T-Stop for Beauty Commercials

[Sandeep Sajeev 2]

Hi there,

 

Was wondering if there is a consensus on the ideal T-Stop for something like this:

 

https://youtu.be/aoekMEJisWQ

 

Or is it just softened / sharpened pretty heavily in Flame?

 

I tend to shoot at around T-8 on the 85mm, 100mm or 135mm, for this sort of work, at a much lower budget, but I have an opportunity to step up to a bigger production and am looking for tips from those that do this sort of work.

 

I'll be shooting on a Canon C300 Mark ii with CP2's. Will light with a Briese 77 Daylight with the Silk diffusion from above the camera and a Kino 4 Bank from below, heavily diffused.

 

Thanks,

Sandeep

[Brian Drysdale]

You can usually tell the DOF you want by looking at the image in the viewfinder, but T8 is more something that you'd use on miniatures or landscapes rather than portraits. People tend use the wider stops for this type of work and is subject to personal taste, but T2.8 may be a good starting point. How an image looks with a particular lens can vary with the stop, some give a more creamy quality when wide open, so some DPs work at that aperture.

 

There is also a lot of work done in software like Resolve.on commercials like these.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Brian Drysdale

[Michael Rodin]

You don't usually want super thin depth of field, at least half a meter DoF or so is needed to see sharp hair and hands if they appear in frame. How much to stop down depends on focal length.

Test different kinds of lens diffusion to find a right balance of halation and softening. Often a white halation and a lenslet (or mist or contrast) filter used together give the best result.

 

Soft/sharp filters in Flame aren't that useful for portraiture... at least they can't replace lens diffusion.

 

Why would you rent a Briese just to shine it into a silk? Defeats the purpose of that light - for that you could have easily used a PAR with a flood lens, open face, whatever.

[Sandeep Sajeev 2]

Thanks Bryan & Michael.

 

Bryan, I shoot at higher T-Stops so that I can get more of the face in focus. Usually I have to deal with more forward and backward movement than in the reference, so it keeps things in focus and on the Still Lenses I normally use on this sort of project, F5.6 - 7.1 doesn't cause any problems. But I will try the Cp2's at a lower T-Stop and see.

 

Michael, yes I want to see Hair and Hands that's been the issue. There's a fair amount of movement, plus we don't have a lot of time to shoot, and there is the issue of redoing the makeup taking it's toll on the model's face. I use the Diffusion that comes with Briese, because sometimes the light is a bit too punchy. I find I still get a crisper light than if I were to just use something else through a 4x4. But my experience with the Briese is limited, if you have any tips to share I'd be grateful.

 

Sandeep

[AJ Young]

It depends on what you want your lens to do for the image. The closer to wide open, the more the lens will "fall apart". This could work in your favor for beauty; the reduced sharpness and contrast can act as a pseudo beauty filter. Of course, razor thin depth of field will make shooting a tutorial beauty video very difficult.

 

Do you want accurate color representation? Then shooting in the "sweet spot" of the lens will reduce any chromatic aberration, flaring, etc.

 

Want sharpness? Go deeper with the stop.

 

It all depends on how you want your lenses to behave.