Stylz digital cinema realizations #1

STYLZ

STYLZ

Well-known member
Let me start by saying that I have never used a 35mm adaptor, but from studying professional/amateur movies and from common sense I can say..

1. a shallow depth of field should never be used on a wide/establishing/master/long-shot unless there is something in the foreground that is blurred. Anyone who questions this, look at a "professional" movies full shots even. See shallow DOF? Probably not.

I have learned a lot from this site, but it seems people ignore this here(not trying to insult anyone, only trying to help).

2. a 35 mm adaptor should be used on C.U.'s and tight mediums. (you want to isolate a persons facial expressions/emotions. Valid for objects to)

I came to the conclusion that 35 mm adaptors are a pain to recalibrate on location, which could be the cause why people choose to leave it on for long shots.

The other subject I will address concerns the technique of getting a shallower depth of field without an adaptor. The suggestion is to back off as far as possible from the subject and zoom in. What I have never heard mentioned as a side effect of this solution is the fact that it compresses the back and foreground together. Seems obvious right? Aside from handheld not being possible without an enormous amount of shake, a person expecting movie like DOF might be disappointed by how it actually doesn't resemble "hollywood" movies. By this I mean as we might know, pro movies have the shallow DOF but not the compression. Yet people pass the info on without mentioning above said side effect.

Not claiming to be an expert or professional on anything. Just bringing to light things to think about.

Cheers.
 
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I would disagree with point 1. Films are shot on 35mm, including the wide shots. The trick is not to shoot wide shots wide open when using an adaptor. F1.4 panoramas will look strange. Try to shoot wide shots at F4-F8.
 
I was skeptical of the utility of 35mm adapters until I tried to shoot an indoor medium close-up. Despite the lens being wide open, and the lens zoomed as much as possible without going macro, the background was still distractingly in view, even though we'd cleaned it up so it was as plain as possible. Over a 30 ft distance, native lens zoom + ND filters + wide-open aperture can create some nice DOF bg/fg exclusion.
 
STYLZ said:
The other subject I will address concerns the technique of getting a shallower depth of field without an adaptor. The suggestion is to back off as far as possible from the subject and zoom in. What I have never heard mentioned as a side effect of this solution is the fact that it compresses the back and foreground together. Seems obvious right? Aside from handheld not being possible without an enormous amount of shake, a person expecting movie like DOF might be disappointed by how it actually doesn't resemble "hollywood" movies. By this I mean as we might know, pro movies have the shallow DOF but not the compression. Yet people pass the info on without mentioning above said side effect.

Cheers.
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You need to read more posts on this topic. It has been stated many times.
 
bherr said:
I was skeptical of the utility of 35mm adapters until I tried to shoot an indoor medium close-up. Despite the lens being wide open, and the lens zoomed as much as possible without going macro, the background was still distractingly in view, even though we'd cleaned it up so it was as plain as possible. Over a 30 ft distance, native lens zoom + ND filters + wide-open aperture can create some nice DOF bg/fg exclusion.
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Check out this film I shot (http://www.matterofchance.com/media/JPSGAH.wmv). Check out especially the main sequence of the haircut. Most of the medium and close shots have fairly pleasing DOF. This was shot from 6 feet away at F2.8.

There are a couple tricks at play. First, Detail was lowered somewhere between -3 to -7 (wish I took some notes). A defualt Detail setting really fights against shallow DOF. It ends up sharpening up your backgrounds, which isn't good. Keep it low, and your in-focus areas will still be in focus, but your backgrounds will be much smoother.

Second trick is the lighting. The background is kept nice and dim, with stronger lighting on the subjects, and even some backlighting on the stylist. This helps the talent to pop off the background.

Granted, it's not film DOF, but the point is that if you can get the iris in a decent range (doesn't need to be wide open), and get the camera a reasonable distance away, then watchign your Detail setting and lighting can take you the rest of the way.
 
ozduc- I've been on this site every day for the last what? 2 Years? Can't recall one time someone mentioning the back up and zoom in solution and mentioning the bg/fg compression as well.(not to say it hasn't been mentioned)

Joshua-That sequence is funny. Yeah The DOF didn't look bad at all in the tight CU's.
Not really noticable in the mediums. At any rate I'm not saying this doesn't work, just that the side effects should be mentioned. Do you think you could of shot those CU's handheld and it not be distracting?
 
not to sound harsh, but why would we care about your opinions regarding 35mm adaptors if you have never used one. Just to touch on one of your point, these so called, "professional" films use 35mm film cameras which use (duh!) 35mm lenses, thus the same lenses that 35mm adaptors enable you to use, hence the same variety of depth of field is available in any type of shot and therefore is ignorant to make such a hasty generalization. You must have had a boring day at work to find the time to write something you know so little about. again, not to sound harsh, but this kinda rubbed me the wrong way, by placing a visual convention on filmmakig you are squashing creativity.
 
zachgolden said:
not to sound harsh, but why would we care about your opinions regarding 35mm adaptors if you have never used one. Just to touch on one of your point, these so called, "professional" films use 35mm film cameras which use (duh!) 35mm lenses, thus the same lenses that 35mm adaptors enable you to use, hence the same variety of depth of field is available in any type of shot and therefore is ignorant to make such a hasty generalization. You must have had a boring day at work to find the time to write something you know so little about. again, not to sound harsh, but this kinda rubbed me the wrong way, by placing a visual convention on filmmakig you are squashing creativity.
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Hmm. You must of had a "bad" day at work. So let me get this straight. Because I have never used a 35 mm adaptor noone should care about my observations of the final result of a 35 mm adaptor? Right? That's like the head of a studio telling the audience at one of his films " because you people have never made a film, we don't care about your opinions on our film". Doesn't make any sense right?

Yes 35mm films are shot on 35mm lenses. So does that mean that all 35 mm films have to use a shallow DOF in all shots? Reexamine my points up top, without getting into semantics.

I'm squashing creativity huh? I'm just trying to give people something to think about and start a nonhostile dialogue on the subject, but you ruined all that. Thanks. Seems to me like you are sqaushing creativity.

Cheers Buddy.
 
STYLZ, I think you might be a little confused as to how depth of field works. I'm not trying to be insulting here at all, but some of you statements pertaining to DOF are a little off.

STYLZ said:
1. a shallow depth of field should never be used on a wide/establishing/master/long-shot unless there is something in the foreground that is blurred. Anyone who questions this, look at a "professional" movies full shots even. See shallow DOF? Probably not.
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With most of the shots that you mention above, the DOF is normally large by default. For example: a wide, establishing shot of a farm house might be framed in such a way that we see the house sitting in the distance surrounded by pasture. To achieve this shot, one of two things is required (or a combination of the two). The first option is to use a wide lens (lens with a short focal length). This of course changes the field of view and allows us to see more of the scene. The second option is to move the camera so that it is a good distance away from the farm house. By doing either of these or a combination of both, the DOF is increased.

As the focal length of the lens decreases, the DOF increases. As the distance from the lens to the focused subject increases, the DOF also increases. So we don't see shallow DOF in these types of shot in any movies... it really isn't possible. Even with a large aperture, the DOF will still be considerably large with these types of shots.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by saying that one should neve use shallow DOF, "unless something in the foreground is blurred". Something being blurred in the foreground does not dictate what sized DOF we should choose. The size and location of the DOF determines what is in focus or out of focus. Even if I were to use a 28mm (focal length) lens set at f/16 at a distance of 20ft from the farmhouse in the example above, anything less than 4.25 feet in front of the lens would be out of focus. So, the leaves of a branch 3 feet in front of the camera would fall outside of the DOF and would be out of focus. The DOF in this example would be huge of course... starting at 4.25 feet in front of the lens and extending to infinity.
STYLZ said:
2. a 35 mm adaptor should be used on C.U.'s and tight mediums. (you want to isolate a persons facial expressions/emotions. Valid for objects to)
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I think you are misunderstanding the true purpose of a 35mm adapter here. The purpose of a 35mm adapter is not to achieve a shallow DOF. The purpose of a 35mm adapter is to allow a filmmaker using a prosumer DV camera some of the same advantages that a filmmaker using a 35mm motion picture film camera has. So it isn't that a 35mm adapter should only be used for close ups and tight shots. It is not the 35mm adapter that creates shallow DOF. The DOF is determined by the focal length of the lens used, the aperture size, and the distance that the lens is from the focused subject. So with my 35mm adapter, I might choose to use a 50mm lens for a medium shot of an actor, a 100mm lens for a close up, or a 35mm lens for a wide establishing shot.


STYLZ said:
The other subject I will address concerns the technique of getting a shallower depth of field without an adaptor. The suggestion is to back off as far as possible from the subject and zoom in. What I have never heard mentioned as a side effect of this solution is the fact that it compresses the back and foreground together. Seems obvious right? Aside from handheld not being possible without an enormous amount of shake, a person expecting movie like DOF might be disappointed by how it actually doesn't resemble "hollywood" movies. By this I mean as we might know, pro movies have the shallow DOF but not the compression. Yet people pass the info on without mentioning above said side effect.
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You can achieve a more shallow DOF with a prosumer DV camera by backing up and zooming in... true. Technically speaking, the DOF does not change much if any by doing this, but the end results give the appearance of having a much more shallow DOF.

I agree that this isn't a very practical way to go since you have to be pretty far from the subject and like you said every little shake is amplified.

Now, you are right that doing this does compress the back and foreground together. This is a result of increasing the focal length of the lens. By zooming all the way in on the DVX your are changing the focal length from 4.5mm to 45mm. Doing this also changes the angle-of-view (field-of-view). As the focal length increases, the angle-of-view becomes more narrow. It doesn't matter if it is the lens of the DVX or the 35mm lens of a motion picture film camera, the same rule applies.

DV will never look like film and film will never look like DV. I don't see 35mm adapters as a way to make DV look more like film, but as a tool that allows me more artistic options in terms of altering the the DOF, the field-of-view, and the overall look of the image. Are they a pain? Yes! inverted image, light loss, motor noise, dust spec, etc. I drool over the RED camera every day and dream of not having to use an adapter ever again. For now though, I am truly grateful for what the 35mm adapter has allowed me to do in terms of artistic options.

You might want to take a look a my DOF tutorial for more info:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=94269
 
STYLZ said:
The other subject I will address concerns the technique of getting a shallower depth of field without an adaptor. The suggestion is to back off as far as possible from the subject and zoom in. What I have never heard mentioned as a side effect of this solution is the fact that it compresses the back and foreground together. Seems obvious right? Aside from handheld not being possible without an enormous amount of shake, a person expecting movie like DOF might be disappointed by how it actually doesn't resemble "hollywood" movies. By this I mean as we might know, pro movies have the shallow DOF but not the compression. Yet people pass the info on without mentioning above said side effect.
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Nobody has ever said that the DVX could be made to look exactly like film. It's just possible to get it closer to the look of film than with some other cameras. If we all needed our footage to look exactly like film, we would be saving up for film stock.

I'm not sure why you are ragging on the foreground / background compression when that will happen with film cameras as well as the DVX. Any time you are using a "telephoto" focal length there is going to be more depth compression than if you were using a shorter focal length. They most certainly can use telephoto lenses on "Hollywood" movies.
 
O.k. Good stuff Snod.

Maybe you guys think I'm a noob asking how to get the film look on DV or something though. I carefully worded my original post without the word film, yet people are trying to tell me about the "film look". Maybe they misunderstood(and apparently misread my post).( Snod I know you are very experienced, I aspire to your quality of work, so don't take any of my ramblings to heart)

At any rate Snod, you mention wide/long shots ect.... naturally have "large" DOF. This is not true, maybe you mean a large field of view. If I frame some one in a cu and off to the side of them 2 miles out there is a windmill in focus and in the shot, is it a shallow DOF because the angle of view?

The main reason I began to think about this is because I would see wide shots(35mm adaptor) where it looked like a in focus circle with a blurry circle on the outside. Highly unattractive. Now my ignorance of the use of a 35mm adaptor may be at fault here, BUT the only time I have seen this is in wide shots where it seems they attempted to get a shallow DOF. There was nothing in the foreground though to give the feeling of depth, so it looked like the air was blurred. Real ugly.

So once again, I may have never used a 35mm adaptor, but I know how unattractive the side effects of said mistake can be.

Maybe I will find an example.

Yes Snod I know aperture/focal length/format and all that play a large factor, if focal lenth was the main factor, could'nt you just make cameras with longer lenses? Hmm like the xl-2 maybe(compared to dvx) So that must be the solution. Xl-2 you would have to be pretty far though huh? And it would be real shakey huh?(focal length is relative to lense size right?)

35mm adaptor isn't about shallow DOF? Options yes. I thought it was option to have a shallower DOF or not. Please inform me of what other options aside from that a 35mm offers.(telephoto/wide angle?--all relative)

Thank you Snod for taking the time to educate me on a few things and contributing.
 
Oh, and actually I see where I have confused some of you. Just because you use a 35mm adaptor or shoot 35mm film doesn't mean you are trying to get a shallow depth of field. This I know, or I wouldn't of said professional movies usually don't use shallow DOF on wide/long shots. Yes I know you can use a 35mm adaptor with a short lens (below 50mm or so right :) and have deep dof. Sorry If I confused you on that. I guess I assumed a DVX without a 35mm adaptor is close to a dvx with a apdaptor and short lense ? Or is it?

I corrected that early on in point 1. but forgot to do it in point 2.
Silly me.
 
STYLZ said:
Maybe you guys think I'm a noob asking how to get the film look on DV or something though. I carefully worded my original post without the word film, yet people are trying to tell me about the "film look". Maybe they misunderstood(and apparently misread my post).
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Okay, you never used the term "film look." But when you said 'a person expecting movie like DOF might be disappointed by how it actually doesn't resemble "hollywood" movies,"' what did you assume people would think you were talking about?
 
agcohn said:
Okay, you never used the term "film look." But when you said 'a person expecting movie like DOF might be disappointed by how it actually doesn't resemble "hollywood" movies,"' what did you assume people would think you were talking about?
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Ummmm just that. Professional movies.
We here of all people should know a professional movie doesn't have to be shot on film. "THIS IS ABOUT TECHNIQUE PEOPLE" not about format.

Not once did I try to make a comparison between DV and Film.

Thank you.
 
STYLZ said:
Oh, and actually I see where I have confused some of you.
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On the contrary, I think you have confused yourself more than others. My suggestion would be to start with Snod's tutorial and then get a hold of some books on the subject so as to give yourself a better understanding.
 
So it has resorted to that huh? Only one who has contributed to this post is SNOD.

The rest of you are just name calling, and insulting.

Real good guys.

Instead of calling me names, try presenting facts to prove my "not understanding". But you can't, you can only try to insult me. Shame.

At any rate. Back to the basics.

Don't try to achieve shallow DOF on Wideshots, and "back up zoom DOF" is way diferernt than 35mm lense DOF. Plain and simple for you all.
 
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