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Understanding the principles of how to control your night vision camcorder is just about the best thing you can do if you want to move up to shooting professional quality video. While there is no doubt that making an above average film or video takes a certain level of innovation and personal creativity, you won’t get far if you do not also master the technical skills you’ll need for film making.

The night vision video camera of today is plugged full of ‘automatic’ settings. This makes it easy for individuals to use the cameras for shooting videos. But if you want to advance your video skills you have to learn how to shoot with the automatic settings switched off. By developing practical experience manually setting the controls of your camera, you really learn the basics of the way the video camera works. And by being able to know when you need to set a manual mode instead of filming on automatic you’ll be able to produce a much more creative and interesting video.

Learn how to use the basic aperture and shutter speed controls of the camera. By experimenting with the shutter speed you’ll find that you can get some very interesting effects, especially on moving objects. By changing the aperture, you will see the difference that the depth of field makes in how the camera focuses. Interview type videos can be especially distinctive by using a large aperture opening and a shallow depth of field.

Shoot some video at the different white balance settings if your camera will allow it. Many films and videos gain a professional look by intentionally using white balance set to a specific value to give a unique look to the scene. And you’ll want to set the white balance manually if you’re shooting video where exact color reproduction is critical.

Discover ways to use artificial lighting and supportive infrared lights or infrared floodlights to enhance the quality of your video. As everyone knows, additional lighting can be used to illuminate your main scene, but experiment using it for back lighting or fill light to generate special effects that you’d normally not see. Remember that your infrared video camera will pick up light from outside sources as well as the light you supply.

Shooting in the dark is difficult to say the least. The more you make use of your infrared video camera, the better you will be able to ensure that you get the shots you want. Work with adjusting and setting the controls in the dark. Using a red filter covered flashlight will also help you see what you are doing without making you reduce your night vision.

And if you’re using natural sound for your video, learn how to make the best use of your camera’s microphone and be aware of it’s limitations. If the sound quality isn’t up to par, think about using external microphones. Testing your microphones and making sure that they work is extremely important. You don’t want to capture a great video clip only later to find out that the audio is not acceptable.

Practice makes perfect for just about any skill set that you need when shooting with a night vision digital video camera. The obvious way to master the techniques and expertise needed is to constantly shoot and critique your own work. Do practice shoots using all of the settings of your camcorder at one time or another and try to discover how the effects you achieve can be combined or used when creating your final film.