In this week’s practical class, we learned how to control the depth of field. The task was to film two portraits with one of them having the shallowest depth of field that could be manipulated to and the other was the greatest depth of field.
We decided to have two people in the frame so it’s easier to see the comparisons in depths of field and compare the changes.
In the first portrait, Jacky and Brews took up the camera and Dan and I sat on separate benches to be filmed. To achieve the shallowest depth of field, they set the focal length at 81.2mm and aperture at f1.9 and the ND filter at 2 and the gain at Large.
In the second portrait, we swapped positions and filmed with the greatest depth of field we could achieve. We set the focal length at 5.8mm and the aperture at f16 and applied no ND filter with the gain at Large. We filmed again because the first clip was not entirely focused on Jacky’s face. In the second shot, we used same setting as the previous one and we adjusted the focal point so the subject’s face is clear.
We had a little fight over whether we should move the camera closer to the subject or further away to achieve the greatest depth of field but it all worked out and no one got hurt physically.
In the clips where Jacky is sitting in the foreground and Dan in the background, the lighting was dappled and soft compared to the strong, intense lighting in the clip where Jacky is sitting in the foreground and Brews is in the background. In terms of aesthetics, I found the serendipity of the boys all wearing black/gray clothes while the rest of the people in the frame not wearing dark colored clothes created a weird sense of harmony, connecting the foreground and the background, accentuating themselves as the main subjects and making a strong contrast with the bright yellow benches and tables.
On the weekend, I decided to take my camera with me while hanging out with my friend and explore the characteristics of outdoor lighting. I mentioned how lighting was an expensive thing to manipulate in my previous posts, and if this activity was to have a purpose, that would be to find places where lighting is naturally nice. I mean, if film is light, photography is most definitely light as well.
This photograph was taken in a 7-11 on Elizabeth Street. The lighting inside is cool white fluorescent with the color temperature at around 4000k – 5000k. The lighting outside is daylight with color temperature at around 5000k – 6500k. The shooting mode was set to Av which stands for ‘Aperture Priority’, and is used mostly for daytime and when there’s plenty of light as the camera would automatically adjust the shutter speed for each shot to achieve proper exposure. The ISO is set to 3200, which is a quite high level of sensitivity to light, which makes the outside light to look a bit blown out. The white balance is set to Tungsten setting and theoretically it’s not a suitable setting. Usually, to get the normal white balance under fluorescent lighting, it should be set to Fluorescent setting but the blue tone really made it stand out from all others. I took several photographs each with a different setting on white balance, and this one, without any filter applied, has a natural cinematic sense in it.
This photograph was taken in Melbourne Central Station. When I was walking around I noticed there’s red and white fluorescent light tubes hanging on the ceiling and my instinct told me that this must be a good place to take photos. So I pulled out my camera and asked my friend to take one for me. It turned out to be exactly like my prediction, the tone was warm and the key to fill ratio was nice. There’s naturally diffused lighting coming from the right of the frame, there’s red and white (which looks orange) fluorescent lighting from above and there’s warm toned lighting from the restaurant on the left of the frame. The camera was still set at Av and ISO 3200, only white balance was change to AWB. I know using auto white balance is to be avoided but my friend didn’t know that much about operating a camera and we’re late for the film already. Sometimes AWB will do just fine.