Depth Of Field Help

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dowjones206

Member
can someone explain to me the best way to get depth of field contrast between switching between forground and background subjects? What are the best settings to get a good range of depth of field or does it not matter? Im looking to use a lot of depth of field changes in a upcoming music video but i have never shot to much stuff manually i have stuck with my auto crutch but now i wanna try and get the most of out the dvx 100b and i have seen some great stuff people are doing on here and want to be able to step up my cinematography game this year....help!!!!!
 
mosts people are using 35mm adapters on the stuff you see here

for stock lens sdof, zoom in all the way and open your fstop to full open or 2.8

Also this tells me you do not have Barry's DVXbook / DVD or have not watched the DVD or at least not recently.

Get that book. That's a big part of the reason you are seeing great work on here from relatively inexperienced users, in the book DVD he shows you how to do this with visual examples and other stuff like how to finagle variable frame rates in post from the DVX.
http://dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/


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Depth of field is not the greatest with the DVX but you can indeed achieve some nice looks.

Shooting with a low iris, and zoomed in all the way can get you the best crushed background with the DVX.

Take a look at this still:

1200325932.png


I shot that with the DVX, 0 iris, and zoomed in all the way. This gives me the opportunity to have a nice blurred background.

This picture shows the follow through, leading to the background:

1200326793.png


The settings were the same in this shot, but I just turned the focus wheel on my DVX in order to get the opposite look.

This picture is the same as well. Zoomed in all the way, and had my iris open:

1200326640.png


Now keep in mind that using a low iris (2.0 and open) will give you more noise in the picture. Same with using a high iris like 8. I like to keep mine around 4.5 because I found it the cleanest image, and you still get that nice crushed background. Also keep in mind that when you use a higher iris, the background becomes less blurred. Try it out. Zoom in on a bottle and get it in focus, leaving the background crushed. Now start raising the iris from open to about 12. You'll notice the image gets darker, but you will also notice how less blurred the background gets.

If you want a nice, cinematic look, take a look at the 35mm adapters like the SGpro, or Letus Extreme, or the Brevis. These adapters are expensive, but very powerful. They give you a very nice look to your image. Smettli, a DVXuser member has an SGpro and his footage he posts is amazing. Personally, I love his stuff, and he posts a lot of nice stuff. If he doesn't mind I can show you what a 35mm adapter would like like once you strap it on your DVX:

hen11.jpg

hen9.jpg


Also, here is the video of the first 3 pictures I posted.

http://robbiecomeau.blip.tv/file/576582?filename=ComeauProductions-Test274.mov

Goodluck,

Robbie
 
Robbie, awesome of you to post examples and help another member out with a detailed post. :beer:

To clarify a few things ...

Robbie Comeau said:
Depth of field is not the greatest with the DVX but you can indeed achieve some nice looks.
Click to expand...
DOF is about the same as any 1/3" 3 chip camera. Which, as you say, is not that great, but it's not worse with the DVX than with other cameras in it's class.

Robbie Comeau said:
Shooting with a low iris, and zoomed in all the way can get you the best crushed background with the DVX.
Click to expand...
Robbie, we can follow what you mean, but usually "crushed" refers to losing detail in the black area of the picture and sometimes in color as well. I think you want "softened" here. That's how we usually refer to the out of focus area, very soft, slightly soft, etc.

Also, to avoid confusion you might refer to the iris as open or closed rather than low and high, especially when dealing with beginners because a "low" iris setting might imply darker to some, when as you know, that is in fact not the case. You can say a "low F stop" because that refers only to the number.

Robbie Comeau said:
Now keep in mind that using a low iris (2.0 and open) will give you more noise in the picture.
Click to expand...
Now maybe you are getting tripped up here in you low high vocabulary. More light equals less noise, so a low fstop (more open iris which lets in more light), will not result in more noise. Quite the contrary. Neither in fact will a high F stop (more closed iries which lets in less light) if you compensate with light. What causes noise is when the camera sensors are straining to find detai in the dark areas. So if you stop way down, to 8 or 11 or whatever so your picture is darker, you will not add noise if you add light.
Robbie Comeau said:
Same with using a high iris like 8. I like to keep mine around 4.5 because I found it the cleanest image, and you still get that nice crushed background. Also keep in mind that when you use a higher iris, the background becomes less blurred.

Try it out. Zoom in on a bottle and get it in focus, leaving the background crushed. Now start raising the iris from open to about 12. You'll notice the image gets darker, but you will also notice how less blurred the background gets.
Click to expand...
Yes as you close the iris the DOF gets less shallow, when you open it it gets more shallow - more light coming in - shallower DOF. And yes you are right that the sweet spot, sharpest, for the leica lens in the DVX is around F 4.5 or F5.
 
Robbie, just looked at the clip you posted. Nice CC and shots!

dowjones206 said:
thanks a lot guys and yes i did buy his book but it was so good someone stole my copy.. but thanks for the info
Click to expand...

One thing to remember. IF you are shooting a music video in a warehouse you will probably be OK, but if you are in a small apartment or medium sized room you will have some trouble because obviously to get reasonable framing you have to scoot way way back from you actors when you are zoomed in to 99.
 
Ha ha, I like helping people.

It's funny I wrote that whole post and then Safari crashed. I was thinking about copying and pasting it every so often but I didn't think it was necessary. Is that what you guys do with long posts?

Thanks.
 
There are also a few ways to "cheat" around and achieve a shallower DOF. You of course want to be as close to your subject as possible and zoomed in as far as you can (Z99 in this case). You then want to try your best to place and frame your subjects properly. Try getting something inanimate at the very forefront of your shot, then have your primary subject centered where it can be focused clearly in frame, next, have your background be as far away as possible while still in frame. I took this shot the other day and was able to achieve a very nice shallow DOF with no adapter by doing those things exactly, its not always easy, but for a nice look it takes time.
6si2jp1.jpg

Good Luck!
 
great thread - I will be using these techniques this Sunday.

Any tips on getting a shallow DOF when working in a small room where you can't be zoomed in to Z99?
 
LightningFilms said:
great thread - I will be using these techniques this Sunday.

Any tips on getting a shallow DOF when working in a small room where you can't be zoomed in to Z99?
Click to expand...

35mm adapter. That's about it.

you can try to cheat your actor away from the background

also there is a range of "in focusness" so after moving the actor farther away from the background, focus on the actor, then see if you can de-focus on the back wall without making the actor look soft.
 
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