Building a digital newsroom - Bonnie Bucqueroux

A few more items to consider when shooting:

White balance/black balance – Higher-end video cameras provide opportunities to set white balance and sometimes black balance as well. Take advantage of this opportunity to fine tune your exposure, if the camera you are using provides these options and time allows. The good news, however, is that technology gets better and better, so the program/auto settings on many cameras will do a good job in most situations.

Filters – Many still photographers keep a skylight filter on their cameras at all times, since it can help saturate the color and act as an inexpensive invisible lens cap at the same time. (It is far better to scratch a $30 to $50 filter than a lens that might cost hundreds of dollars.) Some videographers do the same thing. A neutral-density (ND) filter can help ensure that colors don’t wash out in bright light situations (some cancorders have the ND filter built in). A haze filter obviously helps cut down on haze. A polarizer can reduce glare and reflections, but again, remember that there may be times when you want to capture a reflection to add visual interest.

Autofocus - If your camera allows you to turn off the autofocus, make sure to do so. Manual focusing not only gives you more control, but the autofocus feature on camcorders is often easy to confuse, which means it may pick the part of the scene you did not want to focus on. In close-ups, the autofocus can also produce an annoying pulse, as the camera struggles to find the right thing to focus on.

Shooting and Editing Video for the Web

Part One: Exploring news ways to tell stories online

Online video on a budget

Part One: The camera

Bonnie Bucqueroux teaches digital jouralism at Michigan State University's School of Journalism and is a self-described Web geek.