zoom? Or macro?

E

Elis

Member
I'm having a hard time figuring out when I want to back away and zoom on something realy close, and when I want to use macro mode or macro focus, whatever that is.

I just have no clue what the implications are. If I want to film, say, a person knitting, and I want to show the detail of the knitted stitches, which option would work best? In which case will I get better detail? Avoid getting out of focus?

(Of course, I'd start by asking the person to knit with wide knitting needles and thick yarn for a start).
 
Go ahead and get close. If you're shooting with the A or B model, you'll be able to keep things in focus really well. As always, it's best to try a few different things and see what works best for you.
 
Think of the zoom feature as a way to FRAME your subject matter, rather than a 'get in close' kind of choice.
Sure, you can cover some ground with the zoom- by ZOOMING IN to subject material further away.
You could also walk to get closer to it, leaving the lens on a wider FOV.

The thing about the wider FOV is it is more pleasing to the eye- more like what the eye sees, in effect.
Viewers will accept it more readily than a compressed depth of field type of view.

I LOVE getting in close for really tight shots of minute detail, then jump cut to something else (related), and back to a little bit wider view.
Maintains interest in the subject better that way.
[Like being tight on a paint brush laying down some tiny detail on a canvas, jump cut to the wide view of scene being painted (with or without the painter/canvas being in the establishing shot), then to a medium shot that depicts the hand holding the brush and the painters face.

About Macro; it's a way to focus on detail, beyond the standard wide view and it's ability to focus to a certain near point (look at the markings on your lens barrel).
Macro takes you in just that little bit closer.
 
So when you get the really close frame of the paint brush, do you use the macro mode or the zoom mode?

(And out of curiosity, when you get your other shots that you described, do you use the zoom, or actually move the caméra around? It's a subject of interest to me and I've had some debates with the professionals where I intern : I tried taking the three values by moving the camera around, but the professionnals there just tell me to use the zoom and get it over with. It's news, so it doesn't matter.)

I'm interested in understanding how the macro mode works on the DVX.
I noticed that on the broadcast cameras (sony DSR) macro mode seems to make the zoom pretty useless except for making into a nother focus ring. I have no clue why, but that's what it seems to do. How does it work with the DVX?
 
The basic difference is that the Macro mode is at the wide end of the lens and offers a sharp focus of close objects in a wide-angle field limited by camera placement. Zooming in on the DVX means you are using the telephoto end of the lens (300mm) to bring an object closer without getting near the camera. The field of view is limited by the focal length of the lens.

Ex. You want to show someone painting in detail. Use the macro feature and get close.

Ex. You want to shoot someone with low depth-of-field. Use the telephoto setting and focus on the person.

Hope this helps.
 
Well, here is the result of my first tests : had to film the person knitting with the zoom and not the macro because I wanted to limit the background in the picture... actually, throw
a blanket in front of the knitter and use the zoom so that all I get in the background is the blanket... (and better yet, it was out of focus, as you said, so that it doesn't look like a blanket !)
 
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