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The EOSHD Blackmagic Cinema Camera Shootout


Andrew Reid
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By the way-When were those movies made? :-)




Intersting quote from Roger Deakins Cinematographer on James Bond 'Skyfall'
from his website forum.( which is a goldmine of infomation have a look)
http://www.rogerdeakins.com/forum2/index.php?sid=62d881c4b1d9407ddc8709183d62bdd1

Re: Selecting DOF on Close-Up Shots

icon_post_target.gifby Roger » Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:19 am
I have only rarely shot a close up on a 135mm or longer and only then for a particular effect. There is no comparison between shooting one at a T2.0 on a 40mm and at 4.0 or 5.6 on a 135mm. The sense of space and relative distance of viewpoint will be different at any T stop.
As for a standard stop I don't have one. I generally like to shoot a night time close up at a T2.0 and I will most often shoot a day exterior close up at around a 4.0 or a 5.6 but I could also shoot at a 11.0. Every situation and every film is different.
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I agree Andrew ...



Most Hollywood Motion Pictures don't shoot past T3.5 or T2.8 as the dof is so shallow the actors are in and out of focus too much and the Director has to do multiple takes to get a usable pass ,


this takes more time and costs more money.


If you read up on all the great Cinematographers they all tend to offer this opinion .


I just read Cinematographer Freddie Young's Biography (he shot Lawrence of Arabia , Ryan's Daughter, Passage To India, Dr Zhivargo etc etc for Director David Lean)


He states he didn't like shooting past T3.5 for this reason.



Citizen Kane was shot 'Deep Focus' all around T11 - T22 ....everything in focus!! this required a huge amount of light on set just to get this look!!




Intersting quote from Roger Deakins Cinematographer on James Bond 'Skyfall'


from his website forum.( which is a goldmine of infomation have a look)


http://www.rogerdeak...c8709183d62bdd1

[b]

Re: Selecting DOF on Close-Up Shots

[/b]



icon_post_target.gif

by [b]

Roger

[/b] » Sat Jun 11, 2011 9:19 am


I have only rarely shot a close up on a 135mm or longer and only then for a particular effect. There is no comparison between shooting one at a T2.0 on a 40mm and at 4.0 or 5.6 on a 135mm. The sense of space and relative distance of viewpoint will be different at any T stop.


As for a standard stop I don't have one. I generally like to shoot a night time close up at a T2.0 and I will most often shoot a day exterior close up at around a 4.0 or a 5.6 but I could also shoot at a 11.0. Every situation and every film is different.




Some really great information here thanks!

I also agree, whats the point of having a set built if your only going to blur that background, or going to far off foreign locales to capture that feel and look in the shot. Shallow DOF is great for indie "because" we dont have that kind of budget though, I wont argue that at all. But sometimes I see short films that use that technique in almost every single shot, even on some higher budget short films. Shallow DOF must be used sparingly for extreme purposes in my opinion (Yes just my opinion, dont get mad :P ).

Same thing with shaky cam, I wont even get into that rant here hahaha!

PS: Lawrence of Arabia is timeless, and is masterfully shot.
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Lawrence of Arabia is my favourite film of all time the cinematography is amazing! all shot with off set viewfinders on a Panavision 65mm camera.

Yes Roger Deakins forum is a good read on how the greats do it!!
Roger is very sharing with his infomation on all aspects of film making

Dont get me wrong I do like shallow dof but I just dont like it on every shot ! and once you get into f1.2 and f0.95 it gets into just a few cm in focus and you just cant shoot faces all in focus!! and its all very soft too

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Most modern movies are shot at T5.6 for focus as well. It isn't about what era of filmmaking, it is about the practical realities of shooting.




The practical realities are also that many times you don't have enough light to shoot at 5.6 at all.
Saying "most films are shot this way or the other" is pointless, no film is shot the same way, and many films are shot wide open, it's an option as valid as any other. Kubrick was shooting with f/0.7 lenses wide open on Barry Lyndon, but film wasn't as sensitive back then, so the reasons were probably different.

Shooting wide open also doesn't mean you can't see the sets, if you want to show the sets you focus on them, when dialogue is the most important thing in a scene to drive the story then it's probably a good thing to have them out of focus so they're not distracting (and so it doesn't look like a soap opera).

If you watch films like Road to Perdition or The Shining, I think you'll find it hard to disregard shooting wide open as too unpractical for the realities of shoting.
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Most Hollywood Motion Pictures don't shoot past T3.5 or T2.8 as the dof is so shallow the actors are in and out of focus too much and the Director has to do multiple takes to get a usable pass ,


this takes more time and costs more money.


If you read up on all the great Cinematographers they all tend to offer this opinion .




There is one thing missing here and that is what anamorphics do to DOF. When you shoot anamorphically on s35mm the DOF gets smaller. This is because a 50mm becomes quite wide but the DOF characteristics stay the same.

So to say all films are "deep dof" is quite wrong.
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Most modern movies are shot at T5.6 for focus as well. It isn't about what era of filmmaking, it is about the practical realities of shooting.




A lot of closeups are actually shot at 100mm-200mm in cinema s35mm. This is quite different what indie-filmmakers do. If you take a look at any modern film you will see quite a lot of blurred out backgrounds especially with closeups of people. Anamorphic wide shots (even at t5) start getting quite soft backgrounds and closeups of people tend to be quite tele with a blurred background. Sometimes really blurred. I just watched this one film (name eludes me) and there was a restaurant scene where a couple of was talking. It was extremely blurred. Anamorphics + s35mm starts to get quite close to spherical fullframe in DOF characteristics (lens distortion not withstanding)
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The point I'm trying to make is you don't need to run around with a Voigtlander f0.95 lens on the front wide open all the time to make good movies on a Canon , BMCC or GH2 etc
Yes fast lenses are a useful tool if used creatively....
Variety is the spice of life!!

I just shot an action film , big set, and we shot anamorphic at f1.2 to get a moody look and actually tracking with actors keeping focus on their eyes in action scenes was difficult as the dof was about 2 inches !
It look alot of takes on set ! see below frame grab... you get the idea!

50acc3a97f502_soko1cinemascopelores.jpg

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I agree with the above comments, im not saying you should never use shallower DOF, heck it helps when your on a budget. But there are these weird techniques I see sometimes where even the subjects face is barely in focus... then again these are just my personal tastes, I do also enjoy shallow DOF, but sometimes I dont see the point of it, its ok to let the viewer's eye wonder in my opinion. To me closeups are perfectly fine for this technique because you're suppose to see the subject and focus on him/her only, Whats weird is when its a shot that doesnt need it at all or when used with run and gun, then there are some that are crazy like shooting 1.4 during a chase sequence.

Im not saying you should never use it, heck i know I will, but its good to know when it has an actual effect to the scene, then being saturated with constant shallow DOF, which can be exhausting at times and can lose its effect when you purposely 'do want to' use it.

To me the the main things that are on my mind when Im shooting is composition, lighting, and what is necessarily to the narrative. To me lighting is so important, its something that I always strive to improve on (probably because im terrible at it haha) because thats usually what gives away the illusion to the audience, in my opinion. It sometimes makes a location feel more like a set then it is a location.

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All of the above is why it seems that Super35 is a preferred sensor size. Super35 hits the sweet spot. It can achieve deep depth of field if needed but it's also easier than Vistavision size to keep in focus at f2.
I hope Blackmagic sell a truck load of these units so they can then produce a Super35 version.

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She's wearing a lot of makeup and the RAW footage and lighting used helps make the makeup look good.

A lot will always depend on lighting Having a good colour filter array will help get a wider gamut of colours and will capture them better. However we don't know anything about the colour filter array on the BMC.

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There is one thing missing here and that is what anamorphics do to DOF. When you shoot anamorphically on s35mm the DOF gets smaller. This is because a 50mm becomes quite wide but the DOF characteristics stay the same.



So to say all films are "deep dof" is quite wrong.



Barely anything is shot in anamorphic these days.
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where that fascination with color filter array come from ?


its probably classic Bayer pattern as in arri alexa , red epic or 99% other cmos cameras ...



http://blog.abelcine...5-defining-cfa/

Camera boy All I'd like to know is a bit more about the BMC colour filter array sticking up a pretty picture smacks of fanyboyism. Your guess that its a standard bayer pattern says nothing about its constuction and ability so why say anything at all.
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@markm
nobody even talked about camera color filter array before sony start to use it as a marketing tool...
i dont remember that anybody ask that question when arri alexa , red epic or any other camera announced...
why? because its not important ...when u make raw camera u use wide gamut dye (not that for rec 709) ...
and more bits camera have, color gamut is wider ...
so u basically ask do i get four wheels when i buy a car ... :)
so dont ask question if dont know what are your asking ..
its ignorant...
ps:and when sony state that they going to use f65 camera color filter on f55 what they really say is that they decide to cripple f5 with wrong one ....

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