4 ms·
The problem with the "fast" lens approach used in Barry Lyndon is there's a tradeoff between how much light you let in and how much of the scene is in focus (ke
by wl 10y ago
The problem with the "fast" lens approach used in Barry Lyndon is there's a tradeoff between how much light you let in and how much of the scene is in focus (keyword: "depth of field"). If that works for whatever mood you're trying to create, great. But that's not always what a director is going for. You can mitigate this by letting less light in and using more sensitive film or overdeveloping ("pushing" is the term people use) your film to compensate, but that might lead to more film grain than you'd like.
You can use "fast" lenses on digital cameras, too. The benefit is that if you're using increased sensitivity on a modern digital sensor, the noise you get is usually less noticeable than you'd get with film.
- ghaff 10y agoApparently one of the "tricks" in Barry Lyndon was that the actors had to be coached to move in very specific planes so that they would remain in focus. Sensor sensitivity is IMO one of the underappreciated aspects of digital--especially with full frame sensors. I can attend an event and shoot at ISO 3200 (or higher with newer cameras) at a fairly fast shutter speed and expect quality still photos. Back when I was doing photojournalism, something around 1600 was the fastest you could push even black & white film and still have usable results. (And those were still a compromise.) For color slides, 200 was close to the limit--and that was a compromise.