Type of lens for shallower DOF?

[Barry_Green]

Hmm...I saw the wiki you sent me but...
"In what is considered the bible of cinematography, "A Hands-On Manual for Cinematographers", David Samuelson states at the conclusion of his section on depth of field : "Depth of field remains the same, regardless of lens focal length, so long as the image size (and f-stop) is the same."
http://www.bluesky-web.com/dofmyth.htm

Yes, but that is incredibly easy to disprove. While the actual DOF is technically the same, the APPEARANCE of DOF is much shallower when using a more telephoto lens. So do you want something that looks like the background is more out of focus, or do you want to argue that you're right even though everyone who looks at it will say that the background on the tele shot is more out of focus?

There's theory, and then there's footage. I offer the following example. Shot at identical aperture, with identical subject size, only difference was focal length (and thus moving the camera to maintain the subject size). Would you say one of these shots has maybe a little bit more of a shallow DOF effect than the other?

 

[Rick Meyer]

lol. Leave it to Barry to post concrete proof.

 

[DivotDan]

I love it. And this method works great until you're in a 10x12 room. That wall will only let you move back so much. Time for the fast glass.

 

[egproductions]

soon enough there will be gigapixel cameras and everyone will be shooting wide and have the ability to crop out a small section to give the effect that a telephoto lens would give you.

 

[salils]

Yes, but that is incredibly easy to disprove. While the actual DOF is technically the same, the APPEARANCE of DOF is much shallower when using a more telephoto lens. So do you want something that looks like the background is more out of focus, or do you want to argue that you're right even though everyone who looks at it will say that the background on the tele shot is more out of focus?

There's theory, and then there's footage. I offer the following example. Shot at identical aperture, with identical subject size, only difference was focal length (and thus moving the camera to maintain the subject size). Would you say one of these shots has maybe a little bit more of a shallow DOF effect than the other?

Yeah sorry, maybe I should have mentioned that I use this technique often but was hoping there was something besides the usual open up your iris and zoom in.