Lenses and shooting perspectives
One way to increase sales and, consequently, earnings is to use the most suitable lens and shooting perspective for each video.
Unless the budget is very high, in most cases those who make stock footage use photographic lenses, also because cinematic ones are very expensive and quite challenging to use.
Even if you have a good budget, you should carefully consider what to invest in, to avoid finishing the whole budget in a short time at the expense of other important components such as actors, location, etc..
What are the lenses to use to sell the most?
Quality is always one of the best strategies to sell your clips, but it’s not enough. Often quality needs to go hand in hand with originality: in this way it is undoubtedly easier to outperform the competition and gain an advantage over competitors.
To create original clips, it is important to choose different lenses than the standard equipment. Precisely because it is the basic equipment, it is obvious that anyone involved in photography and video, even at an amateur level, already has it: so much so that on stock footage portals you can already find millions of clips made with the classic zoom ranging from 18mm to 50mm.
Investing in lenses, rather than the camera body, can be strategic in this respect. Lenses and focal lengths not only have the function of enlarging or shrinking, decreasing or enlarging distances, but are very useful to give a different perspective to the clip.
The advantages of super wide angles
Super wide angles, like the 11-16 mm, have a similar field of view to the fish-eye, but keep the lines straighter: in this way you get a smoother effect and less distortion. In indoor environments, very good effects can be created, that are similar to what a human eye would see, with very large environments and only slightly deformed faces.
Using this lens has many advantages because it is currently used rarely and there are few clips recorded with this style in stock.
For such lenses, it is necessary to invest a fair amount of money, but it is an investment: lenses, if they are kept well, do not age and can be used throughout your professional life.
Thanks to adapters, you can also use old camera lenses, especially as it is important to be able to focus manually when recording a clip. Autofocus often creates “back and forth” effects that ruin the shot.
Blurs and Depth of Field: How to frame shots
Furthermore, as far as shots are concerned, in addition to quality shots, it is very important to employ creativity and imagination to avoid creating a product that is too standard and the same as millions of other clips already in stock.
Showing imagination also means varying the point of view: a good video maker is not afraid to experiment or to examine the world from observation points that may appear stranger. The classic point of view, at human height, has little to communicate besides being particularly overused.
When filming, it may be useful to get on the floor, climb a ladder, observe from below and from above: in this way you will create original clips that are different from the others, able to stand out from those of competitors.
The classic laws of photography, such as that of third parties and that of vanishing points, can also be respected by changing points of view: most likely a quality clip will come out of it but with an extra touch of originality.
The flare in camera effect, which until some time ago was considered something to avoid both in photographs and videos, today is sought after: you get a clip with a romantic atmosphere and it is particularly suitable at certain times of the day, such as at sunset.
It’s an effect that the audience likes, so much so that today editing and post-production software, such as After Effects or Premiere, have tools to simulate it, although creating them by hand is definitely a whole different thing.
Learning which lenses and effects to use in clips
Choosing the best lenses to create successful videos is not as easy as it sounds: it requires expertise and experience, but you can learn quickly by following the right advice.
Want to know the best lenses to create original videos that will allow you to beat the competition?
Want to know how to set your shots, giving free rein to your imagination?
Want to know the effects that will imbue your clips with a special atmosphere?
In our video course, we will talk about all these aspects, revealing tricks that only those with extensive experience in the field know.
