What lense is she using in these interviews?

[Bruno858]

I am very interested in getting this same lens effect where the interviewee is in focus and the background is blurry or out of focus.

How is she accomplishing this?

http://vimeo.com/29513113

I have a Canon HF S21 camcorder....

thanks,
Bruno

 

[Bruno858]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP-6bC9Q3RM

So there is the result of what I did.

Originally I was going to include a bunch of interview footage which is what drew me to the idea in the first place. After looking at all the footage I got, it was clear that the quality of the interviewees and their answers just wasn't there. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with my interviewer skills too. Plus the audio was OK but there was a TON of background noise.

Anyways, that is what I came up with. I've never done anything like this before so it was a huge experience...I had to learn Adobe Premiere in the process too!

I'm still big on that shallow depth of field stuff.

Wheat - I watched that movie of the kid assasins...was pretty good haha, had me laugh a couple times. So that was all done on a HFS100 huh...pretty good.

Now that I learn more about this, I'm thinking I may have made a mistake in not getting a DSLR instead of the HFS21 (which I thought was a great camera). But there seems to be alot more flexibility wth the DSLRs. What are the drawbacks when compared with the HFS21?

Also Wheat - when the boy is running around, that "sketchy" look...that is done by increasing the shutter speed yes??

Thanks everybody!

 

[PaulGriffith]

Hey that's not bad man. Well done.

DSLR's main drawbacks are short clip lengths (about 12 minutes), poor audio, poor rolling shutter and a higher chance to overheat.

Poor audio: use an external recorder and sync in post.

Rolling shutter: not much you can do, just have to plan camera moves around it.

Chance to overheat: it has to be recording continuously for a long time or be in a hot situation. Examples, my 7D overheated during a wedding. Meant about 30 secs of downtime to cool it off. Multiple cameras though, we expected it. We also had cameras overheat shooting in 107* heat last summer. We swapped bodies out every 5-8 minutes as cams overheated.

Those are the cons. I still use one. I'm not familiar with the HFS21 in particular so I can't honestly compare the two.

 

[wheatgrinder]

with the HFS100 I could control the exposure or the shutter speed, not both. (this was my main reason for moving away from it) For most situation controlling the exposure is critical, the shutter speed, not so much. So I cant CLAIM that the high shutter speed look that came out of that running bit was on purpose, but yet, it would have been faster to compensate for the fixed exposure.. does that make sense.. Look up TV and AE settings on program cameras for more..

ALSO: Dont look back. You have a camera you can make a movie with it. This time next year, youll know EXACTLY what you want in a camera system and be able to make wise choices that will make you happy!

 

[Dreadylocks]

That turned out great! I'm glad to see you didn't let a deep depth of field stop you from making it!

 

[Wombat]

Dang, that audio was pretty noisy. Were you using the Rode Video Mic with a deadcat?

Looks good, though.

Paul listed the general DSLR shortcomings, but the Panasonic GH2 solves a lot of them. There's no limits on recording time (30 minutes on the Euro versions I think), better in camera audio (but still vastly inferior to a dedicated recording device), and slightly better rolling shutter issues. In addition, you can adapt pretty much every single lens ever made to it.

If you're just starting out, though, I wouldn't sweat it. The camera you've got is infinitely better than any camera you ain't got, so to speak. It's a fine camera to learn on and when you're ready to step up to a better camera there will be a whole new array to choose from.

 

[Bruno858]

Couple answers to that. I WAS using the rode videomic. The protests were super loud. Finally, there is so much I still need to learn about this camera... I'm sure the audio settings weren't optimal.

I don't have the camera handy...there are a few settings I can tweak. Not too sure how it all works though.