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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 :)

The wide angle short depth of field shot

Christoffer Glans

Christoffer Glans

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I've been trying to find a way to replicate the 65mm feel that you get when shooting wide angle on that format. It gives this nice wide view but at the same time you enable a very short DOF creating a unique immersive look.
Is a 65mm digital camera ever going to be released (like the one Red announced a while back), or could you use the 6K FF on the dragon to get this feel if using very fast wide lenses close to a 1.0 aparture?

What's your opinion?
 
Anamorphic lenses get you pretty close to that feel. You double the size of the negative.

Nick
 
Phantom 65 Gold...?
 
Nick Gardner said:
Anamorphic lenses get you pretty close to that feel. You double the size of the negative.

Nick
Click to expand...

I haven't worked with anamorphic lenses that much, but I do find the images rather affected by it's warped bokeh, while many like the look of it, it's not something I think is good looking. A good compare between the two is seen in the Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises when it changes between IMAX and super35.



Mark Wilkinson said:
Phantom 65 Gold...?
Click to expand...

I must have missed that it got a 65 sensor, think I saw the name as the F65 which doesn't have a 65mm sensor. But isn't the Phantom 65 Gold working like the other phantoms? With a continuous recording and then a trigger for the last seconds of material?
What I mean is, isn't it rather clumsy for regular production when you don't need high speed?

Found out that Panavision has a 70mm coming, but I don't know any details or have seen any footage. http://cinescopophilia.com/details-of-that-panavision-70mm-sensor-camera-were-out-in-december/
 
5-perf 65mm is basically twice as wide so you would use twice as long a lens to achieve the same field of view as Super-35, so you'd have to shoot 2-stops more open in 35mm to match 65mm, so shoot at f/1.4 in 35mm and it will feel like f/2.8 in 65mm.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
5-perf 65mm is basically twice as wide so you would use twice as long a lens to achieve the same field of view as Super-35, so you'd have to shoot 2-stops more open in 35mm to match 65mm, so shoot at f/1.4 in 35mm and it will feel like f/2.8 in 65mm.
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So on a 65mm camera, If I use a 50mm lens it will look like a 25mm lens as of super35 equivalent? What I'm after is to achieve a shallow depth of field on a super35 25mm lens so that it resembles the same look as a 50mm lens on a 65mm camera.
All the numbers start confusing, but I hope you see what I'm after? :)

I know that it's impossible for a super35 to achieve the same look, but if there was a 25mm lens with an aparture of almost 1.0 it would be closer to it. But looking at the Dragon 6K it has almost the same size of sensor as the 5DMarkIII which I think is bigger then super35? So shooting FF 6K on the Dragon with a super fast wide angle lens would probably give as close to the 65mm camera feel as possible without going 65mm on the sensor size? Right?
 
I have faked the look of a narrow depth of field in post -- defocusing the background -- with tracking defocus windows within Baselight and/or Resolve. Of course, it's not quite the same effect as a shallow-focus lens, but at least it diminishes the impact of the background, which is the whole idea. Super-narrow depth-of-fields, like when (literally) one actor's eye is in focus and the other one is not, is most likely only achieved by lenses shooting wide open. It'd be hard to fake that look.

Many, many, many dramatic shows and commercials routinely add vignetting as well, I suspect to kind of duplicate the look of anamorphic lenses. The trick there is just in keeping the effect consistent shot-to-shot.
 
Marc Wielage said:
I have forced the look of a narrow depth of field -- defocusing the background -- with tracking defocus windows within Baselight and/or Resolve. Of course, it's not quite the same effect as a shallow-focus lens, but at least it diminishes the impact of the background, which is the whole idea. Super-narrow depth-of-fields, like when (literally) one actor's eye is in focus and the other one is not, is most likely only achieved by lenses shooting wide open. It'd be hard to fake that look.

Many, many, many dramatic shows and commercials routinely add vignetting as well, I suspect to kind of duplicate the look of anamorphic lenses. The trick there is just in keeping the effect consistent shot-to-shot.
Click to expand...

I think doing this in post creates a fake looking feel to it. I can see if the bokeh is created artificially or by the lens and the amount of work to get it to look as it should is an enormous task that isn't really viable for production with a budget.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
The slightly oversized Dragon sensor may help except that you'd have to find high-speed wide-angle lenses that cover 6K, otherwise you should just use T/1.4 Master Primes wide-open at 5K for that look.
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That's what I thought, if I use the Dragon sensor at FF 6K with Master primes (or high speed series?) it might get closer at least. Otherwise I recon that I need lenses that are made for the 65mm format? Or are there any lenses in the world made for super35 that still covers a bit over the edges of super35 (without too much vingette)?
 
First Im no expert at this, but Id guess you could check out Hastlebdad and Mamiya lenses which cover a larger image area but Im not aware of any wide and large apature lenses so Im not sure that gets you anywhere. Also if you do use a lens that covers a larger image circle but using a smaller sensor than the lens is intended for then the angle of view would be smaller than what you may want.
 
I don't understand what the big deal is, just shoot on Master Primes wide-open at f/1.4 in 5k and it will have the same depth of field as 65mm shot at f/2.8. I don't think you'll find medium format wide-angle lenses that open to f/1.4 anyway.

Like I said its just a 2-stop difference in DOF that you have to compensate for.
 
You're going to have a tough time finding medium format lenses wide or fast enough.

Here are some ideas:

All these would cover your FF sensor in a 5D mkII and thus 6k when the Dragon comes out. FOV would depend on the exact sensor.

The Canon CN-E 24 T1.5 (or the L version of this lens)
Leica Summilux-M 21 f1.4
Voigtlander 21 f1.8
 
Christoffer Glans said:
I think doing this in post creates a fake looking feel to it. I can see if the bokeh is created artificially or by the lens and the amount of work to get it to look as it should is an enormous task that isn't really viable for production with a budget.
Click to expand...
Naaaa, not if the colorist is very good. In the early days of HD when all DPs did not understand the problems with dealing with a 2/3" chip (circa 2000-2002), we did this quite often, especially in sitcoms when they were unfortunately getting unintentional 10-foot depth of fields. I think the defocus windows added a grand total of an hour and a half to the project, not the end of the world.

No question, it looks a lot more organic when done by the DP in the lens. But I'm just saying shots can be salvaged when problems like this occur. I also think there is such a thing as having too narrow a depth of field, particularly in the case I cited above where one actor's eye is in focus and the other is out, which to me kind of annoys me. I concede that it's a subjective issue.
 
Came across this Metabones Speedbooster that will give you full frame on smaller sensors like APS-C. Problem is that I can only find it for Sony's, no EF to EF mount. The sensor area used when shooting s35 is roughly the same as APS-C so in theory it would give a FF-feel shooting normally or enable you to shoot wide angle at higher framerates (on Scarlet). It also gives you one more stop by focusing the light more intensely.

Read somewhere that it doesn't work with mirror-DSLRs, but that's just ut, Scarlet/Epic doesn't have that so does anyone know more about this and why it seems it's impossible to use on a Scarlet/Epic.


Marc Wielage said:
Naaaa, not if the colorist is very good.
Click to expand...

Do you actually suggest that this is done by the colorist? In which town is the colorist so cheap that he/she have time to both do grading and advanced rotoscoping during the same job? It's not a job for the colorist and it's also not a "problem" or "error", it's a look, the look is much more advanced when done by the lens and camera then anything that could be reproduced in post. It's not just about "blurry backgrounds" and the blur effect that exists in most compositing and grading softwares doesn't look anything like what lenses do, especially in a grading suite.

The shallow depth of focus isn't like you describe if you shoot on wide angle lenses, it's relative to the FOV and at 20mm and under you can get both eyes in focus. You don't want to get too close with wide angle because it makes the faces pop out in the wrong matter. Thing here is to give the same look as if it was a closeup but have a better field of view and not create that tunnel-vision sensation that normal closeups give.
 
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