Basic Camera Set-up and Pull Focus

Details

So we go back to the origin of the camera techniques that have been discussed here so far, and that's how cameras actually work and some of the basics of the industry of cinematography / photography in order to get an understanding of what there is and how it works together.

With that lets look at a role which is a necessity in the actual area. The Director of Photography or DP for short.

Now the Director of Photography is basically someone who takes charge of all the cameras and shots, so they decide the lighting and camera positions and mis-en-scene before doing either multiple pictures or takes before changing things or moving onto the next, But they cover much more like understanding the script to get meaning from the shots that they take, they also have to work fast but precise as there will be time and budget restrictions.

This doesn't mean however that it's all stress and worry, DP's make their own styles that can become iconic and have its own fan following. So long as they understand the basic rules of lighting and camera movement and techniques then they can manipulate them to suit their style best.

Now on to some camera and photograph basics.

First thing to think about is Lighting, the sun is the biggest brightest light thing known anywhere so if the settings that you have when you take a photo in the sun produce a seemingly normal photograph then in lower lighting (such as with a dim bulb) then the image will appear underexposed giving it an entirely different meaning.

The next thing to look at is the Aperture, this blocks or allows light to enter the lens, so the narrower it is then darker the image and vice versa.

A third thing is Shutter Speed, now when people say frame-rate they think it's actually related to the shutter speed. This is not true, what shutter speed actually manages is the length of exposure that each frame has so for example a 1/50 would be one frame every fiftieth of a second.

The last thing is a bit more complex. In a camera (video to be specific) there's a chip inside called the CCD chip which acts as an almost grounding agent for the image being recorded, now this works in a similar way to the aperture in terms of exposure in that if it becomes sensitive to lighting then it will still make bright images but from smaller sources.

This diagram can probably explain this concept better than me:

Now, with those covered we can talk about pull focus. This is a method where by you pull the focus of the camera from one thing to another like maybe a character from the foreground to the background or vice versa. Below is an example from the 1987 release Predator:

Here we can see some characters in focus (background) motion to Arnold Schwarzenegger's character and the camera changes focus to reflect this too as the audiences focus is now back on him rather than the previous character.

I went out and tried to get my own example of a pull focus in a less noisy way, below is the footage that I managed to capture:

In this footage you can see a bit clearer than the Predator example the actual transition mid-shot between the two areas of focus. Now for a good set-up to get a similar results you would need to use what I like to call the 'Default set' which is just standard settings for the camera to get the best shots possible.

For example adjusting your light meter (seen below) to the perfect setting so it's clear what your changing it to.

In order to do this type of change in focus, with a standard DSLR Canon just adjust the focus ring around the outer edge of the camera until you get that change. It might be worth while practicing a few ties so that you can make sure you get the clean transition between them.

Hopefully this has helped you understand your camera's a bit more and taught you something that you didn't know.

Have a great day.