Kody with a K's Blog

So today I had my first client in a post production house. And I must say I think it went very well. Admittedly it is a little hard trying to not be so technical. Particularly the how or why questions. basically you just need to say you're doing magic! I guess it kind of is in a way. Movie magic that is.

I’ve been on an internship at a post-production house called Studio Post for a little while now. And in the past two and a half weeks I have learned lots. Particularly when it comes to framerates. Now this has brought something to my attention.

The other day I re-watched a video by Griffin Hammond. He mentioned varifocal and parfocal lenses. I was curious and decided to look it up, and found out something rather interest. And if you shoot on a DSLR then this is information you have to know about.

A varifocal lens does not maintain your focus while zooming. It has a variable focal length, which causes focus changes as focal length (and magnification) changes. They are also cheaper to make. Most prime lenses are varifocal but that’s fine as a prime lens cannot zoom.

Now a parfocal lens, also known as a “true zoom lens”, differs from a varifocal lens in that zooming in, changing the focal length does not affect your focus. Zoom lenses used for film-making applications must have the parfocal ability in order to be of practical use. Telescopes also use parfocal lenses.

Figure out how long the event will take place, and how long you want it to play back. Muliply your desiered frame rate with your playback time. Divide your event time with the number from the mulipation.

one-hour shot  (3600 seconds) 30-second video x 24frames = 720 3600/720 = 5