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Filters: Digital Cinematography

This document discusses digital cinematography and how cameras can simulate different film stocks through adjustments to color sensitivity, contrast, and light sensitivity. It also covers the use of filters in front of or behind the lens to enhance mood or effects, with certain directors like Christopher Doyle known for innovative filter use. Lenses are also discussed, with focal length determining field of view and perspective, and different lenses used for wide angle, normal, or long focus shots. Zoom lenses allow changing focal length within shots but prime lenses offer better quality. Aperture affects image quality and depth of field.

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Kishor Rai
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59 views2 pages

Filters: Digital Cinematography

This document discusses digital cinematography and how cameras can simulate different film stocks through adjustments to color sensitivity, contrast, and light sensitivity. It also covers the use of filters in front of or behind the lens to enhance mood or effects, with certain directors like Christopher Doyle known for innovative filter use. Lenses are also discussed, with focal length determining field of view and perspective, and different lenses used for wide angle, normal, or long focus shots. Zoom lenses allow changing focal length within shots but prime lenses offer better quality. Aperture affects image quality and depth of field.

Uploaded by

Kishor Rai
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Most of modern cinema uses digital cinematography and has no film stocks[citation needed], but the cameras

themselves can be adjusted in ways that go far beyond the abilities of one particular film stock. They
can provide varying degrees of color sensitivity, image contrast, light sensitivity and so on. One
camera can achieve all the various looks of different emulsions. Digital image adjustments such as
ISO and contrast are executed by estimating the same adjustments that would take place if actual
film were in use, and are thus vulnerable to the camera's sensor designers perceptions of various
film stocks and image adjustment parameters.

Filters[edit]
Filters, such as diffusion filters or color effect filters, are also widely used to enhance mood or
dramatic effects. Most photographic filters are made up of two pieces of optical glass glued together
with some form of image or light manipulation material between the glass. In the case of color filters,
there is often a translucent color medium pressed between two planes of optical glass. Color filters
work by blocking out certain color wavelengths of light from reaching the film. With color film, this
works very intuitively wherein a blue filter will cut down on the passage of red, orange, and yellow
light and create a blue tint on the film. In black-and-white photography, color filters are used
somewhat counter-intuitively; for instance, a yellow filter, which cuts down on blue wavelengths of
light, can be used to darken a daylight sky (by eliminating blue light from hitting the film, thus greatly
underexposing the mostly blue sky) while not biasing most human flesh tone. Filters can be used in
front of the lens or, in some cases, behind the lens for different effects.
Certain cinematographers, such as Christopher Doyle, are well known for their innovative use of
filters; Doyle was a pioneer for increased usage of filters in movies and is highly respected
throughout the cinema world.

Lens[edit]

Live filming for TV on a camera with a Fujinon optical lens.

Lenses can be attached to the camera to give a certain look, feel, or effect by focus, color, etc. As
does the human eye, the camera creates perspective and spatial relations with the rest of the world.
However, unlike one's eye, a cinematographer can select different lenses for different purposes.
Variation in focal length is one of the chief benefits. The focal length of the lens determines the angle
of view and, therefore, the field of view. Cinematographers can choose from a range of wide-angle
lenses, "normal" lenses and long focus lenses, as well as macro lenses and other special effect lens
systems such as borescope lenses. Wide-angle lenses have short focal lengths and make spatial
distances more obvious. A person in the distance is shown as much smaller while someone in the
front will loom large. On the other hand, long focus lenses reduce such exaggerations, depicting far-
off objects as seemingly close together and flattening perspective. The differences between the
perspective rendering is actually not due to the focal length by itself, but by the distance between the
subjects and the camera. Therefore, the use of different focal lengths in combination with different
camera to subject distances creates these different rendering. Changing the focal length only while
keeping the same camera position doesn't affect perspective but the camera angle of view only.
A zoom lens allows a camera operator to change his focal length within a shot or quickly between
setups for shots. As prime lenses offer greater optical quality and are "faster" (larger aperture
openings, usable in less light) than zoom lenses, they are often employed in professional
cinematography over zoom lenses. Certain scenes or even types of filmmaking, however, may
require the use of zooms for speed or ease of use, as well as shots involving a zoom move.
As in other photography, the control of the exposed image is done in the lens with the control of
the diaphragm aperture. For proper selection, the cinematographer needs that all lenses be
engraved with T-stop, not f-stop so that the eventual light loss due to the glass doesn't affect the
exposure control when setting it using the usual meters. The choice of the aperture also affects
image quality (aberrations) and depth of field.

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