# Can somebody explain this depth of field?



## CDAPhoto (Oct 15, 2018)

So was just watching Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, and this scene kind of had me confused about how it was composed... If you look at the left side of the screen it looks like it was shot at a very wide aperture; on the right side where the casket is it looks like the aperture is very small which would extend the DOF. The women's hair in the center of the shot is out of focus when it clearly shouldn't be, and observing the rest of the scene it looks impossible for this to be one shot, was it put together post?


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## vintagesnaps (Oct 16, 2018)

Maybe a split diopter like in 'All the President's Men'. If you look at scenes in that movie that were filmed on the Washington Post newsroom set you can see where basically half the image coming in thru the lens was focused on the foreground, and the other side was focused on the background. So you can see in scenes for example objects/people on one side in focus closer to the camera and others in the distance on the other side in focus. 

If you know to look for it in the scenes shot on that set, you can see sometimes where the focus changes along a row of posts going from front to back of the room.

Near the end you can see a TV in front in focus (and notice the other actors to the left behind the TV who are out of focus), and Redford and Hoffman in focus to the right at their desks.


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## 480sparky (Oct 16, 2018)

vintagesnaps said:


> Maybe a split diopter .........


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## Derrel (Oct 16, 2018)

I was thinking the same thing...possibly a split diopter filter. These were very popular in the 1970's and 1980's, as a way to do "special effects" photos...one classical advertisement concept was a window frame inside a house, with the close-in window frame zone in sharp focus AND the background outside, very distant, also in crisp focus. Before the advent of tiny-sensored smart phone photography, deep depth of field shots were tough to do, unless one had a view camera, camera movements, and/or a lens that stopped wayyyy,way down, like to f/90 or f/128,etc..

Split focus shots were,at one time, "a big deal" to some film directors. here's a supercut of some classic split focus movie scenes.


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## RacePhoto (Oct 30, 2018)

Interesting effect, which I'd probably never used in 50 years, but I'm starting to think of ways I could.


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## Braineack (Oct 30, 2018)

what's to say that's one camera shot?


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## birdbonkers84 (Oct 30, 2018)

It’s most likely two different shots comp’d together for that scene, with how good vfx technology is now I would be very surprised if they used something that was popular in the 70s/80s. Could try researching the production company behind the series and see if the have a vfx breakdown of each particular episode.



Sent from my iPhone using ThePhotoForum.com mobile app


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## CDAPhoto (May 13, 2019)

Just confirmed, it’s been a while but yes it is a Split Diopter.


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## JBPhotog (May 14, 2019)

Similar effects can be obtained with a Tilt-Shift lens too but the actual focus point can be just a sliver.


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## JBPhotog (May 14, 2019)

Derrel said:


> I was thinking the same thing...possibly a split diopter filter. These were very popular in the 1970's and 1980's, as a way to do "special effects" photos...one classical advertisement concept was a window frame inside a house, with the close-in window frame zone in sharp focus AND the background outside, very distant, also in crisp focus. Before the advent of tiny-sensored smart phone photography, deep depth of field shots were tough to do, unless one had a view camera, camera movements, and/or a lens that stopped wayyyy,way down, like to f/90 or f/128,etc..
> 
> Split focus shots were,at one time, "a big deal" to some film directors. here's a supercut of some classic split focus movie scenes.



Have another look at the clip "The Haunting" this doesn't look like Split Focus, it is masked and likely added in a double exposed negative to create the final print. You can see the edge on her shoulder moving in and out of the mask as she breathes. A split diopter will produce an out of focus edge where the diopters edge is. Some creative applications to get the directors vision on film.


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