DOF Depth Of Field – Photography & Filmmaking Tutorial 15




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In this tutorial I explain what is depth of field and how you can control it. Also I break the old myth that a larger image sensor in your camera equals a smaller depth of field.

Please leave any questions you may have in the comment box below.

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30 responses to “DOF Depth Of Field – Photography & Filmmaking Tutorial 15”

  1. A lot of good stuff here Tom, however you are not exactly correct about the effect of the sensor size, on depth of field. A larger sensor does not "change the depth of field", but it will allow you to pick up more light than possible with a given lens on a cropped sensor. The fact that you have more light to film with full frame, allows you to stop down the lens and increase the depth of field, were a crop sensor would be underexposed; thereby effectively increasing depth of field. Pros don't just buy those expensive camera's for nothing. I can refer you to a couple of great videos that explain and show this in much more detail, if you like.

  2. Great tutorial but isn't light just as an important factor in determining depth of field. In the example you use you're shooting outside so that's not very easy to control. But indoors, adding more light to a shot results in a larger depth of field and vice versa.

  3. Hi Tom I want to know about the cinemascope export frames as from your Website I've downloaded black bars ping file they are same as already I was having bit why we need to keep this instead of this can we have exact frame rate as bars are 2048×1152 in any composition software it shows 2048×1080 which is the correct one and what's the exact frame for video remaining between what I found out by my way it came up to 2048×868 am I right or wrong on this please do confirm & reply me….

  4. Hey Tom thank you so much for this amazing and super well informed tutorial! Thank you and your friend for taking the time, and clearly freezing your butts off all in the name of filmmaking and filmmaking education. Keep up the fantastic work you do. If you're ever in the Austin area I'll be more than happy to provide the hot cocoa…unless its summer. Then i'll bring the bbq.

  5. Hi Tom, this makes sense! Thankyou! The only thing I am still trying to understand is if I wanted to create a slightly shallow depth of field with a wide-angle lens, how would i do it? What I have in mind is a scene that looks down a long street where the immediate closest bits are in focus and the street gets a little more out of focus as it gets more distant. I'm not talking totally washed out, as in your example with your brother, just blurry enough to be artistic/noticable. Is there any particular camera (full frame/MFT etc.) or lens combination that would help to achieve this? Or can I do this with pretty much anything? I'm considering buying the GH4 although you way that shallow depth of field is harder to achieve on smaller sensors…

  6. Tom, your tutorials are easily among the best on YouTube and I'm very grateful for all the work you've put into them. One quibble: What you say about sensor size strikes me as very misleading, because in practice it's not focal length but framing that people hold constant in going from one imager size to another. With a Canon 5D (and some ND filters) achieving shallow depth of field is trivial. Framing the same shot with a prosumer video camera with a tiny imager means using a much shorter focal length, which (as you note) yields deeper DoF.

  7. Expected more comments regarding the sensor size affecting the depth of field. I had always heard that the bigger sensor gives you greater depth of field. After you pointed out otherwise, I investigated and discovered that you are 100% CORRECT! That's why I watch your videos – you know your stuff! Thanks for all the great videos!

  8. But im using the Sony HXR-NX5 video camera which is abit similar with the canon u used and the Depth of field does not work! I dont know how? I did openup the appeture as u said and zoomin but when i'll touch the focus everything is becoming focused instead of creating narrow dof! Cause they have told me it got a small sensor and i cant do dof with that camera.

  9. Tom Antos, your series helped me better understand the filmmaking. I have one question:

    I use Panasonic HDC-SD20 and i make music videos nowadays. If i want to achieve fine DoF, i zoom all the way and i have focal length about 47mm which is pretty fine for music videos, but sometimes it's not good enough for me. Is there any equipment that i can afford for consumer camcorder like mine, such as lenses, filters or something else? Something that helps me increase the focal length or make better DoF at least? Thanks for answer in advance and i look forward to next videos.

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