Well..I don't know depth of field well. But I was studying it because. I wanted to a close up on a bird in a window and blur out the background in the distance. HOwever, I seem to be unable to find the right settings for that.
Let's say I wanted to focus on a bird a foot away, and wanted the background (everything further away to be out of focus), What camera and settings would I use?
Re: Camera Closeups and Depth of Field! by Steve Roberts on Sep 28, 2007 at 3:23:52 pm
You need two layers: bird and background. Create a camera in AE, switch on its depth of field. The plane of focus should be as far away as the bird layer, and the amount of blur should be high -- use a wide aperture.
Check out Andrew Kramer's tutorials - he did one on depth of field.
There should be more in the AE help. Get back to use if you need more info past the Help.
Re: Camera Closeups and Depth of Field! by james bondaygee on Sep 28, 2007 at 11:22:47 pm
Hi there!! Thanks for your help as always.
The awesome Andrew Kramer videos didn't see to go into much detail on depth of field. One of his videos is 2d depth of field and the other cool long hallway video only addresses depth of field for about a minute.
Actually I've already made a cool 3d scene and at the start of it I had place a great window. And the camera basically is sitting there "looking out the window". Suddenly a humming bird comes in. I've already made it into an invidual 3d layer. It's 3d position is almost the same as the window yet I seem unable to focus on it well.
Could you possibly recommend a "particular custom camera" with some various settings which might help this scene.
And what approximately for the Focus Distance, Aperture, etc?
Re: Camera Closeups and Depth of Field! by Apok_L on Sep 29, 2007 at 5:13:04 am
Hey James,
(I'm so sorry I'm a little confused by your response to Steve)
are you using a 3d application to create this scene? if so there are good DOF options within the 3d applications themselves.
If that doesn't work try rendering them in separate passes and applying DOF options in AE. You can try Steve's suggestion, or what I sometimes do for a quick DOF, add the 'Lens Blur' to the background layer.
