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Focusing Advice

John Lipsz

John Lipsz

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Hi, I am a first assistant camera on a web series and we're shooting using Zeiss ultra primes. I'm having some trouble with focus, most of the shots are at wide-open 1.3 and the depth to focus Mark is about 3 feet. We're shooting with a red weapon at five or 6K with a very short shutter speed the camera is handheld, or on a gimble and both the camera and the actors are moving. I'm having trouble keeping focus and it's getting a bit frustrating. According to my chart my DOF is very short for most of these shots. Am I just a poor focus puller or is this a new credibly difficult and crazy situation?

I'm using a Cone Tape and an evolution remote follow focus., but because of the movement it's not necessarily accurate I also don't have the autofocus option with this particular unit .

Any comments would help. Thanks guys
 
I have no idea if you are poor FP or not ;-) but:

if you are foucsung 3 feet away wide open at f1.7 Ultraprimes or f1.2 Masterprimes (t-stops 1.9 and 1.3) with both a moving camera and subject it is very very hard to consistently put the relevant part of the image in focus.

I'm not a focus puller but mine would want to work of a monitor with focusing edge tools screaming at him and ignore the cinetape.

John Lipsz said:
Hi, I am a first assistant camera on a web series and we're shooting using Zeiss ultra primes. I'm having some trouble with focus, most of the shots are at wide-open 1.3 and the depth to focus Mark is about 3 feet. We're shooting with a red weapon at five or 6K with a very short shutter speed the camera is handheld, or on a gimble and both the camera and the actors are moving. I'm having trouble keeping focus and it's getting a bit frustrating. According to my chart my DOF is very short for most of these shots. Am I just a poor focus puller or is this a new credibly difficult and crazy situation?

I'm using a Cone Tape and an evolution remote follow focus., but because of the movement it's not necessarily accurate I also don't have the autofocus option with this particular unit .

Any comments would help. Thanks guys
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the reply Michael,

Forgot to mention that I have my own AC7 and a 17" Panasonic. They are both set to monochrome to be able to see contrast better. My small HD is set for peaking, but not the Panasonic.

I'm just curious if anyone else has encountered such a situation and if so how they covered it. An AC I know told me to use the "force" but that was not much help. ;)

Cheers
 
We did a shoot the other day with kids that was very improvised and was shot by a moving camera and a moving subject (and all at T1.3 on a 27mm Masterprime 5.5k)... I accepted that the FP would miss loads of moments as it was unreasonable to expect otherwsie. Often in these situations we will switch to operator focus as the operator (if handheld is often in a better position to adapt)..

sorry to not be of much help.. I do suspect that unless a FP has done at least 1000+ hours of actually pulling they will struggle in any tricky situation. Good luck with the Job!
 
That sounds like a pretty serious fuck the AC situation. I think you just have to live with it and hopefully the DP will learn his lesson for the next show. Sometimes if you want the shot to be in focus, you have to compromise what ever you thought You were achieving by shooting screaming wide open for no reason ;-)

Nick
 
Sounds crazy with gimball and moving actors at 1.3 at close distance to camera. Personaly i think everything below 2.8 is more suitable for still images than moving images in most scenarios.
 
Thanks everyone, I have to say I'm feeling a little frazzled right now. The pressures on and I just seriously want to leave this shoot. Maybe there are some guys who can do this, but after 7 days I'm at my wits end. Further support or advice is appreciated!

Cheers
 
Oh, incidentally did I mention that we are shooting only a 32mm and a 75mm. Oy!
 
Shooting an actor standing still at T/1.3 on a static tripod is hard enough in case the actor leans forward/backward slightly... and you have moving actors and moving camera. :cursing:
 
John Lipsz said:
Hi, I am a first assistant camera on a web series and we're shooting using Zeiss ultra primes. I'm having some trouble with focus, most of the shots are at wide-open 1.3 and the depth to focus Mark is about 3 feet. We're shooting with a red weapon at five or 6K with a very short shutter speed the camera is handheld, or on a gimble and both the camera and the actors are moving. I'm having trouble keeping focus and it's getting a bit frustrating. According to my chart my DOF is very short for most of these shots. Am I just a poor focus puller or is this a new credibly difficult and crazy situation?
Click to expand...

It is a difficult situation.

If talents have position markers and cam op predefined route it is doable with wider lens, test takes and tolerable driftings. Not so much with longer lens and not through monitor focusing and chasing focus. One has to predict it by feeling the motion and distance and that requires watching the scene. Ultra Primes are 1.9.

If they all just wander around freely and wide open is the main aesthetic thing for the whole project and if it has to be spot on most of the time with longer focal lengths as well, someone just has a creative whim with unrealistic expectations.
 
First of all, even at a 2/2.8 split, the DOF should be short enough to get the look and feel the DoP wants without putting the puller in hell. Most experienced DoPs wouldn't even go there. That said, as 1st AC there's no politically viable way to call out the DoP without getting canned.

Secondly, I have to agree that the only method I have ever seen work with the situation you describe is the Zen (use the force) approach. If it makes you feel any better, IMO, there are less than 10 FP's on the planet that can actually do what is being asked with consistent results.

Third, if you are committed to staying the course, you need lots of reps and forget the usual tools. One thing I learned to do years ago, that helped me a lot, was to get really good at estimating distances by eye. I also learned to keep adjusting my viewpoint as that aids triangulation.

Bottom line, there's no substitute for hundreds of hours of doing it...

Cheers - #19
 
Yes Ultras are 1.9 my typo these are Master Primes
 
In my book, putting at 75mm MP WFO on a gimbal would only make sense if it was a dream sequence or some other very specific creative intent. The 32mm MP WFO is still nuts, but with enough takes it could provide an interesting look and feel. Best of luck, you'll need it.

Cheers - #19
 
Shooting at T1.3 is totally unnecessary unless there's an extreme situation where you would need low light capabilites of the lenses. But shooting normal conditions at T1.3 is just dumb. Not only isn't the actual difference that great between that and T2.0/T2.8 but with handheld and constant movement there's no way even an experienced focus puller could pull focus accurately because the focus plane is a few mm short while trying to predict both the movements of the actors and the camera. The only way to do it is to use the experimental new equipment with trackers on actors, which track and pull focus automatically between the camera and the actor.

I don't know what the condition of the staging and blocking is but it sounds like a combination of both you needing a little more experience and a large amount of the DOP and directors fault not understanding T1.3 and camera movements. I've been on sets where I had to pull focus with a totally irregular DOP handling the camera hand held, moving in and out unpredictably while the actors improvised and later got stares that I didn't nail the focus. There's no reason bullshitting around, shoot T2.0 or T2.8 when there's a lot of movement, move the camera as planned and take time getting measurements so that there's a margin of error that's possible to work with.

I only shoot T1.3 if I'm on a tripod or dolly and give a lot of time to the focus puller in order to get all the marks necessary. A cinematographer also need to understand what's reasonable or not. Yesterday I had a shot with a basket ball rolling out on the road with a boy chasing it into the street and almost getting hit by a car. I said that I wanted the focus to be on the ball and then we tilt up to the boy, shot on a 85mm at T2.0. My focus puller had a hard time getting the focus right so we figured that we just didn't give a damn about the focus and focused on getting the focus right on the boy at the end of the tilt and easing everything up made it easier to get a smooth transition instead of just trying to follow such unpredictable behaviors as a ball bouncing and rolling randomly.

I'm in the line of thought that a filmmaker, whatever profession, needs to know something about the other professions on set or at least what they need. Collaboration is key and I would never just "demand focus" from a focus puller if a shot is unreasonably hard to pull off. Adapt.
 
Wide open like that you're going to buzz something. Are they wide open to make exposure? I think it's all too easy to box yourself in at 800 or above with a standard OLPF to accept "natural" light, not lighting to a stop. It think that's a mistake that a lot of ACs have to pay for.

The Sonys are good for that and so will the Helium be shooting up at 2000.

Someone said already a 2/2.8 split is going to look just as good, better really.
 
Better because it will be in focus
 
I'm an AC, with quite a few hours of work behind me.
Wide open is hard, but it's workable if you're experienced.

- You have to rehearse.
- You have to know the distance with your eyes.
- You have to work with a focus ring you know. Not on some lenses you used once, as your muscles must know the scale by heart.
- You have to use wider marks, with a big pencil, and aim on the middle, as you won't be able to check fast enough your marks.
- Use the force, yes, but also place your fingers in a way they can act as important marks. You can use tape to mark so you can feel it on your skin, but I personnaly don't like it.

- You have to use a monitor. These kind of shots were not done back in the days, so old school focus pulling only will not work. Cinetape won't as well, not accurate enough.
- Don't use peaking tools in camera, use image sharpness, or better use aperture on your monitor so it doesn't bother everyone on set. You can set it to your liking, not like in-camera peaking (on DSMC).
What I also do is If I use a 720p monitor is 1:1 scaling on the monitor, or with a 1080p, you can zoom 20% and decrease a bit the aperture.

It depends on the shot, but usually, after the rehearsal if the first take doesn't cut it, ask the DP to close a 1.8, it's day and night, easy, especially as you pratice at 1.3.
And it doesn't change contrast & exposure that much.

But T1.3 is a really cool look.
It has a different meanings depending on the shot value and angle.
This is something you have to discuss with the DP, and the director.
Because of that meaning, directors can insist on that aperture while DP could easily stop down a little and pushing the iso. It happened to me a while ago. DP stopped down, but director found WO better suited for what was inside the character. It was not only about the look.
 
I have done several steadicam shots at 1.4 in the film days.
Some of the best AC's I know combine their experience of film and digital by watching the scene and watching the monitor at the same time.
It's a skill that takes time to master.
 
There's a time and place for everything but it seems like in your situation they are just making bad decisions, pro stuff is in focus
 
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