Breathing...

[Roberto Lequeux]

The human eye CANNOT change focus without moving around inside the same frame of visual reference.

I agree with everything you said but this is wrong, at least for me. However it is a conscious thing to do and doesn't relate to the conversation since we are talking of subconscious stuff.

I too have found lately that there had been some focus pulls that made me have to fish for the area that was going into focus... possibly because of other mistakes such as not highlighting the subject on the second focus mark with light, placement or some other form of contrast... something to make it the natural point which we'd expect would be going into focus, a second point of interest in the frame. A little breathing would help this... however breathing may very well be associated by many to either low-budget (which unfortunately can carry a negative undertone with it) or with vintage/period/past which could be very effective.

 

[Shane Betts]

You know, I've been thinking about this and the discussion on this thread is very, very interesting.

I agree. Sometimes breathing can actually help a focus pull do its job of alerting the audience that something is happening. The downside, I guess, is when the audience is made aware of a focus pull they were not supposed be aware of, like tracking with someone as they move. Not that many lenses breath that badly but, as stills lens design doesn't even ask the question, breathing is definitely something to be considered when purchasing.

As has been mentioned in another thread on the subject (of stills lenses vs cine), many stills primes breath less than cine zooms and, as on your average indie feature you won't generally find a lot of Master Primes, the whole question can be a little moot out in the real world.

 

[Benjamin Scot]

I just found a podcast where they talk about breathing. Not toooo informative, but they had a different take on it...

It is from FXGUIDE's RED Centre podcast

podcast #10

The lens discussion starts about 50 minutes in....with breathing being mentioned a few minutes before the hour mark.

What they pointed out as a bad thing about breathing was 'fishing' for focus.

When you nail focus from far to near, and hit your marks properly...i don't think breathing would be as noticable...

but when you go from far to near and you go too far..and then have to go back...that can be distracting. A lens that does not breath as much will not make that 'fishing' as noticable.

I don't know about you guys but I am always noticing out of focus shots on TV shows in HD.

Do you notice the fishing for focus? And is that due to the breathing...or just because you have a keen eye??

 

[Kevin Rasmussen]

I don't know about you guys but I am always noticing out of focus shots on TV shows in HD.

Do you notice the fishing for focus? And is that due to the breathing...or just because you have a keen eye??

Broadcast HD is often down converted to 720 (correction, not down converted, CROSS-converted from 1080 to 720) which can slightly soften the image, keep in mind this is not always the case, if your watching HD shows broadcast in SD it is always going to look soft as the down-convert introduces softness that is unavoidable.
Who really knows what broadcasters do, it's always amateur hour as far as I'm concerned...I recently saw two shows I've worked on broadcast in HD completely wrong (shot HD, 720p on Varicams). The image was squeezed on both shows, despite it being an HD signal.

Keep in mind that when HD is out of focus, it appears REALLY out of focus...even if it's by millimeters.

RULE OF THE DAY: HIRE THE BEST FOCUS PULLER YOUR MONEY CAN BUY, unless your shooting mini dv :thumbsup: