S-I-N-G-W

S-I-N-G-W

 s-i-n-g-w stands for shutter speed, iris, ND filter, Gain and White balance, these are all things to think about when setting up a shot for a camera. 

Shutter speed:

With shutter speed is the amount of time each frame will be exposed. The lower the shutter speed the more blurred the shot will be, but it can give the shot a more relaxed feeling to it. Where as the higher the shutter speed the more sharp the shot will look, but it can give the shot a more frantic look to it.
  

                    
                          Canon 7D Test 12 water, shutter speed from Paul Hamilton on Vimeo.

A common mistake is thinking that shutter speed is the FPS (frames per second) and that by turning up the shutter speed you will increase the FPS for example, having a shutter speed of 60 won't mean that you are shooting at 60 frames per second, it means that you are exposing each frame to 1/60 of a second. The main thing to have in mind when thinking about the shutter speed is that you would normally want to have it at double the FPS 

Iris/appiture:

The Iris is located in the lens of the camera and is a device that has an opening allowing light to travel throw the lens and onto the recording device. The opening is called the aperture and can be adjusted to increase or decrease the F- number. The term F-number/F-stop is used to define the ratio between the focal length and diameter of the aperture, F-number = F/D and each F-number allows half the light of the previous F-number

The F-number plays a roll in the depth of field, the area the stays in focus.
The depth of field refers to rang of distance the appears in focus/sharp. This can change depending upon you camera type, aperture and focusing distance the depth of field wont suddenly change from close to far, it would occur as a gradual transition.
     

ND filter:

A Natural Density filter is used to reduce the amount of light going through the lens, the easiest way to explain this is compering an ND filter to sun glasses. When it is to bright and you are finding it hard to see you would put on a pair of sun glasses and in comparison when the shot to over exposed you can use an ND filter to reduce the amount of light let through  the lens.

Gain:

Gain is most commonly used on camera-phones, Ipods etc this is because the lenses are so small that they can not allow enough light in, it is also why most pictures taken on them look grainy.The only reason that you should use gain is if you can't change the shutter speed, open the iris or add more light because it will make your footage look like it was from a security camera  witch is great if that's the look your going for but otherwise try not to use it . Gain is a setting that makes the camera electronically boost the signal so that it will look brighter, adding 6db = adding 1 F-number.

White Balance:

White Balance removes the unrealistic coloring in the footage.

White Balance is used so that when the lighting changes you can rest what the color white is, cameras have difficulty Auto White Balancing  (AWB) which is why you would need to do this otherwise the footage you are filming might look a different color than the previous footage.

To get more details on the subjects please go to these websites:
http://vimeo.com/videoschool/lesson/56/frame-rate-vs-shutter-speed-setting-the-record-straight
http://synapticlight.com/iris-and-aperture/
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm
http://www.redbubble.com/people/peterh111/journal/4421304-the-ultimate-guide-to-neutral-density-filters
http://www.productionapprentice.com/featured/the-truth-about-video-gain-and-how-to-use-it-properly/
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm