Bokeh in movies

[jcorll]

I was watching several different movies this weekend, and i noticed that in different movies the bokeh either had angles or was just a smooth circle.

The shots with the angled bokeh, does that mean it was shot with film?
and the bokeh with the smooth circles shot with digital?

I hope this is the right place to post this.

 

[jcorll]

oh. the movies were the Borne Ultimatum and Into The Blue 2. ( I think)

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

No, the shape of out of focus highlights depends on the shape of the aperture and the visual characteristics of the lens.

There are CGI effects for simulating the optical characteristics of lenses like the shape of out of focus highlights and bokeh, which refers to the general way that the out of focus area of an image is rendered and not only the rendering of unfocused highlights, but in a live action film without special effects it seems unlikely that CGI effects would be used to imitate something that would be a natural part of the image.

 

[nickandre]

Anamorphic lenses are used with film to shoot with the squarish Super 35mm standard in order to get the widescreen effect. I forget the ratios. The lens squishes the image horizontally to fit the frame. Since it's aperture is oval shaped, you see some of that in the image. I think that means Bokeh and some flare. My theory at least.

 

[wildbill]

I was watching several different movies this weekend, and i noticed that in different movies the bokeh either had angles or was just a smooth circle.

The shots with the angled bokeh, does that mean it was shot with film?
and the bokeh with the smooth circles shot with digital?

I hope this is the right place to post this.

Those movies were shot on film. The vast majority of movies that make it to the theater were shot on film. Most interior work is typically shot around a 2.8 for spherical lenses, and closer to f4 for anamorphics since the focal lengths typically used are longer in comparison and the lenses not as fast(that's another story). Day exteriors are shot with neutral density filters to bring the stop down somewhere in the middle 4-8ish. Much of the Bourne movie you speak of was shot with nikon zoom lenses converted to pl mounts on handheld cameras. I read that a while back.
*igital Cameras like the RED and Genesis from panavision use the same lenses and large sensors similar to those of a 35mm movie camera so the bokeh can be similar. Zoom lenses are use most often (usually panavision 25-250 or the angenieux 25-290 both 2.8 maximum aperture). Prime lenses typically open up to a 1.4 or 1.9 and start out around $10,000 each, both zeiss and cooke beeing the most popular for PL mount cameras and panavisons being the only lenses available for panavisions lens mount.*

*unless your steven soderburg who has his RED set up with a panavison mount. I'm not gonna touch the D word here.

 

[DamenS]

Yes - mainly the shape of the aperture ... Zeiss Prime cinema lenses have the same optical formulation as the Zeiss ZF/ZE series SLR lenses, but rounded aperture blades (and 14 instead of a smaller number - more blades tends to make it easier to have round rather than hexagonal opening). The other influence is the size of the aperture opening - the larger the aperture, the more circular the blades are (and the more they are out of the way - diffracting less).

 

[DamenS]

By the way - you can tell how many aperture blades the lens has when the bokeh is no circular, by counting the number of sides in an out of focus highlight (hexagon = 5 sides etc)

 

[Steve Smith]

By the way - you can tell how many aperture blades the lens has when the bokeh is no circular, by counting the number of sides in an out of focus highlight (hexagon = 5 sides etc)

And I thought hexagons had six sides!


Steve.

 

[eddym]

And I thought hexagons had six sides!


Steve.

It's the recession! Everything is being cut back!

 

[DanielStone]

good one Eddy !

-Dan

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Yes - mainly the shape of the aperture ... Zeiss Prime cinema lenses have the same optical formulation as the Zeiss ZF/ZE series SLR lenses,

I would say "similar" instead of "same" because the cinema Zeiss lenses are also optimized for size and T-stop, and probably colour rendition and plenty of other features as well.

It's amazing that they managed to make an entire series (Master Primes) of focal lengths with the exact same superlative T-stop (1.3 !!), and the exact same physical dimensions to facilitate the work of focus pullers. It's hard to find anything comparable in still photography, but then we don't need $20,000 lenses either to make a good 8x10 !

http://www.zeiss.com/cine