The Elusive Shallow Depth of Field

disjecta

disjecta

Lucky Duck
I've been experimenting recently with stacking two teleconverters in front of the stock lens. I had a Century Optics 2x that I used on my Sony DSR-250 which has a screw in 58mm thread. I attached it to the DVX via a step up ring. I then put my Century Optics 1.6x in front of that and held it in place with my Cavision mattebox.

The results produce some vignetting and on some strong highlights there is a blue hue but the shallowness of the depth of field that stacking these lenses is clear and the loss in quality (with all of the stacked glass) is not very noticeable because the DOF effect is much stronger to the eye.

There is absolutely no wiggle room for zooming out. Zoomed in at 100% still produces vignetting because the lens for the Sony camera is so much smaller than the DVX lens.

The footage is completely raw. I had no human subjects at hand so my wildlife friends decided to help out.

http://www.pinelakefilms.com/dof.html
 
interesting. I see a slight loss in quality but the DOF looks great and Ididn't really notice the slight blue hue you mentioned. Maybe it's because I kept thinking "raw" footage the whole time.

Hey also, god I'm such a newbie, what is vignetting?
 
Vignetting is darkness around the corners. Most footage has vignetting, actually, since the spherical lens design means light hits the center of the frame more than the edges, it's just hard to notice in most cases.

My issue with this whole "shallow DOF" thing is that--besides the fact that few Hollywood productions have ultra-shallow DOF--you need to zoom in so far to get it. Shooting interiors like this just isn't practical. The DVX's max focal length is either equivalent to 280mm or 200mm (which is it, I forget?) so 3.2 times that is at least 640mm, which is a pretty ridiculous focal length although it can be cool for effects (I read about an amazing shoot of the sun and a silouhette in front of it at 600mm). Besides, the aperture will only open up to f9 at this point, I believe, so shooting at 45mm (equivalent to either 200mm or 280mm) at f2.8 is probably better practice in general. Then again, ultra-telephoto lenses, when used correctly, can be so very cool.
 
interesting...i like the look you came up with and think this could work great with the right material.

make sure to deinterlace your footage though.
 
Wow, I just looked at the compression and it seems like it's interlaced alright...something weird with Sorenson....the footage is progressive. I'll recompress it tonight....

But, yes, I agree with you Policar, it's totally impractical to use this set up other than for occasional shots where you are really seeking this effect. I'm not suggesting this is a new Mini35 but, hell, it's costing me exactly $0 right now and I'm liking that :)
 
I just watched again the Waters Edge (version 1) and you had an excellent depth of field while shooting the ducks and other subjects, and the picture quality was amazing.
What does this new system bring you when you manage to have equivalent DOF results without it?
 
The DOF is much shallower and more film-like...you can't really get a feel for it looking at the Web compressed version of the file but it's pretty obvious on a TV screen. Funny, it almost has a Super 8 look about it using this stacked system.
 
Disjecta,
its crazy, the technicians at DVX must be baffled as to why we are reducing the capability of the camera and for all intents and purposes quality of the image for a particular look and feel.

I love how it looks like 8mm.

Policar mentioned how hollywood dont use ultra shallow DOF, thats true, but Im not trying to emulate hollywood, I find when people try and fake stuff that looks expensive it normally looks cack, wheras if you work within the limitations of your equipment and get a particular look and feel and can work a lot better.
 
Looks good disjecta. I like your Brackendale film the best.
I am working on a film inspired by you shooting where I live. Thanks for what you do.
 
adam powell said:
Disjecta,
its crazy, the technicians at DVX must be baffled as to why we are reducing the capability of the camera and for all intents and purposes quality of the image for a particular look and feel.

I love how it looks like 8mm.

Policar mentioned how hollywood dont use ultra shallow DOF, thats true, but Im not trying to emulate hollywood, I find when people try and fake stuff that looks expensive it normally looks cack, wheras if you work within the limitations of your equipment and get a particular look and feel and can work a lot better.
Click to expand...

What the heck is "cack".

Looks good as per usual desjecta - except for the wierd deinterlaced progressive.

Desjecta - thanks for posting your experiment. I don't have a mattebox -- how much cash are we talkin' about for the various adaptors to get this effect vs the 35mm adaptors out there?

And i think you might be right about Coffee. We joined abou the same time and look at our raltive # of posts.

Coffee - you be a postin' fool!

Policar - yeah Hollywood doesn't use shallow depth of field as extreme or as often as people who strap on a 35 adaptor on their camera for the 1st time, but its still a useful tool, and I think these adaptors can be used with the right lens not to the extreme effect we often see (nose in focus / right ear out of focus) but some SDOF period without having to remove the walls of your house so you can zoom all the way in for that medium close shot.

As soon as g-35 is out and someone that really knows what they are doing can test that G35 against the micro 35 I'm going to get one of those be-atches.
 
coffee is just on a mission to catch up with John..

but nevermind that.. what the hell is up with your zombie banner.. thats the gayest thing I have seen in along time. Not that there is anything wrong with being gay.
 
Jarred Land said:
coffee is just on a mission to catch up with John..

but nevermind that.. what the hell is up with your zombie banner.. thats the gayest thing I have seen in along time. Not that there is anything wrong with being gay.
Click to expand...

EXACTLY!

I love the Zombie Genre, was in the middle of post on a Zombie film I shot in May on a single chip canon when I got my DVX and three other projects came up, and I hope to get back to it for exhibition purposes by the 31st.

But I just saw all these super cool grizzly zombie banners and a few jokes like PK offering to rent his signature space for a zombie banner, etc. and didn't want to do another cool grizzly ominous zombie banner (which I don't have time for), so I zigged instead of zagged.
 
Hey Disjecta, I've read about what you've done, never saw it, I think it would look great for a flash back or something in a drama/suspense feel.

I love how even your test footage is great! :) Take care.
 
I still don't get it. Man, every long lens shot here gets all this comments on how "great" the DOF is. You guys are loosing it. It's just a long lens shot, nothing other than that. With longer lenses, DOF is reduced, and background elements appear larger. Is natural. It is like commenting on a "great" White balance, just because there is some trend of everything looking cyan or green...

Of course if we are talking about cinema lens adaptors, sure, they are great, because it makes availiable a plethora of lenses for us to use, all of them with their charm, wich combined, can be more visually interesting than the using only the LEICA (although not always higher quality - the DVX's lenses are reallly something).

But what do you guys do? Shoot your movies with long lenses all the time? Have your characters flying around this blurred backgrounds all the time? All that because you could not find a visually appealing place to shoot? Man I've seen a lot of short DOF shots and lately I am seeing more and more. People are starting to get sidetracked.

Besides, there is another thing that can make a shot beautiful other than colors, contrats, composition: What is in it. Content! C'mon, when you blur something that is in the frame, you select not to show it. That can be beautiful for content, that can make you frame ONLY what you want to show and it can be powerful. But when stuff is in focus, you are actually showing it! If showing something serves a purpose, great! You can choose to show one thing, and blur the other, or you can choose to show inumerous things at the same time. Why do the later option looks worse most of the time? Because it is harder!

That brings me to my next rant. We have to realize that doing indie work on our limite budgets is actually harder than working with the industry. Don't let theese cameras fool you. A video camera is definately a LOT more complicated than a film camera (those have been around for a while), no matter how we have autofocus, autoexposure, and all that crap, and how it can be as simple to operate as a handycam, we don't have selective focus, and latitude is a lot thighter. It is harder working our way!

But anyway, getting back on track, Disjecta, your shots are very pretty as usual, I'm not trying to insinuate you work does not deserve the words of compliment, but that maybe there are some other things we should fight for instead of just going blurring out everything that don't suit our needs.

Ahh, I'm done. BTW, now I know what cack is...

Cheers!
 
Of course you are right but that implies that "distractions" are where all or our energy is going. Experimentation is the mother of invention...(I'm probably screwing that quote up).

Anyway, it's certainly not my primary focus, this is just my way of having fun :) Nonetheless, you make some excellent points.
 
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