Depth of Field
Everybody shooting video on location today gets asked to “make the background out of focus”, especially when shooting interviews. Well, sometimes this is easy and sometimes it is difficult…that is NOT what this article is about! This article addresses the little known fact that most professional cameras produced today have 16:9 chips and a lot of what we are still shooting is 4:3. Of course, the smaller the image sensor, the more depth of field. So, ponder this: If we are shooting 4:3 footage with 16:9 chips, whatever size those chips may be, than you are using less than the whole chip and therefore have increased depth of field over the older style 4:3 chip cameras in the same situation! The bottom line is that if you want less depth of field in 4:3, use your old 4:3 camera instead of your 16:9 camera if you have a choice.
