macro-focusing

caiwoting · January 7, 2005

Hi guys:

I'm about to shoot a commercial with a sony dvw707p, there's a shot of heaps of people walking on the street, where the director wants a wide shot, but still with low DOF, it's in the rumor that it could be achieved by using the macro-focusing.

Can you guys please explain it to me how exactly it works and give me some examples?

Cheers

Woting

Laurent Andrieux · January 12, 2005

The macro position only allows you to focus on closer distances. On the other hand, when you set this position, you can no longer focus on long distances.

So if you want the focus to be done on a very close distance, you can have a wide shot with a very very low dof. If you only want a "soft" dof I'm not sure it will work. At what distance do you want the focus ? If it is at a "reasonable" distance that doesn't need macro, don't use macro. It has no effect on dof by it self, it's only focusing at close distance that has...

If yopu want a short dof on a wide shot and have the focus at a reasonable distance, you'd better try to cut the dof using nd filters, wide stop opening...

Laurent Andrieux · January 12, 2005

Also, if it's a commercial, the best would be to make the effect in post...

John Ealer · January 12, 2005

Long lens, back as far up as you can, shoot as close to wide open as you can and you can get that semi-obligatory shallow DOF shot of the masses of bodies walking down your prototypical NYC street. For instance, if you shot with a 75mm lens (in 35mm), your field of view is 6.5' wide and about 5' tall at 20', enough to fill the frame with 3 bodies or so from the knees up. Depth of field is about a foot front and back, giving you that shallow DOF look.

However, what you won't be able to achieve is shallow DOF for a shot with a wide field of view where your masses of people are very small in the frame. Shooting at a T2 with an 18mm yields a HYPERFOCAL at around 20' or so. You could fill the frame (side to side) with dozens of people with this lensing, but everybody will be in focus.

Unfortunately, wide angle of view shots with focus on subjects in the distance are nearly impossible to get a shallow DOF look on, the underlying physics is working against you. You could always try slant focus lensing and the like, but that's a different look altogether.

The best tool to experiment with these relationships is Eubank's pCam and pCine.

J

caiwoting · January 13, 2005

Thanks guys. I figure it's unnecessary or impossible to get that narrow dof in such wide shot, especially in video, but the thing is, my director said he used to achieve this by switching the focus ring and the macro ring at the same time and reach this point where the effect could occur. because it has no numeric reference, all done by feeling, it's hard to get, I'm going to keep trying.

Brad Grimmett · January 13, 2005

my director said he used to achieve this by switching the focus ring and the macro ring at the same time and reach this point where the effect could occur.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

From your description it either sounds like he was just snapping into focus after being way out, or was never really in focus at all. But he certainly wasn't manipulating the dof by doing this. The dof can only be changed by opening the iris, or by using a longer lens.

caiwoting · January 14, 2005

But he certainly wasn't manipulating the dof by doing this. The dof can only be changed by opening the iris, or by using a longer lens.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree. I think what happed was that the dof wasn't changed, it was just really narrow and he moved it forward and backward by changing the foucs and macro rings at the same time, and eventually placed it at where he wanted.

what do u guys think.

Woting