[Film Look] Depth of Field (Or how I learned to stop worrying and love video)

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/dof/index.htm


this looks interesting, and fairly inexpensive.

Special Thanks go to WeirdHat.

 

Woah, good explination but that's a crazy amount of work. Just zoom, boom your mic and bump your aperature mate. Much easier with very similar results.

 

I created an acount just for this thread. Here is all the sites who have built 35mm adapters for their camcorders and are selling them or putting up tutorials on how to buld one.

the first two links arent for commercial distribution of any adapter but examples of what a 35 mm adapter can do for yur video.

1. http://www.holyzoo.com/video/ the person who created this adapter did have an online tutorial on creating one; however, I cant find it.

2. http://www.enormousapparatus.com/ the film called "Life Against Memory" is the only one shot with a 35mm adapter. The others arent. This website never had a tutorial on how to build an adapter but it does give some info about it on the site.

3. http://www.redrockmicro.com/ this site is building 35mm adapters for the public....also he has a tutorial on how to build yur own for a fee of 35 dollars. good samples and explanations of how the adapter works on this site.

4. http://www.guerilla35.com/ Another site building a 35mm adapter for the public. This adapter sports the "static adapter design" which allows the user to be more portable with their film making.

5. http://www.dvinfo.net/conf This site is not exclusively 35mm related but you can find all kinds of neato stuff on this site: Including adapters and making your own highdef camcorder.

6. http://www.dvxuser.com is a great source also. It has info on adapters and such on its forums ass well. Warning: You might have to do some digging to find the info you are looking for. Same can be said about Dvinfo.net/conf

I hope all this info will help you budding film makers out there. Remember, its not just about 35mm adapters,24p cameras, or good color correcting softwares. Its about a good story line, believeable characters, and great camera work. Just my two cents.

Thank you,

Kyledroid

 

What? Only 3 replies?

*kick*..

By the way, you must have read Carnegies book, "How I stopped worrying and and started living" or something like that.

 

Errr, Stanley Kubricks Dr. Strangelove: Or : How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

Fanfilm reference, see : How I learned to stop worrying and love the superlaser.

 

kyledroid welcome to TF...

::: Killed by DVEditor :::

 

A good explanation of DOF there. While the mechanism they suggest is fairly inexpensive, the 35 mm lenses aren't. There are several companies that make such adaptors professionally to the tune of several $k.

Like the article says, zoom + open aperture doesn't change the DOF... it just flattens the image. The effect is similar, but subtly different.

-Spiff

 

I imagine you can get a 35mm still camera lens fairly inexpensively..at least only in the hundreds, not thousands of dollars. I wonder if my wife's SLR camera lens would work...

and DyeJedi got the reference. Props to you, man.

 

if my wife's SLR camera lens would work...

They will - but ask yourself this: How often do you use a flash on that camera? You need a LOT of light to get a well focused image on a sensor that big. Hence, good video lenses are several $k a piece and HUGE.

-Spiff

 

Her camera is a film camera, not digital. If I light my set well, it might work, yes? My sensors are only 1/6 inch each. (3 of them)

Will that effect it?

 

Her camera is a film camera, not digital.

"Sensor" does not mean digital. Furthermore, for SLRs, the lenses are the same for digital and film 35 mm cameras.

If I light my set well, it might work, yes?

Yes.

My sensors are only 1/6 inch each.

No real difference in this case. Your sensors will still be limited in lattitude and colour fidelity... but the DOF will be governed by the new lenses and the ground glass. The whole point of the "ground glass" is to make a new imaging plane/sensor. Your imager and the adaptor just has to focus on that new image.

-Spiff

 

Ahh. I undertood most of the "what" in that article, but not a whole lot of the "why"

Thanks, Spiff

 

I agree the larger the ccds in yur camcorder the better the lattitude you will get. These new adapters usually lose around 2 stops of light. But lighting your sets better could compensate for the light loss. However the guys over at redrockmicro.com and guerilla35.com claim that thier adapters dont lose as much light. As for lenses, its really up to the buyer how expensive they want to get. You can get some used lenses dirt cheap on ebay or on used camera sites. Now, there are also prime motion picture lenses, but those are wayyyyyyyyyyy expensive.....such as cooke prime lenses. However, ive found some russian created motion picture primes are good and cheap....such as lomo prime lenses. Also there are people out there now who are creating medium format lens adapters for there cameras. What would be the advantage of amedium format adapter.....well first a larger image on the ground glass and secondly less light loss. Here is a good thread to understand more about medium format adapters:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=27744&highlight=teddybear

Also some frame grabs from this persons medium format adapter:

http://tedramasola.tripod.com/id1.html

Thanks for the welcome too Ellbobin

Kyledroid

 

So I've been experimenting a bit with this, and so far the best results I got were just by pointing the video camera at the viewfinder of the camera I was going to take the lens from.

http://www.weirdhat.com/focustest.mpg

It's not perfect, and I keep thinking there must be a big downside since as far as I can tell nobody else has done it, but it's really quite nice looking, and very very easy.

 

Actually, that's almost exactly how the boys that shot Marla did it.

So yeah, you're well on your way to being a genius.

 

WeirdHat...could you do another one of those test with a tripod?
Was a wee too shakey to give a good impression.

 

TonyGoodwin: you asked why create a shorter depth of field for yur camcorder(at least thats what i got from yur last post). The main reason why someone would want to do this is to direct the audiences attention to a certain focal point during a scene. Beause video has such a long depth of field, one's scenes may have a very sharp foreground and background. This sometimes can be distracting for a viewer. What the adapter does is shorten the depth of field so it only focuses on either the foreground or the background but not both. This helps the director or dp guide a viewers attention to whatever the the focus is in a scene. I hope I explained it clearly enough.

Also, onto the conversation about the pros of a medium format adapter compared to a 35mm adapter. It is my opinion that a medium format lenses would better suit video because it brings more light in, no vignetting, and far less breathing in the lense compared to a 35mm still lense. What do you all think?

 

No, I'm sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I understand why depth of field is important and all that. I wasn't sure why you needed a ground glass, for example. And why it needs to rotate. Stuff like that.

 

Sorry Tony, my bad. the reason why u need a ground glass for the adapter is (my understanding of it) one.... the image you capture is on the ground glass. When you first put yur adapter on, turn yur camera on macro mode. The second reason why you need it is because the ground glass helps diffuse light a little, so the video tones aren't as harsh (the second reason is a matter of opinion of course).

Why a spinning ground glass you ask? Well it has to do to the GG's grain pattern. If you could look at the dvdlab's ground cd, you would notice quite large grain patterns on it. Because of this, a spinnig device is needed. The spinning reduces the noticeable grain patterns on the cd. However, if you do not want a spinning disk as yur ground glass, there are always the static adapters. The ground glass on these adapter usually have much finer grain than the spinnin GGs.

Hope this helps some,

Kyledroid

 

Yeah. The best route (IMO) is to pick up a focus matte or a boss matte.

Wait... Boss matte? Is that what it's called?

 

Would it not be far easier to simply get a camera that has the necessary optics for DOF? It's only the super-cheap models that have problems, the ones with the same crappy "infinity" lenses you get on disposable cameras.

 

We're talking about making your MiniDV camera have the Depth of Field of 35mm film.

That's not possible with a CCD size of 7mm's. :\

The camera isn't the issue, the issue is getting a lens designed for 35mm film, and locking it onto a ground glass/focus matte of SOME type (scotch tape works well for testing, but don't try filming it) and then focusing your DV camera on the image.

Read about it in the links posted and you'll see what I mean.

I find it interesting that I've read/seen all of those pages just in random browsing I've done. :\

I need a life.

 

Depends on what you mean by cheap Jedi. I have a dvx100a. There are in camera settings to give me a shallower depth of field, but its difficult to operate tha camera that way. Id rather purchase an adapter and have a easier time operating my cam.

Im not sure about focus mattes though. Ive seen footage of one but never what the matte actually looks like. Heres footage of a focus ring: http://www.ephland.com/video/focus.wmv

Kyledroid

 

Here is another little film that uses a 35mm adapter; its really good: http://www.pixelloft.com/riddle.htm

From the production stills, I think this film was shot on the canon xls.