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The Pros And Cons Of Shallow Depth Of Field

A corrective to the assumption that shallower is always more cinematic, working through what deep focus buys — staging in depth, a legible world, and a frame that can hold more than one idea at a time.

In Depth Cine · 14 min · Intermediate · CIN · Cinematography · 2023

What you take away

Shallow focus solves composition by deleting it; a deep-focus frame has to be staged, which is why the great deep-focus films are the ones that reward rewatching.

Watch it

Filed under

Oscar winners for cinematography

Books on cinematography

Kit for this lesson

Canon RF 50mm F1.2 L USM — The portrait-adjacent normal
Helios 44-2 58mm f/2 — The swirly Soviet prime — a look for the price of a meal
Canon FD 50mm f/1.4 — Warm, cheap, and everywhere — a first vintage prime
Minolta MC Rokkor 58mm f/1.4 — Glowing highlights wide open, pin-sharp stopped down
Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II — The standard zoom most FX bodies wear
Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II — The wide end of the same set

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