I`m noticing the more you step back from the actors and zoom in then focus, the more movie-esque things look, and less like student film. Am I crazy or is there some reason for this ? Perhaps its just my tired eyes heh.

Nathan,

I suspect what you are noticing as 'movieesque' is the shallower depth of field that results from using the long end of the telephoto.

Do a search on 'depth of field' and you'll see why.

I`m noticing the more you step back from the actors and zoom in then focus, the more movie-esque things look, and less like student film. Am I crazy or is there some reason for this ? Perhaps its just my tired eyes heh.

Nope you are not crazy, that is how it is done when you don't have a 35mm lens or adapter. Camera shake is the only enemy, use tripod. Be sure to try to run your aperature full open as well. ND filters may be necessary.

Bad generalization. You don't want to shoot everything in close up. You need wide shots too.

Shallow depth of field is nice, but not everything.

Sorry, I assumed that was a given. Yes you need all the range of shots.

I think what you're seeing is a better composed shot where the subject is clearly defined. That what looks professional. Many full wide shots include all kinds of extraneous clutter and zooming in with a shallow depth of field usually helps get to the heart of the composition. But that's really an operator problem and has nothing to do with the focal length of the lens. If your composition clearly defines your subject, it will look professional, even if it's full wide, with infinite depth of field.

Akira Kurosawa created some of the most amazing cinematic shots ever seen using full wide / infinite DOF. Another example, the classic low angle close up "boot shot" of two gunfighters facing each other.

i think wideshots require more from the actual technical aspects of your production. If your shooting with a regular DV camera, a wide shot will really show the flaws of the picture your taking, as DV camera take quite low-grade images.

I've always found film to enhance a moment and make it worth watching, whereas DV presents it more as it is. If you have beautiful morning setting of a field of grass with fog drifting over it, your DV cam will capture this very well it will look good at a wide angle.

Shallow depth of field also does plenty, and this is something you get none of with wideshots when using DV. If your shooting outside, shoot in the morning and the evening, and if you have to in the middle of the day, make sure it is overcast. If your shooting inside. Spend hours experimenting with lighting, and pick somehwere that doesn't feel generic. Don't pick a house with typical kitchen, that is semi-messy. Pick something like an old, farm-style kitchen with antique style cupboards...etc. Very, very modern would also work.

I also find that most indoors shots work better with the lights off, and then use the sun your light source, and use artificial lighting accordingly.

If your trying to shoot indoors at night, using in-house lighting, good luck, this would be near impossible to shoot and make it look authentic, since your not going to get the depth of field you want, indoors limits the amount you can zoom in.

Shooting outside at night is also easier to make look good, but again you have to do a very good job with lighting. If you can't see the background, you can't tell it's not blurred out like it should be.

It's funny people say that, but look at all the "professional" films (whatever that means), they use wide shots throughout the movie. Close ups are mainly used for that emotional connection or to highlight an action... or to create an atmosphere (claustrophic etc).

Orson Welles used wide deep focused shots that looked beautiful. Definitely don't look amateur!

I think it's just the digital vibe and look that people assume to be amateurish. But if it's lit well, acting is spot on, and it is framed properly, whether it's shot on film or digital, 60i or 24p, it won't look "amateurish".

Shoot whatever strengthens or serves the story :)

I am going to say that depth of field plays a big role but lighting is what I mainly see that makes films look amateurish, by far that can kill a film look. Depth of field definately plays a big role however. Lighting can overcome much of it by focusing your attention on what is the important part of a frame just as depth and focus does.

I have done a very informal and "unscientific" study of this subject by simply watching movies and counting the number of wide vs. shallow depth shots. On the movies I watch ( which are the basic hit movies that are popular today, not the independant foreign films or classics) the shallow depth of field shots are the winner hands down.
wide shots are great when the viewer needs to see whats in the background, but otherwise I want the director (or camera operator) to actually show me what to focus on, I dont want to have to work at it!

Mark G

that true, also closer shots tend to be easier to light than wide shots, you need a lot of light to cover a huge area, or else you need to be outdoors on a weather correct day (cloudy and moody or sunny and cheerful) or else you need to start gelling and filtering to crreate the effect of sun or mood. Close ups tend to offer more controlled lighting.

Look for the music video I posted in the show your work forum. All but about 8 second of the video is at FULL WIDE on a stock HVX. It takes more skill and craftsmanship to frame a wide shot. It also takes more art direction, etc. etc. etc. A tight, shallow depth shot can masked many of these things.




ash =o)

It takes more skill and craftsmanship to frame a wide shot.For an excellent and highly entertaining example of this, watch the Cohen Brother's "Raising Arizona," shot wide by Barry Sonenfeld pretty much throughout the entire movie. There's nothing at all amateur about it, in fact, the choice of wide focal length enhances the humor, which is why Sonenfeld refers to wide-angle as the "comedy lens."

For a really extreme example, watch How The West Was Won which was shot using the 3-strip Cinerama process. The 27mm lenses on that monster of a camera provided vast depth of field and the effect is stunning. Certainly not amatuerish, I think this film redefined the epic movie genre: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/wingcr3.htm

If you haven't seen this film (I saw it as a kid in a real Cinerama theatre) it's definitely worth the watching. Unfortunately it's only available in letterboxed 4:3 instead of anamorphic though.

I always wondered what the heck those seams in the movie were from....learn something new everyday.....

I think there was a little confusion over time at the question. I didn`t mean wide versus ECU. I meant distance to the subject getting the same shot. So if its a medium shot, lets say you need to be 4 feet at full zoomed out to get it. The take the camera back 12 feet and zoom in to the same shot, gives it a whole new feel. I think the posts on the DOF were correct in what I was asking about, just thought I`d clarify it a bit.

In video, wide shots turn the background in to single "Pac Man" (the atari 2600 version, not film's coin-op version) blocks...turning distant leaves rectangular, for example. As the leaves move in the wind, you get color flutter as a pixel can only represent one color at a time, if that average color changes, the pixels seem to shimmer in the background showing off the low resoution. You can use the wide shot if you pull the DoF slightly shorter...but it won't be in focus (obviously). Most DV filmmakers get around this by framing tighter to spend more pixels per item in frame...and trying to lower DoF to blur the background pixels to get rid of the shimmer.

Remember, in film, you are capturing an image...in Digital, you are approximating it. Spend your pixels wisely...your budget is small in this case too.

I agree with all posts here and wanted to add that just like in photography, if you use a telescopic lens (narrow angle or zoom), you also change perspective thus making your subject "distorted" differently and appear more flat. also, background would appear closer with less details than if it was with the wide angle lens.

Just this will not make your work look more professional, but proper composition, distance, lighting and sound will do.

please excuse my terminology.

Here is a good link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion_(photography)

I was going to post about the same topic that victor posted about.

After getting into still photography a few years back, I really started to see lens or barrel distortion in video.

I think this is what the original poster is talking about.

Wide angels tend to round the world out. Straight lines are a bit curved.

Video cameras often have lesser quality lenses on them, so they distort more than expensive film lenses.

In Portrait photography, it is standard practice to shoot between 70mm to 110mm (full frame, 35mm image) in order to keep physical proportions correct.

After doing still work, I now see that high level film work is much the same, and lenses are chosen with perspective in mind.

pre TV Hollywood movies - far fewer close-ups.

The modern trend towards handheld cinematography favors the wide end -

For an excellent and highly entertaining example of this, watch the Cohen Brother's "Raising Arizona," shot wide by Barry Sonenfeld pretty much throughout the entire movie. There's nothing at all amateur about it, in fact, the choice of wide focal length enhances the humor, which is why Sonenfeld refers to wide-angle as the "comedy lens."

On the other hand, look at Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil," or Stanley Kubrick's "2001," for examples of movies that rely heavily (almost exclusively) on wide-angle shots to create a decidedly dramatic, not comic, effect.

...
In Portrait photography, it is standard practice to shoot between 70mm to 110mm (full frame, 35mm image) in order to keep physical proportions correct.

After doing still work, I now see that high level film work is much the same, and lenses are chosen with perspective in mind.

Excellent point - the reason is that the human brain interprets what the eye sees with a "telephoto" perspective. The actual focal length of the eye is a slightly wide angle, about equivalent to a 45mm lens on a 35mm camera. But the brain tends to concentrate on just the portion of the image that is of interest, in effect ignoring the edges of the the frame (and one of the hardest things to learn as a still photogrpaher is to pay attention to everything that's in the frame, including the edges). That means that while our optics are like a 45mm lens, our perception is more like an 80mm lens. And short telephotos in the 75mm-100mm range also tend to preserve linearity of straight lines near the edge of the frame.

"Perspective" is the relative sizes of near and distant objects and that is determined solely by the camera position. If one were to come up with a magic formula for a setup, whether with a still camera or a film/video camera, it would have one choose the camera position that establishes the position within the 2-dimensional space of the frame and the desired size relationships between the near/far elements in the scene, then adjust the lens focal length to "crop" the image within the frame so it's the right size and nothing distracting is at the frame edges. Finally, the scene is lit using the principles of chiaroscuro lighting to provide areas of light and dark that direct the viewer's attention toward the important dramatic elements within the frame.

For some reason as I was thinking about composition I just remembered a classic example of framing and lighting - the ending of the old Jimmy Durante television show back in the 50's. He'd be downstage in front of the curtain and say goodnight to the audience as he shrugged into a battered trenchcoat and put on an old fedora hat. The stage would go dark and the curtain opened behind to show a line of pools of light from stationary spots leading upstage. He'd walk into the first pool, turn to the audience, lift his hat, and say his tagline "Goodnight Mrs Calabash, wherever you are!" then as the theme and credits played out he'd slowly go from light pool to light pool, stopping in each one to turn toward the audience and lift his hat once again until he walked upstage out of the last pool and the stage went dark.