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How does an iphone get such deep focus?

H

harmonica44

Some people where I live are shooting their first short films on their iphones or blackberries, etc. I wonder how the phone gets such good deep focus. It even looks better than my Canon T2i, at it's deepest which seems to be f8.

All the characters in a master shot, are in focus, and their is no need to rack at all it looks like from the footage I have seen so far. Any way to do this with a DLSR are bigger video camera, or is an HD cell phone ideal for deep focus?

I've noticed that the phone is deep focus under much lower light as well, but if I were directing I would want enough light for deep focus, that will get rid a lot of the the noise of course.
 
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Yeah, it's more or less a pinhole camera.. not quite that extreme, but the aperture and sensor for a cell phone camera are so tiny, that the entire image is always going to be in focus.
 
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Your T2i c should let you go to f16 or even smaller, which will increase the DoF and get you what you're looking for. If you can't get there... add light. F16, Shutter 1/50 ISO 100 will require a slight bit of ND (shutter at 1/100, wouldn't require the ND), but will get you correct exposure in straight sunlight. (Google: sunny 16)

So if you're only able to open to F8, add light to get you to F16.
 
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I'm actually relatively impressed with the image quality... again, if you're considering lighting and composition with it, you'll have much better results than most people get by just pointing and shooting with it.

Like this guy who won awards at THE wedding photographer's event in Las Vegas... without telling the judges what it was shot on: http://jerryghionisblog.com/2012/05...amber-select-shots-taken-with-the-iphone.html

He had also shot with his big camera, but was experimenting to see what he could do with just an iPhone.
 
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Imagine for a second the amount of effort it took Gregg Tolland to get DoF that long in Citizen Kane... Special Lenses that would let in tons of light, altered to fit the camera he was using. Tons of light to allow them to stop down the camera to get that much DoF... we now get that for free on these things that fit in our pockets.
 
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knightly said:
Your T2i c should let you go to f16 or even smaller, which will increase the DoF and get you what you're looking for. If you can't get there... add light. F16, Shutter 1/50 ISO 100 will require a slight bit of ND (shutter at 1/100, wouldn't require the ND), but will get you correct exposure in straight sunlight. (Google: sunny 16)

So if you're only able to open to F8, add light to get you to F16.
Click to expand...

The thing is though, is once I go beyond at f8, it seems to lead to aperture diffraction. So I can't go any deep without diffraction it seems.

For master shots, I want to be able to get deep focus like this:

https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&...vieimages.tripod.com%2Fcitizenkane%2F;720;540

Can a more expensive camera get that, without aperture diffraction, or is an iphone the more worthy tool? But then again I would want a cellphone that could also shoot 24fps at 1/50. Can the iphone do that, cause it seems that the guy's using them in the movies I am helping them out on, are more like 30fps at 1/30.
 
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Have a read of this thread: How was Deep Focus achieved in film Noir and low light situations?

Trying to shoot for deep focus on a DSLR with minimal lighting is asking for trouble. Given that you aren't prepared to spend money on lighting and are apparently unwilling to learn how to use lighting, diopters and lens choice to your advantage, I would suggest shooting on a small-sensored camera, i.e. practically any other low-budget video camera.
 
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I can use lighting but I figure what's the point, when cell phone can do better than a bigger movie camera? Is their a reason to use a DSLR or digital cinema camera, when a cell phone seems to do better for deep focus under low light?

I am willing to spend the money on more lights, but I figure, what's the point, when their is a cheaper solution? I want to ask the DP I am working with to shoot a film noir-ish project with a cellphone, but he might feel insulted to use a cell over his $5000 camera. Any reason to use his camera, that is superior to the cell's image, when you want deep focus?
 
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The cell phone lacks fine grained control of image capture (the app "procam" gives you more control, and 24p)... but isn't a solution to what you're trying to do to mix footage on a couple of shots. You're looking for a different lens that has a wider range of f-stops. Do you have example images of the Aperture diffraction you're encountering when you shoot?

Specific technical reasons not to use the iphone to shoot is lack of control over edge sharpening and much lower dynamic range in your images than on your DSLR. The camera is geared to produce "quality looking" images for non-photographers. Image sharpening and contrasty, non-post processed images... or with instagram crappification filters applied.

You may shoot decent stuff initially with them, but then get tired of the limitations... and have a bevy of why can't my iPhone questions that will need answering. The answer is that the iPhone isn't made to.
 
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knightly said:
You may shoot decent stuff initially with them, but then get tired of the limitations... and have a bevy of why can't my iPhone questions that will need answering.
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D@mn, man.
You took my sunshine away.

I was looking forward to reading all of those "Why can't my iPhone do _______ ?" questions. :grumpy:
 
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Basically I want a camera that can shoot 24fps at 1/50 shutter speed, but with the ability to achieve deep focus like Citizen Kane, but at the same time, not too wide, to the point where the barrel distortion is too much, even for if the actor's are somewhat close to the camera.
 
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I said it a thousand times.

HYPERFOCAL. Stop masturbating on numbers and a fuckin iPhone.

This is a first, a guy with a camera struggling to have an iPhone look. It's supposed to be the other way around.

And don't go deep focus unless you kick ass at set design (and let me tell you don't).
 
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But it seems on neither me mr my DPs camera, we can achieve hyperfocal without aperture diffraction.

I know what you mean about the art direction going to suck. But I have to use real locations anyway, so the art direction will not be that changeable to begin with.
 
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harmonica44 said:
But it seems on neither me mr my DPs camera, we can achieve hyperfocal without aperture diffraction.

I know what you mean about the art direction going to suck. But I have to use real locations anyway, so the art direction will not be that changeable to begin with.
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Do you even know what Hyperfocal is ? It's not related in ANY way to optical diffraction.

Hyperfocal is a point in space where when focused onto, you have focus from half the distance to the hyperfocal to infinity.

It's a POINT in space, it doesn't cause diffraction. There is only one way to achieve hyperfocal and it's by turning the focus ring. And focusing doesn't cause diffraction.

The smaller the aperture and the wider the lens, the closer the hyperfocal IS. For a 16mm eq and with a f/8 aperture, the hyperfocal is at 1.68m on APS-C.

So you take a 16mm eq lens and you put on a Rebel DSLR, you close it down to f/8 and focus at 1.7m and you'll have everything in focus from 0.85m to INFINITY. That's why I call deep focus.
 
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