Professional camera technique: changing a culture of over zooming

[Jeff Cadge]

Hey Larry,

Here’s another way to explain it, like Todd said when zooming it has a flat look because the perspective is not changing you’re simply cropping the shot. With photograph the only way to change perspective between the objects your photographing is NOT to change your focal length of the lens but to change the distance you are from the subject, hence by moving the camera.

If you photograph a group of people using 3 different prime lens or a zoom using 3 different focal lengths and not change the distance from the camera to the subjects the prospective will be exactly the same in all 3 shots only the crop will change.

So when the camera dollies in or out the perspective of what you’re filming changes
making a much more interesting shot vs. a zoom which is simply cropping the frame.

Features and commercials have bigger budgets and more time to use dollies, jibs, steadicams etc.

When working in corporate with limited time and budget slower shorter zooms along with a pan/tilt move can work. Also consider a wide lens for hand held dolly shots or using a cart or wheelchair with wide lens for a smooth dolly shot. I have also stood on a sound blanket pulled by 2 Pas and got a smooth tracking shot (we had smooth wood floors).

Jeff Cadge

[Rafael Amador]

[Todd Terry] “I’m willing to bet that if you took the average video shooter and forced him or her to only shoot with primes for a week or two… they’d get better at what they do, even after you give them the zoom lens ba”
The average video maker have no time to change lenses neither money for PLs and can’t carry a dolly to get a natural camera movement.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Todd Terry]

[Rafael Amador] “The average video maker have no time to change lenses neither money for PLs and can’t carry a dolly to get a natural camera movement.”

True. That’s one of the reasons they’re “average.”

The good ones, though, find a way to make it happen. No one ever posted a question in these forums or asked for advice on how to be average. I think everyone’s goal is to be better than that… and a project full of needless zooms is one of the fastest ways to make it look amateurish and “videoy.”

Just my two cents.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Rafael Amador]

[Todd Terry] ” No one ever posted a question in these forums or asked for advice on how to be average. “
Todd, is you who mentioned “average’, no my self.

And yes, all what you say about doing things well is like that, but that is very easy to say when you live in Alabama and you have your check book and the Golden Pages beside you.
When you work alone and have to drag 50 kilos of gear by your self, things are different. You do things as you can, not as you would like to do.
rafael
PS: What makes no sense is to look for advice on “zoom on video making” in a Cinematography forum.
Is like asking “how would you cook the beef?” in a vegetarian forum

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Todd Terry]

I don’t want to belabor this, but I think you’re missing the point a bit (and just for the record, while we are blessed to have many of the things we need, we do not have infinite resources, deep pockets, and Alabama isn’t exactly Hollywood).

The issue is not having or using a zoom lens per se, that’s all fine and good. We have a number of cameras that do not have interchangeable lenses, and we happily use the zoom lenses on them. The issue is how you use them.

Just because you don’t have a dolly or a big case full of prime lenses, that shouldn’t be a license to fill productions with unnecessary zooms. I’m sure you don’t do that, I just mention it as a worst-case scenario. Just because someone only has a zoom lens, that certainly doesn’t mean you have to use the zoom function during a shot… it’s just as easy (easier, actually) to not touch that zoom rocker switch as it is to use it. You can simply use your zoom lens as a varifocal prime, and avoid zooming during a shot unless necessary or when doing so for a good visual reason that demands it.

Lets say you want a closeup of someone walking out of an office, but you also want to see the entire building to establish the location. An amateurish zoom-happy shooter might likely start with a closeup of the door, then zoom out to show the whole building. That usually looks cheap and unnatural, more like bad news footage or someone’s home movie. The same shooter with the same camera and same zoom lens might instead choose to shoot a closeup of the door (not zooming), and cut to a wide shot of the building. Much more filmic, natural, and professional. All with the zoom lens.

And as Rick mentioned, gentle zooming can be useful if you combine it with another camera move (and it doesn’t have to be a dolly move, it can be a pan or a tilt, of a combination of them), which can help “mask” the unnatural effect of a zoom alone.

Good, well executed, and needed zooms aren’t a bad thing… they can be good. It’s the poorly executed and needless ones that are bad.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Richard Herd]

Yesterday, I watched a documentary and it used a widen appropriately…a very rare occurrence. Here’s what happened.

As the VO was narrating that Katrina victims were stranded and 1,000s waited outside the Dome, the camera was on a very long distance zoom of a couple of individuals sitting on the curb. During the course of the widen, we could see the 1,000s of people. Okay, pretty cool, but…

I still believe a variable zoom and static cut treatment would be better.

[Richard Herd]

…variable prime…

[Larry Watts]

I intentionally posted here because I knew I would reach a more professional group of shooters and I received some very quotable material.

We aren’t shooting for the big screen and making features, but my predecessor allowed our shooter to zoom every shot because the boss seemed to demand it. I need to break the culture and needed some ammo.

I use zooms in certain instances with compound moves, but only when it is the best technique in the tool box.

Thanks everyone for the responses. It generated a lot of interest.

Thanks

[Bob Cole]

[Todd Terry] “watch most any film from the 1970s and they’re full of zooms.”

Very true! There are some fine films from that era, but when the lens zooms they really lose the mood. (I think “Laugh-In” used zooms for comic effect.)

The chief offense of the zoom is that it tells the viewer what is important. My first Angenieux 12-120 zoom was the devil’s toy. I have sinned in this regard quite a lot, but I’m trying to improve. I still like a slight “push” during a shot occasionally, to underline a moment.

But one of my favorite documentary moments of all time was in “The Farmer’s Wife.” Husband and wife are having a tough time economically, and maritally. They sit in facing kitchen chairs, in a two-shot. They argue. The husband is so angry that he stands up and leaves the frame. And the cameraman intuitively does just the right thing. Where many documentary shooters would zoom in on the wife’s tear-streaked face… this shooter did… nothing. He kept rolling on the two-shot, showing the wife in her chair, facing the now-empty chair across from her. Wow.

What to tell the boss? Zooms can be great, but nowadays, they’re a bit out-of-fashion, unless they really help tell the story.

Bob C

[Todd Mcmullen]

I love zooms for the simple fact of speed. I hate to halt production just to change a lens. When that happens the hair people run in, the make up people run in, the actors come out of character and the craft service person runs in with sandwiches. And if you do this 2o times a day your into an 18 hour day.
Now I am not saying this is always the case but with all the accessories on these cameras, motors for focus and iris, it is not always a quick change.
I Am currently shooting a 2 camera hand held Pilot using the Alexas and optimo zooms, and while we are not zooming during shots we are certainly able to re-frame and to keep shooting without stopping. The Actors love it.
So for me I love the idea of zooms. They also take a bite out of the sharpness of HD.
So while you may have the time to change lenses on your productions and you feel you need to change the culture of zooming, I am relying on zooms to keep the culture of employment.
cheers

Todd McMullen
Flip Flop Films
Austin
http://www.toddmcmullen.com