focus pulling

deadmike

deadmike

Member
i like run n' gun shooting. my hvx on a fig rig with a zoom/iris/focus controller works great. i've never worked with 35mm depth of field before, and I know nothing about focus pulling. tell me if i'm understanding this right.

i'm holding the camera with the follow focus mounted on the rails, with a whip attached to the gears, and another person is right next to me dealing with the focus issue. do they generally have a seperate monitor to check focus, or are they going to be peering over my shoulder at mine? would it be possible to pull focus for myself if i had a shoulder mount rig and my left hand on the follow focus (i'm not asking if it would be easy, just possible)?

I was also wondering if this "magic focus assist" will be something that can be output to multiple monitors, or only the main viewer?
 
i've worked with expeienced 1st AC's ...
no monitor for the AC ( though many use them) ..
depending on the lens - usually wide lens they can guess the distance of subject from camera and just dial it in ... for longer lens they can guess very good but most of the time the subject will walk/run thru the scene and the AC will either measure or i'll look thru lens and focus where the AC can get a reference - IE: say there's a flower near sidewalk or a tree, or maybe there's a rock ( put one there) - he'll get focus marks for those places ... also the AC will operate the zoom if we can get a rehearsal - if not or no walk thru = it's all guess ( with expeience ) - that is why cinema lens work better then still - the cinema lens have more FT markings on the lens barrel ...

you can pull focus but you'll probably going to go past the critical sharp focus to slight soft then turn it back to sharp focus ... BUT then the RED just might have a fantastic focus assit and you'll dial right into sharp focus.
 
[SIZE=+0]In most occasions the RED also should be fast enough to shoot with a small aperture and therefore with a deeper DOF if needed. Or you could select only a part of the sensor, using a very short lense and achieve a deeper DOF that way. [/SIZE]
 
thanks for the info guys. sounds tricky. i have been doing a lot of ultra low light handheld shooting (like one match) so i have to keep the aperture wide open. this wasnt so bad with the hvx, although i did have to shoot a bunch at 18 fps with a 350 degree shutter and have the actor move slower... i will probably have to use the windowed mode for a bunch of scenes in my first Red picture, or find someone that can judge distances better than myself.
 
Well it wasn't directly mentioned but usually the focus puller marks off the 1st, 2nd etc focus positions on the white ring around the attached focus controller. Can be on the rail or handheld with cable attachment. This way you start at position 1, then at the appropriate moment (from rehearsals you figure these out) turn to position 2, etc etc. The numbers and marks are written on the white plastic with chinagraph or whiteboard marker. Once the shot is done you wipe them off and do it all over again on the next. I think really though if you are attempting a short DoF in your film you should really have a dedicated focus puller and not try to do it yourself while moving the camera etc. For a deeper DoF it's not such an issue and you could probably do it yourself. HTH
 
If you struggle with pulling focus (full frame 35mm), you can always shoot S16mm lenses and a cropped 2k image. DOF increases dramatically this way.

Jim
 
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