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April, 2024

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Focusing and Gildecam

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Jakelapham
Posts: 139 - Karma: 2,657
This may seem like a rookie question, but how to videographers keep the skier in focus when skiing with a glide cam or something similar? Surely they are not manually adjusting focus as they ski.
Jan 7 2014 10:18PM
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NickVentura
Posts: 243 - Karma: 1,229
Many people shoot with a wider lens like the 11-16 when it comes to follow cams. You can set the focus to infinity and also set your aperture to around f8-11 which would keep everything in focus
Jan 7 2014 10:24PM
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eheath
Posts: 61161 - Karma: 118,906
Setting your focus to infinity is a bad technique. Infinity focus is for shooting stars, the sweet spot for deep focus is right below infinity and running f8-f11 no higher than 16-20 tho
Jan 7 2014 10:43PM
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Jakelapham
Posts: 139 - Karma: 2,657
Okay cheers, I will look into that!
Jan 7 2014 10:59PM
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NMMedia
Posts: 982 - Karma: 1,696
Either tracking AF for me (sony translucent mirror so its lightening fast) or you use your aperture to have a large field of focus and you just have to stay within a certain distance of the subject
Jan 8 2014 2:11AM
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Lou.
Posts: 1787 - Karma: 3,876
High aperture.
Jan 8 2014 7:20PM
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2strahm4u
Posts: 15 - Karma: 273
You do not want to try to adjust focus while filming with the glidecam. Before you shoot, put your shutter speed to 2.5 times your frame rate. Jack your aperture up. Adjust your iso to a non grainy level where you can use your aperture to adjust exposure. I usually keep it in between 9 and 16.
This way everything is in focus and you won't have to worry about focusing. This doesn't work if you are shooting anything close up.
Jan 9 2014 4:57PM
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raymondcabral
Posts: 747 - Karma: 1,094
This!!! exept I put my shutter speed at twice my frame rate.
Jan 9 2014 5:55PM
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2strahm4u
Posts: 15 - Karma: 273
The reason I do 2.5 is when I shoot in 60p I want that super milky slomo
Jan 11 2014 11:00AM
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