Depth of Field

Depth of Field

Depth of Field is something that was unknown to me before I researched into the field. For me it is a difficult concept to grasp but eventually it is understood and I feel able and confident to utilise it fully in my film.

The Aperture size is changeable and this affects the F-stop. The F-stop is the number that you set on the camera to change from shallow to deep focus and it is mathematically worked out by dividing the Focal length of the lens by the Aperture Diameter.  The Aperture is the size of the hole that lets the light in. In algebraic terms that equation is represented by N = F/D.

A general rule is that the bigger the aperture the shallower the DOF because the F-stop is smaller and with a shallower DOF there is more Bokeh. Then obviously the smaller the aperture the deeper the DOF because the F-stop is higher, therefore there is less Bokeh.

As you can see from the example above the focus shifts from the foreground subject to the background subject. This is practicing focus shift which is useful to integrate into my final product because it shifts audience focus and also creates more of an unusual shot. Normally focus shifts are made by cutting between different shots but utilising the focus shift in the same frame is more niche and interesting.

Typically focus shifts are found in more independent and niche movies, like 500 days of summer for example. In smaller arty films such as 500 days of summer focus shifts are used frequently as they are more of an art form camera shot.

This is useful research to me as I am making a smaller niche film without a large budget so focus shifts are vital to create an interesting and audience interactive product.