THE BEST SETTINGS FOR VLOGGING ON THE CANON M50 CAMERA

Created By: Alicia Mae Hirté

These are the settings I use on my Canon M50 Mirrorless camera for travel vlogging,
although they also apply to many uses of this camera for video.

Many of the ideas can be applied to the set up on similar cameras too!

The next pages detail how to set everything up, step-by- step. If you have any questions
about the Canon M50, please leave a comment on the YouTube video, or jump into my
Facebook Group, ​Travel Film Friends​. It’s a place where we can discuss all the fun
things related to video production gear and travel vlogging!

THE VIDEO: Best Camera Settings for VLOGGING on the Canon M50 Mirrorless
Link Coming Soon

This resource is a free download for my email subscribers. If you’d like to share it with
your friends, please send them to ​http://bit.ly/M50SETTINGS​ to sign up for a copy of
their own. Thanks!

CAMERA SETTINGS
These are things you set up just once before using the camera.

SHOOTING MODE
Turn your top camera dial to MOVIE MODE, then hit the menu button to see the menu.
It’s important to know the options you see in this menu WILL vary depending on where
your top dial is set. If you don’t see the regular menu, you may be in the Guided Menu.

You can change this via

DISPLAY LEVEL MENU- MENU DISPLAY- STANDARD

VIDEO SYSTEM
If you’re in the US, be sure your camera is set to NTSC, and if you’re in Europe, be sure
it’s set to PAL. This ​MAP​ should help you figure it out if you’re somewhere in between.

NTSC and PAL settings can be found via

SET UP MENU- #3- Video System- NTSC

LIVE VIEW
Consider whether you plan to use your viewfinder, OR the live view screen.

Canon thinks you might use the viewfinder at least sometimes, so it’s default setting is
to turn the live view off whenever the eye-piece is covered.

I find this highly annoying because I’m always covering the eye piece with my hand
while adjusting the mic or covering it with my body while shooting away from my face
and I lose my live view screen ALL THE TIME.

You can disable this in

SET UP MENU- #4- Display Settings- Display Control- Manual.

This way the live view will stay on as long as the camera is active.

MANUAL MOVIE MODE

The next major thing you want to do is to switch everything to MANUAL MOVIE MODE.
This is going to give you complete creative control to get the BEST shots that you can.

Push the shutter button halfway down to bring up the info screen
Then, select the camera icon on the upper left and select Manual.

Once inside, you can easily adjust anything you want and it’s super exciting!
SHOT SETTINGS
These will vary depending on your lighting and the style of shot you’re trying to capture.

FRAME RATE
Your regular ‘cinematic’ frame rate is generally 24fps or 23.98 technically.
It’s offers just the right amount of motion blur to look like a movie.

There is also 30fps, which is slightly sharper, but considered LESS cinematic than 24fps
due to loss of the natural motion blur.

Then 60fps- or 59.94 is your ‘slow motion’ mode.

Slow motion is about a few more things than just setting it to 60fps, so I recommend you
check out this video if you’re looking to NAIL this skill.

> ​HOW TO FILM & EDIT PERFECT SLOW MOTION

No matter what you choose, please select FHD, or 1080p

HD refers 720p.. which is the resolution from 1998.

The Canon M50 does have a 4k option- but there is a significant crop factor and you
also LOSE your dual pixel auto-focus.

So, for regular vlogging, I stick to 24fps in FHD or 1080p

SHUTTER
The next thing you will set and forget for VIDEO is the shutter speed.

In videography, the rule is to keep your shutter is set to double your frame rate.
Since we’re at 24fps, the shutter is set to 1/50 which is as close as it gets.

If you shoot at 30fps, you would change your shutter speed to 1/60.
If you shoot at 60fps, you would change your shutter speed to 1/120.

You can set the shutter by tapping it in, OR you can see that the dial icon is in the
shutter box, which means we can turn the front dial to set it. If you want that dial icon to
hop over to aperture, simply press up on the wheel, and then you can use the front dial
to adjust aperture.
Turning that front dial is much more fun than tapping the screen, and it’s one of those
little things that give you that DSLR feel right here in the M50… so give it a try!

If this sounds confusing, just take a look at the video again to see what I mean.

APERTURE
With aperture, the goal is usually to go for a smaller number which is a LARGER
aperture. A larger aperture lets in more light and offers a more shallow depth of field.
This creates that background blur and beautiful bokeh that everybody loves.

You may not always have the right lens and lighting to nail amazing bokeh, but shooting
with the largest aperture your lens offers is good practice.

The KEY is to make it work and still nail the correct exposure.

Again, either tap the aperture settings to adjust, or if that wheel icon is sitting in the
aperture icon you can use the front wheel to adjust it.

Go as LOW in number as possible! On the M50 kit lens, the largest aperture is 3.5.

If you’d like to see how you can use the M50 with a MUCH larger aperture lens for a
beautiful cinematic effect please enjoy..

> ​MY FAVORITE CINEMATIC LENS

The best part is, this lens is very reasonably priced!

ISO
Remember, exposure settings are like a triangle of aperture, shutter and ISO, and
because we’re pretty much stuck with shutter, and we have these goals for our
aperture, we have to find our wiggle room in the ISO.

The goal with ISO, is to always use the smallest number possible- 100 is best.
However, you may NEED a higher ISO if you don’t have enough light.

The downside here is that a higher ISO results in some film grain, and I generally don’t
recommend going over 1,600 unless you have to. At this point you really should strive to
add more lights or switch up the shot.
Alternatively, if you DO have bright light, and you’re trying to keep that aperture set at its
largest ability, you may have TOO much light even when the ISO is set down at 100.

This is common when you use a larger aperture lens- like the 1.8 lens in my
CINEMATIC LENS​ video.

THIS is when you need a neutral density filter. This is basically sunglasses for your
camera and by darkening everything up, it allows you to keep the aperture LARGE.

ND filters come in a range of strengths, and they are fun, affordable and easy to carry
so I highly recommend them. Here is the one that I use >
ND8 FILTER​ for 50mm 1.8 aperture lens

In this situation, if you don’t have an ND filter, you will have to sacrifice the large
aperture, and simply stop the aperture down to bring the exposure down to where it
needs to be.

AND if you want to sort of split the difference between manual settings and auto
settings, you can always set the ISO to AUTO, which will help you keep exposure in the
correct range without too much maintenance.

FOCUS
While I do use the manual mode to control things like aperture, shutter and ISO, I
generally stick to auto focus for vlogging.

Touch the Q to access your options.

For vlogging, the Face Recognition works great!
You can also choose to focus on a particular zone or even track what you want in focus
with the box on your screen.

STABILIZATION
Currently I keep my Digital Stabilization in the Canon M50 set to Disable, but that
doesn’t mean it doesn’t work or it can’t be used.

The thing about digital IS in general is that it can be weird. It can warp and distort things
and tends to only work well on certain clips.

Honestly I haven’t fully tested this feature yet and I probably should.
Leave a comment on the M50 Settings video if you’d like me to make a full video testing
and talking about the digital IS on the Canon M50!

You can access the option for Digital IS on the M50 via
SHOOT MENU- #5- IS SETTINGS

Generally, it’s best to use a lens with good built in Image Stabilization.
Look for the ‘IS’ in the lens name or features.

TIME LAPSE
You can easily set your Canon M50 to capture time lapse video.

Access your options in

SHOOT MENU- #1- TIME LAPSE MOVIE

There are 3 different scene options you can choose to fit different scenarios.
If you want to customize from there, you can alter the interval of images taken, number
of shots, etc. Of course a time lapse is a fun addition to ANY travel vlog!

FINAL THOUGHTS
Thanks for downloading this PDF and to learn more about M50 Camera Settings!

If you are LOVING the color grade in this video then you should take a look at the LUTS
packs I offer- they are basically filters for your videos that will give you beautiful color
grades with very little effort! > ​LEARN ABOUT THE LUTS

Again, if you’re not a member of ​Travel Film Friends​ over on FB I’d love to have you
join. We have discussions about filmmaking, I issue some challenges to help you guys
become better travel filmmakers, and it’s generally a fun place for learning the art of
travel vlogging.

OR, just keep watching the new travel vlogging and video production tutorials on
AMaeTV! I’ll be in touch when the next one is released.

Bye!
Alicia