Depth of Field

Depth of Field:

Before setting out to achieve a certain depth of field, there are a few things on the camera that must be changed in order for it to work and for the best result.

- Settings: the camera must be set to manual [P] on a XM2 camera.
- The manual/focus must be set to on, and this will appear in the viewpoint screen.
- White Balance: this needs to be set to either natural or artificial light depending on where you are filming.
- Exposure: Shutter Speed: slow right down 1/50
Aperture: opened up as far as it can go.
Gain: can be adjusted to brighten and contrast the footage.


To gain camera experience and to get us used to working in a filming environment, we experimented as a group with Depth of Field around the college. By doing this, we now have the knowledge of how to use the camera properly, and were able to test out the settings to get the desired result. Below are the images were captured back from our filming to practise using depth of field.

This is the first shot we took before filming, and by using a clapper board it makes editing a lot easier. We did this to get us used to working professionally and called out the shot before starting to film. When filming our actual video, it would be beneficial to do this, because we could keep a list of the shots that worked well, and the shots that didn't and this means we would be able to find them quickly.















The two images below are example of images taken from the camera that did not work. When trying to achieve a good depth of field, we wanted to have the subject in the foreground in foucs, whilst the subject in the background is out of focus. From doing this, it is clear to see that in these images, either both subjects are either slightly out of focus or they are both completely out of focus, and this is not what we set out to achieve.
To make this better, we found that the distance between the two subjects and the camera is crucial, and so we increased this distance when using the 'pull focus' on the camera to try and get a better overall depth of field, and to have the right focus on the right subject.














After having a few attempts at getting it right, we managed to get a few really good frames, and achived our required result. From these two images, you can see that the subjects in the foreground is in full focus and the subject in the background is out of focus. This was achieved by setting the camera to manual and adjusting the pull focus and as I have previsouly said, this was achieved by increasing the distance between the subjects and having the subject in the front as close to the camera as possible, and the subject in the background back as far as they could, but still making sure that their features and body positition could be seen.