Tue Jul 17, 2018 6:28 am
When feasible, focus near your widest aperture where you want critical focus; stop down and get a feel for how much movement you can have and keep good focus (perhaps simply with a DOF app or) having the subject move. If you pull focus during a take, practice your movement while checking focus. I don’t have a conventional follow focus as I focus with a Chrosziel Fluid Zoom control so its good to get a feel for the movement of the handle that’s required as it doesn’t have user set hard stops.
Use focus assist/peaking on a medium setting. Be careful though that the peaking is not deceiving you on closeups as it peaks where there’s contrast typically edges. If you shoot wide-open up close with a fast aperture, you may have the wrong part of the face or hair in focus. Using a black and white object with edges if you wanted to be very certain.
In a controlled shoot, you’ll be fine even with a fast aperture. When you don’t have control over all aspects, it’s more exciting when you manage to nail it most of the time anyway! Using wider angle lenses helps in the latter use case if appropriate to your needs.
Shoot in the sweet spot of your lens which typically may range from one or two stops below fully open and another two or three stops down. If you use a T2 lenses, shoot around T4-T5.6 ideally but could be T2.8-T8.
Control lens flare regardless of how the subject is lit. Very beautiful when you want it, but certainly distracting if unwanted and may destroy you intended image.
Don’t rely on lenses that are too sharp or too contrasty! Surgical precision will get in the way of your human subjects communicating what you want instead of your viewer counting nose hairs.
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Rick Lang