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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Can focus be changable after shooting?:)

Alberto Caprioglio said:
no.
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I wouldn't just say no. I wondered about this too the other day. Clearly it is still a developing technology. I think it may be possible someday but I don't think it will be anytime soon. Maybe 5-10 years down the line. This would be a game changer for both audiences and film makers. Imagine if you messed up pulling focus in a shot and you just fixed it in post.
 
Imagine how long post would take if that were possible. And for those DPs who are concerned that their work gets messed with now, well, there's no comparing the changes that will be wrought if focus decisions can be changed by an editor. Yikes!
 
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zak forrest said:
Jim has stated that Red is working on something like this but with higher resolution
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Yes, I think Ihave read something here on the forum from Jim may be somebody can remember where is this post? Or may be how is it called?
 
Coulda sworn that Adobe did a presentation about some software that can do this as well...can't remember the name but I think it was sometime last month?

Kegan
 
Kegan Sant said:
Coulda sworn that Adobe did a presentation about some software that can do this as well...can't remember the name but I think it was sometime last month?

Kegan
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How could software do this? Are you saying it was software to handle lytros meta data to assist in refocusing?
 
I think it may be possible someday but I don't think it will be anytime soon. Maybe 5-10 years down the line.
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it will need everything being in focus from the start. Huge depth of field. This means less light. A lot of compromises. Just for the sake of being able to change your mind in post. (or, as you rightly said, to be able to correct a mistake). considering these trade-offs, would it be it worthwhile? if you make a small focus mistake and don't see until off the set, then it might be fixed with some sharpening. If the error is big, you will notice as you shoot and it may be more economic to just have another take.
I don't think it will go mainstream. perhaps this technology will be used only in shots so special that cannot be repeated, but actually the main condition in order to be able to change focus in post via software, is still the same as the what could be perfectly left as it is, that is reasonably big depth of field.
like when you use a steadycam, or aerial view, you don't want to risk too much with a shallow depht of field, and people are usually perfectly fine with that.
There's not a real need to defocus the background in post. Afterall all this fixation with unnatural, super shallow depth of field, has no fundament.

This would be a game changer for both audiences and film makers.
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who knows?
maybe not. Praxis usually rules. If that thing becomes praxis, I'd still find it boring and artificious, unless someone eventually makes the process really straightforward and the results totally convincing. But we are still fighting for some elementary piecies of evolution in camera ergonomics and shooting tecnique, like having decent connectors and we battle every day with cabling and even more stupid problems and design problems.

also, wait a minute... it may impossible because of the very nature of the thing, to be able to defocus relative to the distance of every single object. It's too easuy to just cut 1 subject from the background and blur everything else, but it's very unnatural because this makes no difference betwenn, say, a flower that is 1 meter behind the subject, and another flower that is 2 meters behind the subject, and so on. Everything will be just "background" and defocused by the same value. It'll need to be 3d to begin with, and the software would need to tell the distance of every single piece from the camera, and process as many bits of the scenery as is the number of pixel of the sensor, and define the true distance, and so assign a value, to each.
it defies the scope of filming, wich is the recording of a natural sight of a scenery.

Imagine if you messed up pulling focus in a shot and you just fixed it in post.
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cinema should concentrate on the value of messages. ultra high definition is already here. we also have high dynamic range. and 3d if we feel we really need. cinema is not just the persue of images for images sake. Images are only a way to say things. What do we really want to say to other beings? we almost don't know anymore. Are we only interested in hitting others with incredible effects and a visual world that is more and more out of this world? what for?
If my film need to show a river bank in autumn, I just concentrate to film it in the right way, so that it help me say what the story needs in order to be told in the best possible way, but that's it. I don't want more. It will get between me and the project. Would metropolis be a better film if it was in color? probably not. And if Fritz Lang would have spent more time in non-problems like depth of field or if he had the technology to defocus the background in post, and he spent less time with actors or the very important scenography or other things, I don't think the film would have been more effective. possibly the opposite. I think we don't need anything more than the usual very good and very mature, modern tools that we already have to make valuable pieces of art. Who cares what will be possible tomorrow? thinking about them now, only diverts your energy from what you do and what you can do now, it brings constant dissatisfaction.
okay, you could change more and more images of reality tomorrow and make more and more things more and more virtual. You'd go out of reality. You'd loose control in this world and gain control in a virtual world that is non-existant. From being to non-being. Faking everything. I'm not interested in loosing myself in virtuality. Actually I find it creepy.
 
freedom has become an obsession. who has this obsession, is less free. Never free. And not only in his vision. In real life also. There's always a chain to fight against, and as you fight the more and more superficial aspetcs of life, you can't also mantain the control on the more basic aspetcs. As you gain incredibly special rights, superficial rights that noone has ever thought aout before, you probably loose your right to clean air and water. No right to breath anymore. I don't really care about the possibiliy of changing focus in post, I can't have a problem of such caliber, maybe unless I were free from all the more important problems, and that will never happen if I run away. That being said, okay... the invention is welcome if it is good and make some people happy. If someone need this to be happy, there is obviously a problem unsolved, so the solution is a non-solution. What a surprise.. since it was meant to solve a non-problem.
 
Alberto Caprioglio said:
no.
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No is the wrong answer, Light maps are very doable for video... just wait, RED is biting the tail of Lytro....

Think of it like this, one lens per pixel every set of 9 pixels are set to focus on different depths, then in post you pic the pixel / focus you like.... what's lost is resolution, so if you have 9 steps of focus and shoot 5k you would end up with 5k/9.... but the good thing is that you probably do not need 9 steps, if you got good post processing you can "invent" the inbetweens step in post and maybe work with as little as 4 steps... then if you get it onto the epic you would have HD lightfields... and that would very much be focus changed after shooting.

ISO in post, WB in post... and HDRx is almost exposure in post... and within a short period of time we will have focus in post... seems like postponing the decision making is what filming is all about.. LOL
 
Quote Originally Posted by Alberto Caprioglio View Post
no.
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No is the wrong answer, Light maps are very doable for video... just wait, RED is biting the tail of Lytro....
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I have no doubt RED will make wonders, it's so innovative.
But it's a big effort. Please RED, make a second lcd connector in the Epic, a viefinder is not enough, gives us option.. .remember?
Solve the problem we would encounter when we shoot. Then I'll fall in love with whotever you'll invent, even the most useless and powerfull of tools for the editing room that will play with reality and make it upside down.

seems like postponing the decision making is what filming is all about.. LOL
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this may become more a problem than a solution in the future. Putting things upside down will only delay the end of the world, but not solve the problem of the conditions in which we'll found ourselves, which would be more complicated, unnacessarily complicated, everything would accumulate itself in the very end. We'll have to wait untill the very end to experience the last infinitesimal atom of truth. I thank anyway for the innocent effort of good men.
 
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