How to get a wide in focus shot in a normal size room

[Lee M]

This may be a newbie question but I am looking to do a shot in a standard size room where everything appears in focus. I can have the camera up to 10 feet away from the subjects. I would probably use my Zeiss CP.2 15mm lens on the Dragon. Basically I want it like what you would see shooting with an iPhone or camcorder but with Red quality.

Should I just increase the lighting so much that I can use a very wide aperture?

 

[Brandon Veen]

I think you're on the right track. It looks like there isn't much room from 10' to Infinity on a 15mm CP.2, so that combined with a lot of light will get you what you're going for.
I'd say probably test the lighting and distance sometime in a equivalent space, or that one if you have access to it, and see what it looks like.

Otherwise, keep in mind the recent iPhones have 28mm equivalent wide angles, so with your 15mm it'll feel significantly wider than an iPhone-esque shot, but that might be what you're going for.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Increasing lighting levels to get a deeper stop is a good move, and your goal is actually a smaller aperture: T5.6 - T16. Be aware that a 15mm lens has tight back focus tolerance, so getting that dialed in is recommended. WA lenses (dependent, to some degree on design) can become significantly diffraction limited at deeper stops, so T8 might actually read better than T16 despite the theoretically deeper DoF. Another thing to keep in mind when setting up the shot: most lenses have an in focus range distributed 1/3 in front of your critical focus plane and 2/3 behind it. I'd also suggest some rim lighting to define edges and increased perceived sharpness.

Cheers - #19

 

[Lee M]

Thank you! I also have a 24mm Canon CN-E lens I can try. I have some Arri style 1K fresnels and 1K flood light, I will play around with them to get rid of any shadow.

 

[Björn Benckert]

https://www.pointsinfocus.com/tools/depth-of-field-and-equivalent-lens-calculator/#{"c":[{"f":24,"av":"8","fl":15,"d":3500,"cm":"0"}],"m":1}