Nail Tutorial Filming Help Please

[fiction_writer]

Hi everyone
I film nail tutorials and upload them to YouTube and could really use some help. Ever since I have been filming tutorials (I started last summer) the quality of my videos is never very good. My nail videos are always dark and sometimes a bit blurry. Sometimes they are better than others but lately they have been really bad. I'm using a Canon Powershot A520 that I got probably 6 years ago. When I film I use the daylight function. I also use Sylvania Daylight 100W light bulbs that are an opaque blue colour (the light they give off is not blue though). I film in my kitchen on top of my stove because the room gets a good amount of natural light. I put the bulbs in the light fixture on top of my stove. I have tried filming in my bathroom as well with similar results. I use a small tripod that I got from Wal Mart. I don't tip the camera down a lot because when I do it just gets blurrier. I do not have trouble when filming other non-nail tutorial videos. I really hope that I don't need a new camera--I can't really afford one right now. Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[LMD84]

sadly i am no help at all but i hope that somebody can maybe help out with the settings on your camera. it might be worth checking what type of file it saves your footage as though. because i have noticed that .mp4 files are very fuzzy looking whereas .avi files are much sharper.

 

[fiction_writer]

hmmm I'm not really sure how to figure out which type of file it is. For every video clip though there is also a separate.THM file for some reason.

 

[LMD84]

hmmm I'm not really sure how to figure out which type of file it is. For every video clip though there is also a separate.THM file for some reason.

oh ok. i am not sure. if you right click on the file and select properties will it say what the file type is then?

 

[fiction_writer]

ok thank-you! it looks like it's a .AVI

 

[gigiopolis]

The quality of your video probably has nothing to do with whether it's a .mp4 or .avi (I've watched plenty of Blu-ray quality movies in .mp4 format). As you said, your non-nail tutorial videos turn out fine. This leads me to think that our camera isn't focusing properly to begin with.

I'm guessing you take video of your nail tutorials much closer to your hand, compared to your face when you're making other videos. How far away is the camera's lens when you're filming your nail tutorials? You might wanna see if your camera has a macro video option, the same kind of function you use when taking photos regularly and you want to focus on something up-close. Make sure that when you're using this, you're not zooming in at all.

And the darkness - I'm not really sure what's causing that. It seems to me that having bright, even light should be good enough. I know this sounds really obvious, but are you sure the shadow that the camera's casting isn't causing the darkness?

 

[fiction_writer]

Hello
I would say that the camera's lens is about 30cm away from my hand when I film.
Would the macro button for filming be the same one taht I use for taking pictures? Or do cameras usually have one for each function?
I try to make sure that I keep my hand out of the camera's shadow when filming so hopefully that is not the problem. I don't know how else to avoid the shadow.
Thanks for the help

 

[LMD84]

ok fair enough. it's just from what i have seen .avi was always better quality. but if that is the file anyway then that obviously isn't making a difference.