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ex-3 shallow depth of field quest
I shoot a lot of interviews with an ex 3 and would like better results when I hope for shallow depth of field. a Fuji ACM-18 adapter came with the camera ( now nearly 10 years old ). Does anyone have any suggestions for lenses that would match that adapter ? Am I better off switching to different adapter to give me more options ? Can I use lenses that are actually designed for still work ? Finally, what price ranges will I find when researching this ?
Thanks
b
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3 Replies
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quick search turned this up:
Using a different lens won’t make much difference to the DOF on an EX3 because it’s the camera and not the lens that’s the limiting factor. Image sensor size plays a huge part in narrowing the DOF along with iris position and the amount of zoom used. The larger the imager the more narrow the depth of field can be dialled in. Also, the wider the iris opening the better (lower F stop number). And as you’ve pointed out the farther away from the background the talent is the better.
The EX3’s 1/2″ sensors are going to need some help from you setting up the camera to get the most out of the desired shallow DOF.
Open the iris to F1.8 and then adjust the lighting to get proper exposure i.e. using less light.
If shooting in daylight then use the camera’s ND filters to cut down the amount of light entering the lens.
Increasing shutter speed also cuts the light amount because there’s less time for the it to hit the sensors.Move back as far as you can from the talent and then zoom in to frame the head/shoulders shot. Iris as wide as possible then do a manual focus. See how that works. It’s tough getting a shallow DOF with 1/2″ imagers, especially when space between talent and camera is limited.
– Don
Don Greening
A Vancouver Video Production Company
Reeltime Videoworks -
Don, as a past user of the EX 1 I totally agree. In going to the Z150 with its 1″ sensor I figured that I’d get a much shallower DOF. Not so I’m sorry to say! The problem is that as you increase the focal length (zoom) the aperture ramps so at any reasonable tele end of the zoom the maximum aperture available is f4, ridiculous. On the other hand there is a big advantage in that the sensor is so good you can up the gain as high as 15db and still get wonderful pictures, thus minimising the disadvantage of the f4 limit. This of course doesn’t help with DOF though.
Michael Slowe
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I believe one reason why you see aperture “limitations” on some of the newer cameras is that large sensors do require more light. This is one reason people opt for interchangeable lens cameras where one can use either “fast” primes or expensive fast zooms (which don’t nearly have the zoom range on fixed lens cameras).
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