we see on the LCD viewfinder screen. An issue that Robin showed us with this upon reflecting on the work is how much detail you lose when something is overexposed, and it is incredibly hard to see this loss of detail when you are simply viewing the shot on a small screen instead of using the eyepiece, which is what we did so that the whole group could see the shot collectively. The one element that I thought was quite good was our framing and focus of the subject during the shot, as that was something that I could actually carry over from my experiences with documentary and interview projects I had produced.

This was an albeit unsuccessful but really rewarding task as it was a good starting point to look at in terms of how inexperienced in camerawork I actually am, and am hoping to greatly improve in this area this semester. It was valuable to be able to reflect immediately afterwards on what the issues were with what we shot, instead of having to wait over a month after the submission of a major assignment to learn how we could’ve improved. It is this style of learning that I was most looking forward to in this studio, and something I felt was really lacking in my previous studios.