and... the biz is slowly going back to normal

O

onemanband-videomaker

Carbonite Member
the DSRL revolution brought good things and low prices to the industry, mainly because definition, clarity and smoothness are now cheaper . But then it gave us 2 years of boring and exaggerated and distracting bokeh all over, even commercials (even a couple of movies, big productions but only a few of those to be honest -they never fell for it actually-). Now is getting back to normal. To isolate a talent (or actor) we need lights from behind again as it used to be. So the amateurs can play with the lightsless bokeh and the real things can be done with less bokeh and more content (real life doesn't have bokeh at all by the way) or only for long tele close-ups where bokeh is actually pleasant and not distracting.
Now the focus pullers can get back to work without that absurd bokeh-mania and the lighting departments get to play with those cool LED panels (no heat, and THAT'S progress!).
 
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Real life has bokeh, just not as much as a full frame camera shooting at f/1.4. Put your finger one foot from your eyes, and look at it: the background will be blurry.

I'm still shooting at f/4 to f/5.6 most of the time (a7S full frame mode). And I only own one lens that can go to f/1.4, all the others are f/2.8.
 
onemanband-videomaker said:
the DSRL revolution brought good things and low prices to the industry, mainly because definition, clarity and smoothness are now cheaper . But then it gave us 2 years of boring and exaggerated and distracting bokeh all over, even commercials (even a couple of movies, big productions but only a few of those to be honest -they never fell for it actually-). Now is getting back to normal. To isolate a talent (or actor) we need lights from behind again as it used to be. So the amateurs can play with the lightsless bokeh and the real things can be done with less bokeh and more content (real life doesn't have bokeh at all by the way) or only for long tele close-ups where bokeh is actually pleasant and not distracting.
Now the focus pullers can get back to work without that absurd bokeh-mania and the lighting departments get to play with those cool LED panels (no heat, and THAT'S progress!).
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So . . . "neener neener neener"? That's kind of what I get from this.

What constructive purpose did you have in mind when starting this thread? Because we're all about constructive participation here at DVXuser. We're not so much into needless antagonism.

If you're just posting to poke, we'd really rather you didn't.
 
onemanband-videomaker said:
Now is getting back to normal
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...Sorry to burst your bubble, but RED's new camera "The Weapon" is a vista-vision larger than 35mm Full Frame beastie, then there is the Alexa 65 and the new Panavision 70mm camera, and of course the Sony A7S that's growing in popularity with the Indie crowd. So I don't think large sensor filmmaking is going away any time soon.

To me the difference between no-lighting and proper lighting has always been the difference between an amateur shoot and a professional one. Found lighting is often not very flattering on your actors, so being able to shoot at 10,000 ISO does not make found lighting any better. Lighting is an essential ingredient at any ISO.
 
TheDingo: out of curiosity, why do you have two speed boosters - the MB and the Mitakon? If one already has the MB what does the Mitakon bring to the table?
 
David Jimerson said:
So . . . "neener neener neener"? That's kind of what I get from this.

What constructive purpose did you have in mind when starting this thread? Because we're all about constructive participation here at DVXuser. We're not so much into needless antagonism.

If you're just posting to poke, we'd really rather you didn't.
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I disagree: my post was very much constructive , with the evidence that video-making had probably the most boring period with the wave of that bokeh-obsession mixed with constant focus adjustments (and lots of OOF in the process) that created the most devastating experiences to the viewers in general in decades. Not poking, at all. after all it's in the reality of things all around the productions: you see the bokeh only in commercials and some music now, and just for few seconds. and mostly on tele close-ups. exactly as it was before, and as it should be. It was the new thing for a little while. now it's time to move on. In my opinion.
 
OldCorpse said:
TheDingo: out of curiosity, why do you have two speed boosters - the MB and the Mitakon? If one already has the MB what does the Mitakon bring to the table?
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Two reasons. I bought the Mitakon first, and then later bought the Metabones. And I often shoot with more than one camera, so I sometimes use both speedboosters at the same time. ( the Mitakon is pretty good, so I have no problems with the image it produces )
 
onemanband-videomaker said:
It was the new thing for a little while. now it's time to move on.
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I only remember seeing this "no DOF" style of shooting when the Canon 5D Mk2 was the only DSLR that people were shooting with, and often they were shooting close to wide-open. There were some shorts where I had to stop watching because I felt like my eyes were going myopic. I haven't seen this style of work in more than 3 years.
 
Thanks, TheDingo. I'm slightly surprised that both speedboosters can cut together so seamlessly... I would imagine you get a very different image from each... just from experience, when I've seen some Chinese SBs, they often had a subtle color cast to them (often blue), which you may not ordinarily notice - until you tried to cut them together with a different speedbooster. But then again, I have never used the Mitakon, so prolly it's different.
 
OldCorpse said:
when I've seen some Chinese SBs, they often had a subtle color cast to them (often blue), which you may not ordinarily notice - until you tried to cut them together with a different speedbooster. But then again, I have never used the Mitakon, so prolly it's different.
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I was expecting a bigger difference when I bought my Metabones speedbooster, but image wise that did not turn out to be the case. The Metabones is better made and features stepless aperture control of my Nikon lenses, so in hindsight I would have skipped the Mitakon adapter if I had to do it again.
 
Now it's all about gimbals and quadcopters.

Just saw a music video were they used a quadcopter inside a church. It must have broken some record for the video with the most number of unnecessary camera movements.
 
David Jimerson said:
So . . . "neener neener neener"? That's kind of what I get from this.

What constructive purpose did you have in mind when starting this thread? Because we're all about constructive participation here at DVXuser. We're not so much into needless antagonism.

If you're just posting to poke, we'd really rather you didn't.
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That's not what I got. He's just saying that low-budget shooters overdid shallow focus when they first got their hands on it. Now that they have got it out of their system, the trend is moderation: Neither the overly deep focus of 1/3" cameras nor the razor-thin focus of the 5D at 1.4.

This thread could go on to more detail about ideal depth of field for different kinds of shots or something like that.

Your response was an overreaction.
 
Finnegan said:
Totally nonsensical and non-constructive threads like these belong on reddit, not on dvxuser.



What's constructive about any of your posts in this thread? The initial post was all about how you didn't like the overuse of shallow depth of field as a result of the DSLR explosion, and how now that other cheap options are out there shallow depth of field isn't so overused. There's no point, at least that I can see.

In entertainment trends come and go. Style is cyclical. What's overused now becomes underused, and when filmmakers realize that a technique is underused they go back to it and make it work for them in new and interesting ways. You may not like the shallow depth of field look, and that's totally fine, but asserting that it was in any way a negative thing that the industry has had to recover from is just pure nonsense.
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true , but beside the reddit collapse of your logic (for a moment you got me worried), then you came back making lots of sense and framing the topic perfectly. The way I see it is this: the still guys had also a moment like thins back in the 80's : it was all about the big zooms (ya know the "my zoom is bigger than yours" kind of logic ?LOL). the same with the bokeh and the fast primes and adaptors lately ... . Hopefully is over. lighting to isolate, bokeh on long tele close-ups only. Back to the good old stuff and let's concentrate on the content instead or like dmitrizigan said let's see what's new with the gimbals and aerial but easy to use: that makes a difference in the pictures in motion world, not the bokeh for the entire presentation LOL
 
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It's also probably true that it depends a bit on the speedbooster in question. For example, MetaBones has Ultra versions for Sony but not for Nikon --> m4/3, so to do an apples to apples comparison of SB, you'd need to do the exact mount "from - to" and compare those. I have Nikon lenses that I use for the m4/3 so that's the SB that interests me - others have Canon lenses, so they may pick f.ex. the forthcoming Kipon SB rather than a MetaBones Canon SB.
 
combatentropy said:
That's not what I got. He's just saying that low-budget shooters overdid shallow focus when they first got their hands on it. Now that they have got it out of their system, the trend is moderation: Neither the overly deep focus of 1/3" cameras nor the razor-thin focus of the 5D at 1.4.

This thread could go on to more detail about ideal depth of field for different kinds of shots or something like that.

Your response was an overreaction.
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That's what I got out of it.

I was gonna say that it appeared that the OP touched a nerve with people on here, more than likely DSLR shooters, but I refrained… ; )
 
Run&Gun said:
I was gonna say that it appeared that the OP touched a nerve with people on here, more than likely DSLR shooters, but I refrained… ; )
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LOL . the politically correctness will destroy the planet, I'm telling you :)
like when asked if a dancer gets the job because she's pretty you answer "absolutely not! it's the inner beauty that counts!!!".

see? same thing.

it's just a particular application but one of the best productions lately was the world cup in Brazil . all F55 , 4K , BIG zoom : the results? stunning but the bokeh was relegated to few brief close-ups @600mm. can you imagine a sport event ALL with bokeh? LOL . no. can you imagine a story told with bokeh? all of it? no. can you imagine MTV live productions with bokeh? no. after 3 seconds I'd get so bored that I'd run to watch the good old Magnum PI instead . At least I can follow the story without the distraction of some idiotic bokeh-obsessed production of teenagers . impossible to understand what's going on in there.

looks like I need to say it again: isolation must be done with the lighting mainly, and so the background. so people will understand the story or message and put it into place like they are used to do in real life. Guys you have the GH4 or 5D or some other tool for cheap, now if you want to tell a story then you must understand two more things: lighting and audio. A little more work to do, THEN it will work.

to setup an interview with bokeh will take 10 seconds, but then it will be unwatchable. To setup an interview with the lights it will take 4 hours but then it' will get to the audience. It is simple like that.
 
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