Yes it has...

But it is still following the topic of Shallow DoP. But I already have my answer... So, thank you!

~Gabriel

I'm a visual type... can someone post pictures of the difference between deep and shallow focus? It'd be great to actually put a visual to the technical jargon. THANKS!

Hear you go.

First is Shallow Depth of Field. Second is Deep Depth of Field.

here's another deep focus example from Kurosawa's Redbeard.

http://www.davidmullenasc.com/redbeard1.jpg
every character from the foreground to the background is in focus.

and a shallow focus example from La règle du jeu.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...09_kitchen.jpg
The wall behind the couple and the figure in the background are subtly out of focus.

Often people associate deep focus with wide angle and shallow focus with wide angle shots (as in Kevin's examples above) but you can see in these two cases it is in fact reverse, the Renoir shot is wide-ish and the Kurosawa shot is longer.

Dylan, what a great example. I remember that scene in Redbeard. When the nice basket weaver with the questionable past dies from tuberculosis. How do you think Kurosawa got that much DOF for that scene?

Ouchh. I am truely embarrassed.
While we are so OT, I'm gonna throw out that Touch of Evil is my fav OW film. Great shots a story and acting. A natural hatrick by the big guy.

Well he stopped down to f22, must have been lit liken the surface of the sun! Also the characters are all quite far from the lens and not in close up, so he probably focused to infiting, then figured out how far in he could get sharp focus, then worked out his staging from there. There's no special magic just meticulous craftsmanship.

Kurosawa was a master of fulling the scene with detail. In Sanjuro, if memory serves, there's a 10-shot! Everyone lined up behind Toshiro Mifune, in focus, Widescreen anamorphic at that!

Drifting way off topic now...
 

Now are we talking Kiyoshi Kurosawa? Or Akira Kurosawa?

Akira Kurosawa is cool... I did not know he made so many movies!

~Gabriel

One of the reasons we see so much shallow DoF and talking about shallow DoF is examplified by the 2 pix above of the birds. Small format Digital camcorders have a VERY limited number of pixels to represent data...example...Pacman on the atari 2600 was much blockier than Pacman in the arcade. The long DoF shot above "looks" digital because the leaves are each being reduced to a single pixel in the background...making them rectangular.

Film has a much higher resolution due to smaller grain (pixels) than digital...even 8mm has more resolution than most digital...8mm is considered to be 1000 Horizontal lines of resolution...broadcast NTSC is 525, NTSC DV is 640...the first digital to compare to film for real is HD, but it's compressed which removes some information for storage...making film win again (until you compare cost)!

In order to maximize the pixels we're given in a digital camera, we push in to hide the background and maximize represented detail in our subject, so tighter framings...and we blur the backgrounds so the trees don't have rectangular leaves. Yes it's prevalent...and thankfully so. Watch some DV footage with long DoF sometime, and it screams DV at you. Watch Shallower (even just a bit) DoF footage, and the lines start to blur a bit (pun intended).

Thank you Cole, for that excellent insight!

Now I wish I had a HI8 camera back, hahaha! I never thought I would say that..

Love the Pacman comparison. ;)
~Gabriel