GL2 Question: Depth of Field

[Jolie Skidmore]

Hi. I'm fairly new here, but I was impressed by all the answers to my other question, so I thought I'd give it another shot. (Thanks, by the way.)

Is there any way to increase the depth of field in a shot when using the GL2? (In other words, make the background very blurry while the subject is in focus.)

I know that the focus controls do this somewhat, but I wish for the background to be even more blurry, like we see on the big screen (if it's possible). I've worked with the AV mode, but it does strange things with the color and it doesn't give me the results I want.

Is there a lens or accessory I can purchase to achieve this effect?

Thank you all so much for your help. I am very appreciative!

Jolie

[Jean-Philippe Archibald]

- Zoom in a lot
- Shoot fully manual with the iris wide open (little F stop)
- Use Neutral density filters to help keeping your iris wide open

- read this excellent article from Jeff Donald about the Depth of field.

[Ken Tanaka]

Jolie,
For future reference, you are trying to decrease the depth of field, not increase it.

There are thousands of posts on the subject here. Run a Search for a boat load of info.

Jean-Philippe's response, however, concisely summarizes the practical issues very well. Small-chip camcorders have limited capabilities in this regard.

[Jolie Skidmore]

Thanks Jean-Philippe and Ken. I appreciate the responses. I will definitely run a search.

I must admit that I'm a new GL2 user, and that I've never had instructions on how to use it to the best of its capabilities, so I have a lot to learn. So it's decrease, and not increase, huh? That's good to know. Thanks.

I looked at the article Jean-Philippe posted a link to. It was helpful and detailed, but I don't understand all the terms in it. Does anyone have advice for a beginner? Sorry to sound so naive.

Thanks again, everyone.

[Ken Tanaka]

Beyond what Jean-Philippe has already offered, the best advice I could offer you is to spend a lot of time practicing. Don't just start out swinging the camera at anything that moves. Practice using the camera in Manual exposure mode and Manual focus mode. Set it up on a tripod, adjust your settings, take note of the settings, then shoot short clips. Review the clips along with the settings you used to shoot them. After shooting/reviewing ten or so practice tapes in this structured manner you should begin to develop a pretty good intuition of how the lens, iris and shutter interact to record an image.

[Jeff Donald]

Post a question about the terms you don't understand and I'll try to help.

[Rob Lohman]

Or better yet use our search first to try and find explenations
to the terms you don't understand (a lot has been explained
before!). If you can't find it or don't understand, post away!

[John Heskett]

I have also noticed that in addition to all of the above, if I light/place the area to be in the background in low light and the foreground/main subject well saturated the effect is more pronounced. A red or blue lighting to the background also seems to help.