Framing and focus

jinks

jinks

Well-known member
Hi all, just wondering how you mantain accurate focus of say someone coming from the horizon walking towards the camera? e.g it's a beach side low angle shot and you have someone coming from the distant horizon and walking past the camera in full view without having to tweak the focus as they get closer. So my two questions are; How do you do it with the stock lens (HVX)? and how do you do it with a 35mm adapter. Especially since 35mm lenses seem to focus by the distance markings on them. I have tried it but everytime my subjects move, the focus shifts as well.
Thank you.
 
You don't.

You "PULL FOCUS" by changing the focus on the camera, to stay with your subject. It surprises me that you've never seen a focus pull in a movie. When something is in focus and then you see something much closer or much farther snap into focus. Same thing, only more gradual.

You could use a very wide lens as well and experiment with how deep you can get your focus.

I tried youtubing "Focus Pull" but didn't come up with any wonderfully useful links.
 
collele said:
You don't.

You "PULL FOCUS" by changing the focus on the camera, to stay with your subject. It surprises me that you've never seen a focus pull in a movie. When something is in focus and then you see something much closer or much farther snap into focus. Same thing, only more gradual.

You could use a very wide lens as well and experiment with how deep you can get your focus.

I tried youtubing "Focus Pull" but didn't come up with any wonderfully useful links.
Click to expand...

Collele are you talking about rack focusing? becoz i'm familiar with that. Yeah i've been using wide angle lenses for these shots but again if the subject is moving fast I'm not able to constantly pull focus and in some cases pan as well.
 
get a focus puller. intricate shots or most any on a large production will have an AC pulling focus. also use a follow focus / whip so the AC wont have his/her hand directly on the lens.
 
In wikipedia, I saw this:

"...Since focus pullers do not look through the camera (camera operators do that) and thus cannot see the results of their focusing in real-time, this job is considered to be extremely technically difficult."

So my question is, how is it that the focus puller know if it is focus or not if he/she does not see through the camera in real-time?
 
AC will mark the follow focus as to beginning and end - although many rigs I've seen allow the AC to have a monitor so they can pull focus. Still a hard job...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top