A Thread About Not Using 35mm Adapters

[Postmaster]

Without controling your focus plane you give away one of the most beautyfull tools to guide the audience thru your composition.
In my book, to say DOF doesn´t mater is lik saying framing doesn´t matter.
You are working within a 3 dimensional room, and DOF is the depth dimension of framing.

On the other hand, some poeple just don`t give a sh...t and let the audience find his own way.

Having that choice is nice.

To each his own.

But since I have a adapter, I never shot anything without it but wide land- and city-scapes

Frank

 

[Huy Vu]

I couldnt agree with that quote more! I really love vimeo and the community of people that congregate there, but more and more I see videos of leaves, trees, and long dusty roads shot in 24p/f, CC'd with magic bullet and claiming that it is the "film look"

Yes, it's a lot easier to get nice looking shot if there's just scenery. What makes it hard is when you have a human subject in the frame. Now all of a sudden you can't just apply that MB preset anymore because their skintone goes out of wack and the whole thing looks artificial. That's why I love Steven Dempsey's work. He features human subjects as well as scenery in his nature compositions and still have it look natural.

 

[Rylan Zolinski]

Yes, it's a lot easier to get nice looking shot if there's just scenery. What makes it hard is when you have a human subject in the frame. Now all of a sudden you can't just apply that MB preset anymore because their skintone goes out of wack and the whole thing looks artificial. That's why I love Steven Dempsey's work. He features human subjects as well as scenery in his nature compositions and still have it look natural.

I thought magic bullet was awesome when I first began filming. Now, I don't even use it. Playing with color curves and color correction is what's important.

 

[Jared]

The more your content is worth shooting the less important the instruments to shoot it are.
Honestly people get caught up more with gear, tech specs, excuses and buzz marketing crap then they do with capturing something worth capturing.

This is the single best post I have ever read on DVXUSER. Others have tried to say it, but never so perfectly.

 

[Postmaster]

I thought magic bullet was awesome.....Playing with color curves and color correction is what's important.

But that´s what you do in MB. It gives you a set of verry sophisticated tools that has all the features of a DaVinci (o.k. no exportable mattes) and even some more.

I know it´s not real time but the 32-bit depth processing is worth it.
If you have a mucho macho graphic card, that helps a lot on render time.
Most Lift/Gamma/Gain curve tuning renders almost in realtime with my Radeon card.

I don´t get the point. Or are you guys using MB only to throw the presets at your footage?

Frank

 

[Chris Light]

A shallow depth of field can be beautiful and dramatic, especially for narrative work.

But every time I contemplate building a 35mm adapter, I am reminded that one of the greatest films of all time, Citizen Kane, was shot with the specific intent of achieving deep focus. Orson Welles went to great lengths using wide-angle lenses and small apertures to achieve sharp focus throughout each scene.

I also think about the modernist photographers of the early 20th century lead by Alfred Stieglitz who strove to achieve sharp focus throughout a shot by shooting at f64.

All of this was before video, of course, so I guess you always want what you can't easily have.

A shallow DOF can be very effective for separating your subject from the background. I find this especially useful in urban scenes where there are a lot of things happening all around the main subject.

Personally, I can't justify buying or building an adapter for the kind of work that I do. Right now I shoot documentaries and I am in run-n-gun mode most of the time, so I prefer a minimalist approach to shooting.

I am really excited about the Nikon D90 and 5d mkII. As a still photographer and videographer the idea of an all-in-one shooting solution sounds pretty sweet. But I am also probably going to wait until the bugs are worked out before moving in that direction. Although, with the D90 under a grand, I may just have to pick one up sooner rather than later.

Chris

i really enjoyed this response....there are more of us out there, i know it.

 

[rambangbang]

DOF is just an other option. I use it sometime but I still use the main lens of my XHA1. People who use only the DOF and snob the stock lens did not get it. Never Restrick your self. DOF adapters do not save a project. You need good production value, good composition and lighting. And this is Knowledge.

My 2 cents