I'm working with the Canon xl1s and I need to film a shot where the foreground is in focus (obviously) but I need the background to be heavily out of focus, not just a little of focus. Are there any special settings / techniques to achive this using the xl1s?

Besides what you probably already know about DOF and 1/3" CCD miniDV cameras, here are two options that will work. The first one is cheaper, and garuanteed to give you as much as you want.

1) Buy or rent a giant diffuser screen and place it behind your subject. There is a specific name for this but I can't remember it.

2) Rent a Mini35 for the day.

Hi Warren,

You need to create depth of field by adjusting the aperture and shutter. I can't remember whether the aperture should be bigger or smaller though???

Another thing that affects depth of field for camcorders is the type of lens used, and how far away from your subject.

If you are using the standard 16x lens then you will need to be quite a distance away from your subject, and then zoom into frame.

Please provide us with more info...

The item that Dylan mentions is called Softscreen (http://indietoolbox.com/). This will work great for a closeup to a medium shot that doesn't require panning. A more elaborate shot will require the use of a Mini35 as Dylan also mentioned.

Regarding Ed's notes, a larger aperture is required for minimal depth of field, along with a long focal length and short distance to the subject. The shutter is not a factor in the equation except that it can be used as the exposure control since you are keeping your aperture open. However, a "heavily" out-of-focus background is a bit of a challenge with a DV camera. There have been endless discussions on this subject here at the DV Info Net, try a search.

I have used the Mini 35 in the past. Together with a good Prime lense you can obtain great DOF effects. They rent for aproximatelly $600 a day

Thanks guys for all your replies. This forum is great.

I think I will try messing around with the aperture a bit and see how it turns out.

This can also be done in post. As long as the subject in the foreground doesn't move much, a matte can be created in photoshop and then used as a reveal track or a track matte in your nle suite. The amount of feather when creating the black and white track matte will dictate how many pixels are used during the computerized camera blur. Simply duplicate the clip and place it above the clip in the timeline. Apply much blur to this second or duplicate clip. Then, the track matte shows only the portion of the clip you require to be blurred. This is very useful when you need to blur a section out like a face or license plate à la COPS on Fox.
The above refers to editing with premiere.

hmm, how heavily are you talking here? When I open the aparture all the way then crank up the shutter speed OR use a neutral density filter, that seems to make the background indistinguishable (sp?) ND filters are good for giving shallow depth of field as explained in this article
the reason being it helps keep your scene from looking like you're shooting on the surface of the sun. basically just the aparture on the camera itself throws everything out of focus except the plane of focus...someone already said that but I thought I would elaborate since Im not one to throw away $600.00 for one day, im not so lucky to have pockets bulging with cash

Yeah, I've been messing around with the aperture and exposure settings a bit and it looks like I'll be able to get the effect I'm looking for. Thanks for all the advice :)

look at options in post. If it's a static shot a feathered mask could work in a pinch...
complex masks are made easy by adding color to the area that will end up being blurry... then combining a quick bezier mask and a color selection will give you potentially a better mask.

You can also add an extender to your lens. With the Canon, not only will you increase your focal length by 1 1/2 times, you will also lose approximately 1 1/2 - 2 stops in light, thus aiding you in losing depth of field.

The closer you get to your subject, the closer you have to focus...as you focus closer, the more your background goes soft, so, once you get all of your ducks in a row, aperture, nd filters, lens size, etc., a little experimentation should give you what you want.

RB

<<basically just the aparture on the camera itself throws everything out of focus except the plane of focus...someone already said that but I thought I would elaborate since Im not one to throw away $600.00 for one day, im not so lucky to have pockets bulging with cash>>

Christopher, I know you are being facetious here, but I should point out that the method you describe will result in more than four times the depth of field than is achievable with the Mini35 given the same field of view, so it's hardly throwing away money to use such a device if the budget can handle it and a very shallow depth of field is desired at less-than-telephoto focal lengths.

This may be pretty obvious, but no one mentioned it. If you want the background really out of focus, then once you have opened the aperture as much as you can, it becomes important that the distance between you and your subject is much shorter than the distance to the background. If you are 10 feet from your subject and the background is 30 feet, you will never get the blur you want.

Good note Steve. The closer to the camera the subject is, the shorter the depth of focus (that is, the entire plane that is in focus from front to back) and thus the softer the background. The tricky part is that if you have the exact image size you seek at 10 ft (say, a medium shot), to move the subject to 5 ft and keep that size will require zooming out the camera to a wider focal length, and you are right back where you started!

<<<-- Originally posted by Charles Papert : Christopher, I know you are being facetious here, but I should point out that the method you describe will result in more than four times the depth of field than is achievable with the Mini35 given the same field of view, so it's hardly throwing away money to use such a device if the budget can handle it and a very shallow depth of field is desired at less-than-telephoto focal lengths. -->>>

Charles, sorry I came off that way but I was being serious. I understand your reasoning very much and I agree with you completely. I just wanted to be sure there were other, cheaper (although not as powerful) alternatives out on the table. I am new to this and you definately know what you're doing here so I in no way meant to offend you and apologize if I came off prudent. My choice of words was obviously at fault there.

Warren,
Lots of great suggestions here...but you may try this (very cheap)....

Put camera on tripod and get as far away from focus subject as possible and ZOOM in on subject. Try to keep the camera at f4-f5....this should get you what you wanted with camera only.

There are addtional post production techniques you can further accomplish to put the background out of focus if needed....

I think that was suggested in the third post in this thread? Either way, that's the general rule of thumb and yes, as Mark points out, it's free!

Christopher, no worries, and no offense taken. I was just clarifying for the sake of our gentle readers. As far as the money issue--I've used the Mini35 four times and never had to dip into my own pockets, bulging or not; I recommended that it be rented for certain jobs (and they weren't necessarily high budget, I had to fight for it sometimes).

For my own filmmaking efforts, I make do with the 14x manual lens and work with the extensive DOF, which actually is quite liberating in certain ways. I did a shot on a short film last weekend that required the actors to be 2 feet and 15 feet away respectively, and it was great to be able to hold both of them in focus without any additional hardware. Much of the rest of it comes down to lighting, creating layers of light and dark for separation rather than relying on shallow focus.

Sure, I'd rather use the Mini35, but my belief is that folks get a little too hung up on the DOF issue when they should be concentrating on improving their compositions and lighting.

Geez, I'm starting to sound like a crusty old codger, wagging a finger!

Charles: when you are shooting on 35mm do you have the
ability to increase the DOF we so readily have with DV? Can you
put a different lens infront of it for example? As you know, my
film knowledge isn't that great (yet).

Not as readily, no. You have to increase the exposure so that you can shoot with a fatter stop, which may or may not be feasible. For a night exterior, that can be formidable, since each stop means a doubling of the amount of light. The equivalent of boosting gain on a DV camera is to use a higher-speed film stock, which obviously takes some planning in advance.

If a scene is scheduled that requires a specific amount of depth-of-field and is either an interior or a night interior, that will be planned for in advance when the film stock is ordered and the lighting plan created. Likewise with high-speed shooting (for slow-motion effects) which requires more stop.

For the film "Mr. 3000" (due out this fall), we shot for 5 weeks in Brewer Stadium, both day and night. Since we had quite a bit of high-speed shooting to do as well as long lenses and other situations that required a decent stop, the DP decided on a 500 ASA stock (Kodak 5277) and a massive amount of lighting firepower. The top row of the stadium was decked out with some 36 18K's with electricians permanently stationed up there to pan units or switch them on or off as needed. This resulted in a useable stop of T2.8/4, which meant that we could shoot our Primos wide open at T1.4 and shoot 150 fps, or gain enough stop to hold a bit of depth on our longer lenses.

As for other effects such as the type of shot I mentioned in the previous thread, we'd have to use a split diopter or a slant focus lens to hold both characters, as well as light the room up to a high stop (as was done in Citizen Kane).

Thanks very much for the explenation. I forgot about the speed
of film stock. Makes sense!

So to add another question into the mix. I understand why you
are choosing different film stocks for different light-levels. But
even if you want a certain ASA stock you can still choose from
a variety of stocks, right? So which one do you pick? Or is it just
a learning experience and if you don't know there is certain "safe"
one to go with?

Kodak now has something like 4 different 500 ASA stocks (used to only be one!), so the choices are getting more complicated. They have gotten very good, so you don't have to worry as much about grain and milkiness as was once the case. Now the choices revolve around contrast and shadow handling. The 5277, for instance, has a particularly gradual curve in the toe (shadows). See here (http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/negative/index.jhtml?id=0.1.4.4.4&lc=en) for more info.

Generally we shoot tests before a big job to select the best stock for the job at hand.

Another interesting factor is that film responds differently depending on how you expose it, develop it and print it. Overexposure doesn't mean you lose the highlights like you do in video, but it does mean that when printed back down, the contrast will be a bit different (most choose to overexpose Eastman stock a little bit, 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop). Then there's push and pull processing, silver retention, ENR, a plethora of processing methods; and the choice of print stock as well. Plus now there is digital intermediate, allowing subtle tweaking like we are used to in the video world.

So there's lots of choices to make, hence the need to test!