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Limit Focal Distance

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Hey there,

I'm trying to create an extreme CU shot, but I can't lower my Manual Focal distance to get my subject in focus.

Am I missing something?

Thank you,

Antonis

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lumines_labs
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Hey Antonis, welcome aboard and thank you for getting in touch!

Yes, Cinematographer includes a minimum focus distances like real lenses have, which adds to the photorealistic quality. But I can see how this is a problem in your case.

If you are owner of Cinematographer PRO you can recreate a lens suited for close ups or cheat the system and lower the minimum focus distance in the lens preset of any lens to 0.0.

In the Lite version, you can try out different high-end lenses, which usually have a shorter minimum focus distance and see if you can get any closer.

I hope this information helps!

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lumines_labs
  • Answer
  • Answered

Hey Antonis, welcome aboard and thank you for getting in touch!

Yes, Cinematographer includes a minimum focus distances like real lenses have, which adds to the photorealistic quality. But I can see how this is a problem in your case.

If you are owner of Cinematographer PRO you can recreate a lens suited for close ups or cheat the system and lower the minimum focus distance in the lens preset of any lens to 0.0.

In the Lite version, you can try out different high-end lenses, which usually have a shorter minimum focus distance and see if you can get any closer.

I hope this information helps!

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Antonis Fylladitis

Hey there! 

Thank you for your quick reply. 


That's fantastic! Honestly, I hadn't thought about the possibility of creating presets or tweaking some existing ones until now. 

As I am planning to shoot some extreme close-up (CU) shots for a short film, I was wondering if you could provide any practical guides or cheat sheets that would help in replicating that kind of shot size. Specifically, is there a formula for creating these presets, such as determining the appropriate minimum focus distance for any given lens? 


I hope my request is clear. In my previous projects, I hadn't discovered your plugin, but now I'm excited to implement it in my next one, which is shaping up to be the most ambitious and challenging endeavor I've undertaken. 

Here my latest short film


Thank you again for your support and for creating such amazing tools. 


 Antonis

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lumines_labs
Quote from Antonis Fylladitis

Hey there! 

Thank you for your quick reply. 


That's fantastic! Honestly, I hadn't thought about the possibility of creating presets or tweaking some existing ones until now. 

As I am planning to shoot some extreme close-up (CU) shots for a short film, I was wondering if you could provide any practical guides or cheat sheets that would help in replicating that kind of shot size. Specifically, is there a formula for creating these presets, such as determining the appropriate minimum focus distance for any given lens? 


I hope my request is clear. In my previous projects, I hadn't discovered your plugin, but now I'm excited to implement it in my next one, which is shaping up to be the most ambitious and challenging endeavor I've undertaken. 

Here my latest short film


Thank you again for your support and for creating such amazing tools. 


 Antonis

Hey Antonis, well that looks pretty impressive! Great work!

Sadly there is no cheat sheet in this case but I guess www.dpreview.com gets close enough.

I would just use the same workflow as for a real shoot. Consider the fictional budget for the shoot and which camera you are planning to use and then decide on the best lens for the job. Look up the lens on dpreview or any other site with the specifications and you will find the minimum focus distance quite easily. It gets a bit more complicated for the other lens characteristics like un-sharpness, purple fringe and so on, since there is no universal measurement workflow for these. You would need to eyeball them with some reference images, if you want to get into that much detail. In any case, just copy one of the RealLens presets, preferably one that is closest to what you are planning and then edit the values to your need, rename the preset and you are ready to use it.

Also since the last update you can now use calibrated lens files to increase the photorealism even further, if that is something you are able to do.

I hope this information helps and feel free to share anything you create with Cinematographer, I’m looking forward to it!