Differential Focusing Techniques - Experimentation

In this lesson we experimented with different lenses and apertures to see how they affected the depth of field. As the aperture increases numerically the depth of field gets deeper. This video shows the different apertures + lenses I tested:
I concluded from this that a small aperture like f1.8 makes the background very blurred and soft, bringing focus to the foreground. (Professional look also) This looks better for portraits in my opinion. With a large aperture like f22 the background and foreground are both in focus so this should be better for location photography or trying to get a shot where everything is focuses on. Additionally, with the zoom lens fully zoomed in you need to bring the camera quite far back to get the subject in frame, which can be an issue. Another thing I noticed was that the perspective changes with lenses.

FMP - 35mm Film Experimentation

Due to the fact that my magazine will be primarily photo based, I decided to test out film photography as an alternative to digital. I used some very cheap film from poundland to shoot with (AFGA Vista Plus) and I got my film processed and put onto a CD at boots for just under £10. I used the Canon EOS 300 film camera to shoot on and took it around with me for a week shooting anything that I thought would look good.

These are some of the best photos I got, unedited and edited:

I decided from this to use some film photography in my magazine. It really stands out and has a raw style and colour type that really stands out and can't be achieved in the same way with digital phot

ography. It's quite a costly alternative to digital, which is why I'll only be using it for some photos. Using film photography for some images in my magazine will really help it stand out and furthermore give off the style which I'm trying to acheive in this project. Additionally, having a limited amount of photos really helped me think about what I'm shooting as opposed to mindlessly snapping hundreds of photographs.

FMP - DVCAM Experimentation

To experiment for my FMP, I did a few test shoots using an old Sony PD170, in order to find out how easy it is to use and what results it gives. This is for usage of old style footage in my magazine advert, to provide a retro and stylised vibe to it. Here is an example of what I'm aiming to achieve by using a camera like this:

Shooting with the camera was fairly easy apart from it's weight, although this did help the shots be more stable. Something which was good about the camera was it's zoom and autofocus as it was very fast. Transferring the footage from tape to digital took a long time which was a negative of using the camera, however the footage looked unique and stylistic. Lastly the sound was high quality and sounded good, although if this wasn't the case it wouldn't be much of an issue.

Here is the footage I got when using the PD170:



After this I put some footage from the same shoot which I took on a DSLR with regular settings into After Effects and edited it to see if I could achieve an old, 90's style video effect. I adjusted the colour channels and added grain and some blur, and this is the result I got:


Overall I think that it will be easier to emulate a retro camera using effects for my FMP as opposed to using a real one. This is because it is expensive and time consuming to use tape as it all has to be transferred in real time, whereas I can specifically adjust the amount of distortion and noise etc when superimposing the effects myself. It's also a much quicker process doing it digitally myself.

FMP - Experimentation With ISO

During experimentation of my FMP I also tested the ISO settings to see what photographs are like when this is adjusted. I tried to keep the image looking the same so I could see what the ISO does. Here are the images I took:

As you can see from my test shoots, a small ISO provides a crisp, smooth image whereas a higher one gives a lot of grain. Additionally, the higher the ISO, the more sensitive the sensor is to light. From this test shoot I concluded that at most times I will use a low ISO to ensure minimal grain, however when I want grain for style reasons or in an emergency to let in more light, I'll use a higher ISO.

Image comparing ISO 100 (Left) and 6400 (Right)