DOF Question?

P

Phalynx

Active member
From what I have learned, the best DOF with the stock HVX lens is obtained by having the Iris wide open which I believe is f2.0. Also, you want to be zoomed completely in on the subject closest to you. By doing so, you end up having to be very far away from the person to get an upper body shot. In addition, using the ND filter to block the light so that the Iris can be opened all the way helps as well.

My question is this: Could you put a .6/.7 lens reducer on the HVX lens and then be able to zoom in all the way and yet not be so far away from the subject? Would this:
a) increase the DOF ability
b) decrease the DOF ability
c) Be completely unchanged?

Any drawbacks?
 
Adding a .6 or .7 increases the depth of field, and in fact will hurt the look you're going for.

For any given subject size, the longer your focal length, the shallower the DOF will appear to be. Putting a wide-angle on there just reduces the focal length, just like zooming out would do.
 
You could always buy close up filters. They come in a kit and give great DOF without zooming in. Only hard part is if you are trying to record someone walking or something handheld with a lot of movement, it is a biotch to keep it in focus. But for static shots where you cant zoom all the way in for lack of room, they work great.
 
From what I have learned, the best DOF with the stock HVX lens is obtained by having the Iris wide open which I believe is f2.0. Also, you want to be zoomed completely in on the subject closest to you. By doing so, you end up having to be very far away from the person to get an upper body shot. In addition, using the ND filter to block the light so that the Iris can be opened all the way helps as well.
Click to expand...

This is pretty common knowladge and corresponds directly to film cameras. However, I'd argue that labeling this the "best" DoF is rather misleading. It's the "shallowest." But say you want to try to mimmick the work of Kurosawa in Yojimbo and try to achieve the deepest possible focus in telaphoto. In that case, you'd do the opposite. You'd get as much light as possible and ditch the ND filters so you could close the iris as much as possible and get as close as one can to the deep focus look. It's all relative.
 
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