Depth of Field Part I: Circles of Confusion

Here's the first video in a series I'm going to do on depth of field. I really want to get into the nuts and bolts of how depth of field works and how to control it. To that end, I think the place to start is with circles of confusion, a concept that informs almost every other aspect of DOF. As always, please feel free to comment if you have any questions!!!

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Depth of Field
• Circles of Confusion
• DSLR
• Video
• Canon
• Camera
• digital
• video technique

[p4ulz1]

Really enjoyed this video but I may have to watch it a few times more. Im currently studying with the Photography Institute and on the 2nd module where I study about depth of field and circles of confusion. This will help big time!! Thankyou very much!

[StrayAngelFilmsInc]

@p4ulz1 Thanks for your feedback. I'm glad it's helping with your photography study. Yeah I know, I did put a lot in this video. I try to keep them simple, but there's a lot to this stuff. Let me know if you have any questions. -- Josh at Stray Angel

[StrayAngelFilmsInc]

@stantla So. It think I may has misspoken myself a little in the video. I used the term circle of confusion a little too loosely and may have created some...confusion. In technical terms the circle of confusion is the smallest size a point source of light can be as it hits the sensor and still appear as point source, this is a function of the sensor, rather than the light and thus applies to film as well.

[StrayAngelFilmsInc]

@stantla

The best way to think of it is this: the camera/film have a circle of confusion. It can be tenths of millimeters across or hundredths. In the case of a digital camera, it is the size of the pixel and in a film camera, it's the size of the grain of film. Going off this, the circles of light created by out of focus point sources of light are not technically circles of confusion but serve to illustrate the concept very well.