Depth of field

[clair]

Hi guys, I am wondering if someone can give me a quick rundown on achieving maximum depth of field and also soft focus's with this camera and stock lens what F-stop/iris settings and zoom etc? Thanks a lot!

[William_Robinette]

Maximum DoF would be wide angle and hang around f/8-11.

Minimum DoF Would be full telephoto and f/2.8.

[btownproductions]

I'm assuming you mean the least depth of field, not the maximum, because any digital camcorder will give you a large depth of field, generally you'd want a shallow depth of field to give your footage more of a "film look".

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by soft focus's, but for a shallow depth of field try this:

Go with a lower F-stop and place the camera as far away from your subject as possible. Then zoom in to frame your subject....PRESTO! That's the best way to get a shallow depth of field with a stock HVX, just play around with the F-stops and iris to get the look you want, but the basic idea here is to place the camera as far from your subject as possible and zoom in.

Hope this helps.

Patrick

EDIT: haha William, posted basically the same answer at the same time as you...

[William_Robinette]

Also, the closer you can have your subject to your camera and the further away from the background when zoomed in, the easier it will be to throw the background out of focus.

[David S.]

We shot an interview last month.

Subject was eight feet from background. We were 20 feet from him with full zoom and full aperture.

It looked pretty good. Background was slightly less lit.