Review – Shoot Great Video with Your Canon DSLR Camera DVD

I have been a big fan of Blue Crane Digital. They have built a catalog of top training DVDs for Canon DSLRs and accessories. If you are new to the Canon 7D, be sure to take a look at my review of their 2-part 7D DVD series. But, if your focus is shooting HD-video with the Canon 7D (or 5D Mark II or Rebel X2i), this new DVD could be for you. Think of it as a Film Making 101 with a DSLR.

How to Shoot Great Video with Your Canon DSLR Camera covers all of the basics:

Sound recording
Composition
Lighting and equipment
Aliasing/Artifacts
Video compression
Exposure
White balance
Picture Styles
Camera movement
Lenses
Tripods and camera mounts
Video production skills

HD-Video files are compressed to fit on a Compact Flash card which makes them more like shooting JPGs than RAW. Fixing exposure in post can create excessive grain/noise. So, it is very important to use the LCD and get the exposure right in the first place.

The DVD covers in-depth using Picture Styles for video for neutral effects or introducing nighttime blues and golden-hour tones. Canon’s Picture Style Editor will allow you to define custom Picture Styles and upload User Defined Picture Styles to the camera.

Picking the right lens is very important. The DVD focuses on the Canon EF & EF-S lines and compares the effects of different focal lengths as well as primes versus zooms. It also covers using a shallow f-stop to control depth of field.

My favorite part of this DVD was the primer in video making which covered such topics as:

Composition
Types of shot
Wide established setting
Medium frames a single person like the way we see
Twoshot
Over the shoulder – characters point of view
Close-up – immitmate
Low angle or high angle or eye-level
Depth of field
Camera movement
Zoom in/out
Follow movement
Pan
Continuity errors
Screen direction

But, one of the best things about the Blue Crane DVDs is the price. Unlike the $100 F-stop Academy DVDs, Blue Crane DVDs are typically around $25. Adorama usually carries the full line of Blue Crane DVDs, but you can also purchase it direct from Blue Crane.