How does Cinetape compare to DPAF?

J

jcs

Veteran
Just discovered this cool technology: http://www.arri.com/camera/pro_came...ce_measure/ultrasonic_distance_measure_udm_1/

After watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zoEXIPA-3Q

Anyone used Cinetape and Canon DPAF and/or Sony's latest 4D AF know how it compares in real world use? How is focus accuracy & precision compared to latest in-camera AF?
Sony video lenses have quiet AF (and stabilization), Canon lenses all make AF and stabilization noise (most quiet are the latest Nano USM lenses). Sounds like e.g. Heden servo/motors are fairly quiet, so focusing manual cine lenses would be fairly quiet?
 
It's the professional's DPAF, ha.

I don't know much about these devices, but you see them a lot on the best-of-the-best.

They've been around before DPAF (but not auto-focus in general).

CineTape is its own device: https://cinemaelec.com/products/cinetape_2

Given that they both cost more than a 1DX Mark II, they are probably out of the question for most:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...005853_udm_1_ultrasonic_distance_measure.html

(There may be other devices out there that do the same thing with manual lenses...of course at least regular wireless lens control systems.)
 
Cinetapes require constant adjustment of the "horns" to make sure they are aimed at the subject desired. For a simple shot where the subject stays in roughly the same place in frame and the camera doesn't pan off, a system like the C-motion/Cinetape integration can work, but that is only very specific shots.

Heden motors and similar are significantly noisier than typical still-type autofocus lenses as they are external and have to be much stronger to rotate the larger/heavier housings of a cine lens.
 
My thoughts on the video are as I described above: the horns have to be aimed just so for the system to work properly. The sloppiness of the operating (it was early days for the gimbals) hides a lot of the nuance of focus but if you look closely, you can see the expected result. At 1:06, the male subject moves out of frame and the female subject does not enter the zone that the horns are pointed to for another four seconds, so focus is landing deep, first on the ceiling and then the back wall. At 1:10, the operator re-centers her and you can see the lens quickly snap into focus on her. Again there is a certain amount of motion blur hiding things but if you train your eyes on the ceiling fluorescents, you can see it happen. Ironically, this is just as the voiceover says "as he enters the next room, focus racks to the girl in the distance and remains sharp as her and the camera move towards each other". Not so much.
A focus puller would have achieved this in a split second, but with this system the shot is out of focus for literally three seconds at this point. It doesn't seem that noticeable because most of the room is in focus and the subject is small in it, but it is definitely not doing what the voiceover suggests.

This system is most comparable to a center spot type autofocus in a still camera, which of course is far less sophisticated than is typical of the various types of autofocus employed today.

My focus pullers use Cinetapes, and regularly adjust the aim of the horns for a given shot, but they know that there are certain times in a shot when they have to discard that data as unusable. An automated system like this does not.

Below is the fraction of a second before it locks onto the female subject and throws focus to her.Screen Shot 2018-08-26 at 11.40.17 PM copy.jpg
 
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Most AF systems - especially at the time (2014 or even before) - would have behaved the same way.

Actually, not much has really changed in that aspect besides the extraordinary development in face-tracking, which makes these newer systems such an improvement.

But for the most part they've all always worked best with objects in the center of the screen (Canon's DPAF is actually limited to only 80% of the screen area), and the concept of moving the horns is like moving the focus box on the LCD with a joystick (or finger/touchscreen). Also, the other difference is you can change the size of the box to only focus on a certain area of the screen, but I'm assuming you are also able to alter the range of ultrasonic pulses for a similar result.

Personally, I think this system did what it should have here when pointed at the wall for those few seconds before panning to the woman. Only a few of the more advanced current batch of DPAF options would have (maybe) snapped onto the woman's face that far right.

What's most impressive is it didn't hunt or confuse itself when focusing on the face @1:10-1:16 (I was looking at the ceiling lights for any erratic shape expansion to confirm).

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P.S. A focus puller may nail focus with the current DOF, but would have much less of a chance with more shallow DOF, especially as the two people move towards each other.

Nevertheless, I'm impressed with it; especially for the time and that it's actually turning a lens' manual gear to accomplish its purpose, ha.
 
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P.S. A focus puller may nail focus with the current DOF, but would have much less of a chance with more shallow DOF, especially as the two people move towards each other.

This is why extremely shallow DOF is saved mostly for static shots...in a feature length film or TV series excessively shallow DOF would in IMO become as tiresome as excessive camera movement. As an element of focussing attention on say a product in the case of a commercial, or attention switching between 2 people having a conversation, it has it's place, but regardless of how technology changes, story and the ways of emphasizing elements of that story in narrative does not. Of course for live event or documentary focussing technology is no doubt a big improvement for the operator or single shooter, but IMO shooting anything narrative without a focus puller is just a non starter.
 
I think it mostly depends on the film and the people making it. There are plenty of shallow DOF shots in non-static scenes.

(But I agree...can't have 2-3 hours of that.)

'The Dark Knight' is a classic example of Nolan shooting crazy shallow in all kinds of scenes. He seemed realistic though as this was said about him in an ASC article:

"Chris is very astute about what is usable and what isn’t; he realized that in extremely difficult shallow-depth-of-field shots, some moments would be out of focus. His intent was to get certain important beats, and once we had those in focus, we could move on."
 
+1....but Nolan is also a filmmaker in both budgets and abilities who's surely the exception, not the rule!...for me, inspirational samples of choices directors make in terms of the "look" of their films in terms of cinematography would be more towards the Ridley Scott or David Fincher style...of course both from a very design centric background, but I think they have both visually found beautiful compromise between shooting styles, design and motion! Nolan is one of my favorite filmmakers FWIW though. To me his work is awe inspiring, but he is definitely, much like Terrence Malick in a class of their own.
 
A great deal of episodic television you are seeing these days is shot wide open on primes, at T1.3 to 1.5 depending on the lens sets. It's the current vogue. Plenty of movement of both cameras and actors, and at focal lengths into the triple digits. Tough on the focus pullers but that's just the deal right now.

Same thing with anamorpic shows--people aren't stopping those down either.

See below image from "Insecure"--T1.4, 135mm. They shot wide open as a rule.

31495749_10155222165167441_6777716396068438016_n.jpg
 
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I don't doubt it...but would have to see the scene to personally analyze the level of difficulty.

If they are standing and having a conversation, it's of course been done before thousands of times.
 
My friend who pulled focus said they shot the whole season wide open, so obviously that involves any number of difficult shots of subject and camera moving.

I myself don't feel it is appropriate to force the company to do multiple takes to get usable ones (that may not be the best performance) so I rarely push the agenda on ultra-shallow unless is a director choice and everyone is onboard with what it will take. On an 8 page day, it's a little precious. I do like using the wider primes for master shots where the background is distracting or not too photogenic. Used a 24mm at T1.5 for a master recently because of a large billboard with a man's face on it that we couldn't avoid--the soft background kept the attention on the actors. Director wasn't too keen on coming off the zooms for speed, but once he saw the result, he liked it.
 
If I were to venture a guess I would say this stems from a mindset formed during the "DSLR revolution" which came about as far as I can tell from the earlier affordable small sensor cameras that could do 24p (DVX 100 for example). Immediately following the 24p milestone was the shallow DOF quest for which light stealing adapters were used to achieve shallower DOF. This again relates to a "filmic" look...is this even a word?...anyway, it was felt this was another step in imitating film with a digital camera AFAIK.
I have a more cynical view....I believe it stems from insecurity...the same insecurity that allows excessive and distracting camera movement in every scene, to "show it's a moving image??" I even saw an article on another forum once entitled "The 5 essential camera movements for making your footage cinematic!" Again, to me this attitude/philosophy is baffling...what is the point of emphasis if everything is emphasized? And most importantly where does that leave budget, burning out your crew and perhaps most importantly "peaking" your exhausted actors all for the sake of ultra shallow DOF...this is of course the directors responsibility, but that responsibility should be first and foremost, to have the maturity, confidence and wisdom to deliver the best project regardless of the nature of the work, he or she is capable of.
 
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I think shallow DOF is many times favorable because there’s a connection to the brain...there are various aspects about it that trigger pleasure. Saw an internal study one time that saw a majority of people favor shallow FF 720p images from a DSLR over various industry leading cinema cameras (at the time). The same thing happens in photography.

Shallow DOF is also making a bit of a bigger comeback as the industry moves towards larger than S35 sensors. We’ve had a few already but now everyone’s flagship is heading towards FF or a larger format.

Naturally it’s and/or will be easier to shoot more shallow as more motion pictures are produced this way.
 
That's interesting....I'll try to locate that study....I can't imagine why anything could be more comforting, than that which most closely resembles the way the human eye works....just viewed my favorite film by IMO one of the greatest directors, Lawrence of Arabia. The prolific use of shallow or ultra shallow DOF simply does not exist in the film. After to many viewings to even remember, still my favorite film ever. So to me these creative choices are somewhat mystifying.
 
It wasn’t public, so take it for what it’s worth. There are many internal studies companies engage in for everything...basically to learn what people respond to and how to make more money from that response.

Also should note the other cameras were purposely shot at higher f/stops for a deeper plane.

As far as the human eye...that’s why everything opposite of regular boring life is interesting...teal & orange color grading, crazy effects/stunts, shallow DOF, lol.
 
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Spot on I guess lol...also shows me I'm not exactly trend setting material, though if I did not get the take I thought perfect, I'd very quickly want to know why...it's still a trend in my view that's unnecessarily stressful on everyone, especially the DP and camera department and IMO does less than nothing to move a good story forward....lol....I'm definitely getting old!
 
fboonzaier said:
I even saw an article on another forum once entitled "The 5 essential camera movements for making your footage cinematic!" Again, to me this attitude/philosophy is baffling...what is the point of emphasis if everything is emphasized?
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I love the photography of Napoleon Dynamite. I'd say 90% of the shots in that movie are lock-off frames.
 
Run&Gun said:
I love the photography of Napoleon Dynamite. I'd say 90% of the shots in that movie are lock-off frames.
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I theorize that many of today's younger filmmakers grew up playing first-person video games in which the "camera" is always moving and in the games things are often flying towards the camera and past the camera. Which is why much moving image-making today is of a frenetic visual style and of a "restless" style. Consider the comic-book based action films that are frenetic in pace and heavily use moving camera / have objects flying at the lens and past the lens. I find the trailers for some of those films visually exhausting. The advent of the electronic gimbals and drones has contributed to there being large doses of camera movement. I know younger guys who can't get enough Movi-shots and are quickly bored with any static shot. The frame as visual statement, that is a less practiced art today. Allowing the characters to move within a static frame- younger filmmakers and younger audiences find that boring. They are movement-addicts. And they trend more towards wide-lensed moving camera than towards the long-lens from fixed position style of "old". Nothing longer than a 30-mil. Keep it wide and let it ride. Slap on the AF and run around with the camera on a gimbal or put the camera on a drone. ( I'm grossly generalizing here, of course. ). Moving, floating, dollying camera. Move, move, move. Spin around the subject, fly through windows, movement, movement, movement. Can't get enough movement. Always keep the camera moving. Never a frame at rest. The only frame that isn't a moving frame is the menu screen. Playstation cinematography.
 
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JPNola said:
I theorize that many of today's younger filmmakers grew up playing first-person video games in which the "camera" is always moving and in the games things are often flying towards the camera and past the camera. Which is why much moving image-making today is of a frenetic visual style and of a "restless" style. Consider the comic-book based action films that are frenetic in pace and heavily use moving camera / have objects flying at the lens and past the lens. I find the trailers for some of those films visually exhausting. The advent of the electronic gimbals and drones has contributed to there being large doses of camera movement. I know younger guys who can't get enough Movi-shots and are quickly bored with any static shot. The frame as visual statement, that is a less practiced art today. Allowing the characters to move within a static frame- younger filmmakers and younger audiences find that boring. They are movement-addicts. And they trend more towards wide-lensed moving camera than towards the long-lens from fixed position style of "old". Nothing longer than a 30-mil. Keep it wide and let it ride. Slap on the AF and run around with the camera on a gimbal or put the camera on a drone. ( I'm grossly generalizing here, of course. ). Moving, floating, dollying camera. Move, move, move. Spin around the subject, fly through windows, movement, movement, movement. Can't get enough movement. Always keep the camera moving. Never a frame at rest. The only frame that isn't a moving frame is the menu screen. Playstation cinematography.
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+1 to both you and Run&Gun on this...though perhaps we are dating ourselves here. I own zoom lenses, but, if I could not dolly in for a zoom shot, the shot would be locked off. Perhaps nowhere is total professionalism and craft more important than in moving a camera...nothing is as distracting to story as constantly "feeling" the camera, unless you were making a movie about a camera lol. Same goes for handheld...it's for my taste either a steady cam (For my taste in a way one of the most beautiful forms of camera movement, and one for which truly no short cuts exist!) or on the shoulder for a more frantic look or docustyle if it serves the story. I love Fincher films for this very reason...the camera hardly moves....considering how dynamic his films feel, it shows what happens when you have good writing, design, cinematography and perhaps most importantly, an edit that keeps things moving...
 
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