On Thursday 25th January, we were in the Blue Shed looking at video cameras — we first looked at exposure/apertures and how they changed the depth of field in a scene. We looked at clips with very wide depths of field / smaller apertures / higher f stops, like the scene with the boy in the snow in Citizen Kane, and with shallower depths of field / larger apertures / lower f stops, giving much more separation between subject and background/foreground.
Some examples of photography with low f stops, larger apertures and narrower depths of field:
ISO 500 | 50mm | f/1.4 | 1/500s
ISO 500 | 50mm | f/1.4 | 1/5000s
ISO 500 | 50mm | f/3.2 | 1/80s
The outer two show very clear subject distinction from the background, and the middle one shows some foreground blur, with a focus much further out, across the Thames. The first two were both shot at f/1.4, and the third one was at f/3.2.
These are some shots with high(er) f stops, smaller apertures and much wider depths of field:
ISO 100 | 42mm | f/11 | 25s
ISO 50 | 50mm | f/16 | 35.4s
ISO 100 | 28mm | f/22 | 1/80s
These were taken at f/ 11, 16, and 22 respectively.
We next went out to use the cameras, shooting footage with a variety of apertures, letting in different amounts of light and creating different effects. I worked with Titilope, and we managed to have enough time to book out an edit suit to put it together — at which point, we realised we had in fact not been recording sound. We instead used music to create a different atmosphere, using Nine Inch Nails’ ‘999,999’.