what type of lens should I look for to get this type of shot in LOST...

M

midnightblues

Member
So...I was watching last weeks episode. freakin awesome episode.

There was one particular shot. It's a kinda of a wide shot because Kate is in the fore ground with her framed...top half on the mid-left side of the screen, and Hurley's in the midground (I think) with him framed 3/4 on right side, with plenty of "headroom" and "sideroom" for both characters to move around.

Yet...the background in this shot is blurred out beautifully.

And....they were able to rack from Kate to Hurley with the background beyond them still out of focus.

I am a newbie but to me, this shot is sick. I want this shot. I want to learn how to
get this shot with my Brevis.

I tried to emulate this on my lenses...can't do it. Not wide enough or if it was wide, I get no shallow DOF.

So...what type of lenses can accomplish this shot? HELP!!

IMO, I don't want to shoot any more shots where I can only fit two heads of the actors in the frame and rack focus. I want to get as much info into the shot as possible.

Mark

Also...In the film Rendition, there's a wide shot of Reese Witherspoon, waiting for someone at the airport. She's framed with plenty of headroom. 3/4 of her body is in the shot ( I can see what her hands are doing) and there's plenty of "sideroom" on the left side of the screen. The extras walking thru the shot in the background are all out of focus.
 
I think it's all in the technique. If you want to see more of the actors, back the camera up instead of going to a wide lens. Get them them farher from the BG. Open up that iris. Should do the trick.
 
Also, dropping a CF3Le in your Brevis will help give the appearance of selective focus. With CF1Le, the background in your tests may in fact be out of focus, but just not noticeably so. The diffusion on CF3Le will exaggerate the out of focus areas, making focus seem more selective.

I'm ofcourse assuming that you are using the CF1Le currently. And i'm sure the folks on the set of lost arent using Brevis units, but I figured I'd help give another solution given that you mentioned you're using a brevis unit :)
 
one thing a lot of people seem to overlook is that it's not enough to throw on a longer lens to get the background out of focus, you also need your subjects to be close to your lens to have the background blur out.
 
I have an old no-name zoom lens that has a separate macro focus that does this. I have been looking for a nikon mount version of this since I lost my Canon mount.
 
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