I figured out why 35mm adapters are so important for DV.

[Michael Maier]

Originally Posted by Dan Diaconu

Michael, those pics were there for over 9 months now, while some pips here were screaming "Dan, why does the picture look so bad? and why is it soft"........sick of it! Email me and you will get MPIC.

Dan, I lost you here, or maybe you lost me. You do know I was making a compliment to the image, right?
Also, what you mean by email you and I will get MPIC?

[Dan Diaconu]

>>>Dan, I lost you here, or maybe you lost me<<< I can't find myself anyway, so... who cares who lost who?
>>>I was making a compliment to the image, right?<<<
Nooooo,... I wouldn't have guessed! (lol). Did you? Maan, if you will ever figure out how much fun I have here...I'm in trouble! Email me!

[Bill Porter]

Originally Posted by Marcus Marchesseault

What I'm getting at is that it is better to reduce detail with controlled focus/defocus than it is to reduce detail by having insufficient pixels. One says "video" and the other says "cinematography".

I'm just trying to quantify what I, and apparently others, FEEL when we look at images gathered with a video camera with a 35mm adapter.

I just re-read this thread and I have to say, Marcus, you hit the nail on the head with this statement.

[Oscar Spierenburg]

I also just re-read this thread and it's a interesting discussion. The sharpening of the DV camcorder was a big reason for me to make my 'double camera'.
In short: A 35mm adapter on which two camcorders film the GG.
Both camcorders are placed on their sides, one shoots the right part of the GG, the other one the left part, with a little overlap. The footage is put back in one piece on After effects.

The reason I write this is because with just two consumer camcorders I got the sharpening effect reduced 2x and it is very much worth it. It's really one of the most noticeable side effects of video.
I'm making a better 'doubleDV 35mm adapter' (or what ever I should call this thing) with a wax screen, so I'll post the results when I get there.

[Matthew Wauhkonen]

Heh, something interesting I noticed is that War of the Worlds held up beautifully in theaters, but my dvd looks "low res" compared with my Sith DVD. Grainy+deep focus+diffused highlights+blown out highlights does not match up well with NTSC. Artifacting, softness issues, etc. are all present.

The movie is still a blast, though, and beautiful.

[Oscar Spierenburg]

Maybe the DVD was just a cheap conversion from a video?

[Glenn Thomas]

Here's the reason why I believe shallow DOF footage looks better. I don't think it's about sharpening or anything like that. It's the compression that's used. If you've got a scene with a lot of detail in the forground and background, the DV or even HDV compression will be be working quite hard to maintain all that. With Shallow DOF footage there'll probably be at least half as much detail, so not as much compression will be be needed to compress what detail there is there. Meaning the detailed areas will look a lot better. I hope this makes sense?

You can try this yourself just by rendering jpeg images. The file size will always be higher for photos with more detail in them.

[Dan Diaconu]

Originally Posted by Glenn Thomas

The file size will always be higher for photos with more detail in them.

So, you mean to say that between two pics of a resolution chart; one focused at the correct distance for the sharpest image (say 3ft) and another one, this time lens focus at infinity (chart being at the same 3ft), the first one will have a higher data volume? (like 900Kb vs ? ? 600 or so?) (adapter or no adapter)

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

Ah, we've figured it out! Shoot everything out of focus for less visible compression! Perhaps camera companies everywhere can start using that as a justification for including soft lenses on their cameras.

[Marcus Marchesseault]

Easing the burden on the compressor is not the reason 35mm adapters make the image look better, but it is rather a nice side-benefit. Video simply isn't good at making distant details look good. Shallow DOF allows us to keep the foreground in good detail and differentiate it from the background. When detail needs to be seen, we can close in and give the camera a chance. Let's face it...DV, and even HDV sometimes, can't give enough detail with distant objects.

[Anhar Miah]

Just like to add that shallow DOF, gives it that "3D" quality, i.e when you have an image that is all in focus it tends to look "flat". However when looking at an image with shallow DOF it seems to give an idea of depth, I guess we relate to it in the way we see the real world with our eyes.

Try this for example grab a pen and bring it close to your eyes (not to close, say about 15-20cm away) and focus on the tip of the pen. Now while your focused on the tip of the pen, can you notice how the background is "out of foucs" ?

Anyway thought I just throw that in !


Anhar

[Marcus Marchesseault]

Anhar, that's how I arrived at my idea. We think alike. When you do the near/far focus test with your eyes, think about how long it takes to change focus. I think it is about 1/3 of a second which is probably the best amount of time to change focus during a shoot. I really think that editing and shooting techniques that mimic natural eyeball/brain processes work the best.

[Ben Winter]

As the saying goes, "Video is what the eye sees; film is what the mind sees."

[Charles Papert]

Regarding the time to take to rack focus--I wouldn't recommend putting a stopwatch on such things, there are definitely times where a fast rack is the ticket and other times where a nice slow roll is better. It's totally dependent on the energy of the scene.

One thing I will suggest is that when a foreground element (person, whatever) is exiting the frame and one wants to rack to the background, the best time to start the rack is when the exiting element is about 2/3 of the way out of the shot (i.e., "almost" out). The idea is that by the time they are completely gone the focus has shifted to the background. Often the instinct is to start the rack just as they exit the frame, but then the audience is subjected to an out-of-focus frame that seems to roll into focus late.

[Glenn Thomas]

Originally Posted by Dan Diaconu

So, you mean to say that between two pics of a resolution chart; one focused at the correct distance for the sharpest image (say 3ft) and another one, this time lens focus at infinity (chart being at the same 3ft), the first one will have a higher data volume? (like 900Kb vs ? ? 600 or so?) (adapter or no adapter)

My observation is based on my experience compressing photos for the web. The more detail, the larger the file size needs to be to retain that detail. I've even read an article about it. Since DV and HDV are compressed formats, I'm sure there would be a similar difference. Probably not as noticible of course, as the standard compression usually does a good job in most cases. But I've had DV footage of bushland and areas with plenty of detail. They can look a mess if you examine them up close due to compression artifacts and so on. But a blurred background visible in a shot with a shallow depth of field won't require anywhere near as much compression. So the compression no longer required for the background can then be used to enhance the foreground detail even more. which wouldn't have been possible with the highly detailed background. I hope this makes sense.