GH3 Why cant i get shallow depth of field like a cheaper canon dslr?

[Liam Hall]

Personally I feel that if the subject is looking off camera then you need to indicate who they are addressing, either through audio or through a quick cut-away to the interviewer.

I don't think you need to include the interviewer in off-camera interviews, but it needs to "feel" like one-half of a conversation.

 

[PegLeg Media]

I don't believe you want to run 1/125th shutter with 1080-60p if you plan to render to 30p most often. I almost always shoot at 1/60th even in 60p so that the bulk of the time the image has just the right motion blur. 1/125th for 30p strobes too much for my taste and 1/60th isn't too blurry for slow motion. It's always a compromise when shooting 60p, but that seems to be the best of both worlds for me.

Give 1/60th at 60p a try and see if it suits your taste better when rendering to 30p. I don't really see any issues in your posted clip, but that's because there's no real motion to deal with.

Cheers,
Pete

I dont know why it would render to 30p? I have a 60p timeline and export as 60p. I will test out filming 60p, then editing and exporting 30p, I would love to have the frame rate down to 1/60th to give me more light!

 

[Derek Chingwell]

Bear in mind that the shallow DoF look you want to emulate (eg the video linked on the front page) is (more than likely) shot at 1080P, 24fps and 1/48th or 1/50th. So, you might well be limiting your choices by using your current settings. Plus, in that video, there's a lot of distance between the talking head and the background... unlike your talking head who is very close to the window/blinds. Not read through the thread since posting yesterday, so maybe other people have pointed that out?

 

[Bruce Foreman]

You want to shutter speed to be double the frame rate so 60p = 1/120th shutter speed.

This is an "archaic" holdover from early film days where the mechanical shutter was a rotating disk with a 180 degree cutout. Double the frame rate was what you "got" with that setup. Usually 24fps and 1/48th second shutter speed. We're not "locked into" that with our current gear. There should be no reason you can't use 1/60th second at 60p. Obviously you can't go any slower and still have 60fps.

Thanks for watching, ill try to get the talent closer next time and that will def help the DOF

That's part of what I meant by "managing" your depth of field. Aperture, of course, is another component; and lens selection (for focal length) is a third. Detailed information including visual examples is out there on the web.

 

[c3hammer]

I dont know why it would render to 30p? I have a 60p timeline and export as 60p. I will test out filming 60p, then editing and exporting 30p, I would love to have the frame rate down to 1/60th to give me more light!

There's no conventional media that can play 60p. 1080-60p as an output format is dead on arrival. No one can view it smoothly, but a few of us video geeks. youtube, vimeo, blu-ray and dvd don't support 1080-60p. Only a few BD players can playback some variants of AVCHD in 1080-60p. They are so few an far between that it's a non-starter.

On a secondary note, make sure to turn off frame blending when going from 60p to 30p in your renders. Vegas calls it "resample". This needs to be disabled or you get ghosting as a result of the blending the two frames into one. You want your software to simply throw out every other frame.

Ok, back to the regularly schedule programming in this thread

Cheers,
Pete

 

[Zephyrnoid]

Such an old lamentation. I will respond with surgical speed.
1) You'll find a LOT of technical explanations for the relationship between sensor sizes and Background Blur caused by shallow DOF. Good. Read it all.
2) The secret with DSLR's that you wish to use for Video is....... DX or APS-C sensors. They offer a reasonable compromise between too little DOF from 2/3, 4/3 and Micro 4thirds and the paper thin DOF of Full frame sensors. This is assuming you want the kind of background blur that you need for narrative Docs, etc.
Full frame sensors are very hard to keep focused in video, making them a bear to deal with.
3) Small sensors are actually preferred by ENG crews, Soccer Moms and travel shooters because they are hugely forgiving to moving subjects as the field of focus is deeper.
4) To be fair. Super35 is also just about the same as DX & APS-C in terms of background blur.
Anyway. It's mostly all about the sensor!!! FF shooters will tell you that they have the upper hand since they can simply stop down two stops if they need more DOF. That's true but their gear is heavier and harder to maneuver therefore.

 

[TheDingo]

FF shooters will tell you that they have the upper hand since they can simply stop down two stops if they need more DOF

...And they have to either up the ISO by 4x ( 800 ISO becomes 3200 ISO ) or bring 4x as much lighting. ( a 2,000 watt kit becomes a 8,000 watt kit )