Large depth of field in low light?

F

fixxxer76

Member
I am having trouble figuring out how to make a crisp , focused shot inside while getting low noise. here is an example of a shot I'm trying to mimic. http://vimeo.com/14603402 - the opening shot at 00:07. I have the same camera and lens as this user. The shot is in focus basically throughout but appears to be in low light. How does one achieve this? My only thought is that the scene is brightly lit, and then graded to look darker? Any tips would be great? Thank you
 
It does say that 3 different lenses were used, not just one. Looks like that was the 18-55 at full wide judging by the slight barrel distortion. Full wide plus the fact that it can only open up to F/3.5 (I think) is probably why there's a deep DOF, although I'm not sure if that's even all the way open. Like you said, it could be well lit up also. But if you're going for a deep DOF, you would underexpose it, not grade it to look dark in post.
 
I agree with the lenses. I have all those (actually i have the 17-55 f2.8) which is better. But to me that looks deeper than a F/3.5. I don't know, whenever I try something like this, I lose all the detail, its just too dark, and when I open up enough to get detail, i lose focus throughout. Moseph - What is the best way to underexpose the scene without losing depth ?
 
Without losing depth of field? You'll gain depth of field by closing down the iris. Or do you mean something else?
 
Ha, I meant how do you under expose the shot while still maintaining a large focus depth. aka opposite of a shallow depth of field
 
Well, those two things aren't really directly related since there's so many factors that contribute to depth of field and exposure. Shoot at a high sensitivity with a wide lens and have the scene somewhat lit up, and this will let you close down your aperture to underexpose and get a deeper DOF. In case you're confused, underexposing the image will help you get a large focus depth more than a normal exposure.
 
Its a bright day, and mostlikey there is a base fill light. This way he can stop down and keep it looking dark.

Lighting is the key to everyhting. Its not the lens or camera.
 
fixxxer76 said:
Ha, I meant how do you under expose the shot while still maintaining a large focus depth. aka opposite of a shallow depth of field
Click to expand...

'Large DoF' appears to be the wrong terminology... The most frequent terms I hear are 'shallow DoF', and 'deep DoF' (or Deep Focus...).

DoF is a 'z-axis' thing relative to the lens... hence 'deep'...

If you are at the smallest ISO value, for a given desired f-stop and shutter speed, neutral density filters are in order. You could stop down to f/22 or something, but that may produce problems as well... so the 'best' f-stops are somewhere between 2-4/5 stops down from wide open.

So say f/8 is your desired stop, and 1/50th sec. your desired shutterspeed, but still you are 'overexposed' for the effect, add 1-2 stops worth of neutral density filters to lower the scene image...
 
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