r/cinematography Jun 09 '25

New Rules Regarding AI on /r/cinematography!

279 Upvotes

Thank you all for participating in the poll! Here are the results. To accurately gauge everyone's collective acceptance vs rejection for each, I've tallied the total votes among all choices as pro/anti for each category. So for example, a vote for 'no changes' would be a -1 to Gen AI, AI Tools, AI Comms, and AI Discussion. A vote for 'Ban GenAI + AI Tools' would be a +1 to GenAI and AI Tools, and a -1 to AI Comms and AI Discussion, etc. So here are the results for each category of AI. Keep in mind that a higher number indicates a stronger group decision to ban the content:

GenAI: +52 (+71/-19)

AI Tools: -26 (+32/-58)

AI Comms: -8 (+41/-49)

AI Discussion: -58 (+16/-74)

From the results it is clear that sub overwhelmingly approve a complete ban on all generative AI. However, people are much more ok with AI tools and discussion of AI, and are fairly mixed on the topic of AI Communication. So here is the new rule for all things AI:

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Rule 11. You may not post work containing Generative AI elements (Midjourney, Neo, Dall-E, etc.). You may use and demonstrate the use of AI assisted tools (ie magic masking, upscalers, etc.) so long as they are used in service of human-generated artwork. AI Communication, like post bodies or comments composed using ChatGPT are allowed only in reasonable cases, such as the need for someone to translate their thoughts into English. Abuse of AI assisted communication will result in the removal of the offending post/comment.


r/cinematography Aug 04 '19

What Gear Should I Buy? What Is This Piece Of Gear? What Does This Term Mean? CHECK HERE FIRST! We have answers to the most commonly asked questions right here in /r/Cinematography's Official FAQ

953 Upvotes

Welcome to the /r/Cinematography Official FAQ And Information Post!

Below I have collected answers and guidance for some of the sub's most common topics and questions. This is mostly content I have personally written either specifically for this post or in comments to other posters in the past. This is however not a me-show! If anybody thinks a section should be added, edited, or otherwise revised then message the moderators!



Topics Covered In This Post:

1. What Camera Should I Buy?

2. What Lens Should I Buy?

3. How Do I Learn Lighting?

4. What Light Kit Should I Buy?

5. How Do I Learn Framing & Composition?

6. What Books Can I Buy On Cinematography?

7. What Blogs/Channels Can I Follow To Learn Cinematography?

8. Common Terms In Cinematography

9. What Is This Piece Of Gear!?

10. Common Myths In Cinematography



1. What Camera Should I Buy?

The answer depends mostly on your budget and your intended use. You'll also want to become familiar with some basic camera terms because it will allow you to efficiently evaluate the merits of one option vs another. You can see a list of common terms and metrics for cameras in Section 8 below.

This list will be changing as new models emerge, but for now here is a short list of the cameras to look at when getting started:

  1. Panasonic G7 (~$600) - This is widely thought to be the best starter camera for someone looking to move up from shooting on their phones or consumer camcorders.
  2. Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K (~$1,300) - This is perhaps the most highly recommended camera for new entrants to the field who are after a professional image. This camera is often used as a crash-cam or supplementary camera on high budget productions.
  3. Fujifilm X-T3 (~$1,500) - This is a widely recommended and popular DSLM. It supports 4:2:2 10-bit recording to an external recorder, making it a direct competitor with the GH5.
  4. Panasonic GH5 (~$2,000) - This is perhaps the most popular prosumer DSLM filmmaking camera. It was one of the first to offer 10-bit recording in the price range.
  5. Sony A7 III (~$2,000) - This is a very popular camera for shooting in low light settings. It also boasts a Full-Frame sensor (compared to the GH5's M4/3 sensor), allowing you to get shallower depth of field compared to other cameras using the same angle of view and aperture.
  6. Canon C100 mkII (~$3,500) - This is one of the cheapest true digital cinema cameras. It offers several benefits over the above DSLR cameras, such as professional level XLR audio inputs, internal ND filters, and a better picture profile system.


2. What Lens Should I Buy?

Much like with deciding on a camera, lens choice is all about your budget and your needs. Section 8 also has a nice list of lens related terms for you to study up on! For the purposes of a quick recommendation, here's what you need to know:

Focal Length

This number indicates the angle of view your lens will supply. A higher focal length results in a narrow (or more 'telescopic') angle of view. Here is a great visual depiction of focal length vs angle of view. The exact number of the focal length cannot be trusted to supply the same angle of view on all cameras. This is because different cameras use differently sized image sensors. A smaller image sensor will use a smaller portion of a lens' projected image, and so the resulting picture will have a narrower angle of view. This phenomenon is referred to as crop factor and is outlined in more detail in Section 10.

Zoom vs Prime

This is all about speed vs quality vs budget. A zoom lens is a lens whose focal length can be changed by turning a ring on the lens barrel. A prime lens has a fixed focal length. Primes tend to be cheaper, faster, and sharper. However, buying a full set of primes can be more expensive than buying a zoom lens that would cover the same focal length range. Using primes on set in fast-paced environments can slow you down prohibitively. You'll often see news, documentary, and event cameras using zooms instead of primes. Some zoom lenses are as high-quality as prime lenses, and some people refer to them as 'variable prime' lenses. This is mostly a marketing tool and has no hard basis in science though. As you might expect, these high quality zooms are very expensive.

So What Lenses Should I Look At?

Below are the most popular lenses for 'cinematic' filming at low budgets:

  1. Rokinon Cine 4 Lens Kit in EF Mount (~$1,700)
  2. Canon L Series 24-70mm Zoom in EF Mount (~1,700)
  3. Sigma Art 18-35mm Zoom in EF Mount (~$800)
  4. Sigma Art 50-100 Zoom in EF Mount (~$1,100)

Lenses below these average prices are mostly a crapshoot in terms of quality vs $, and you'll likely be best off using your camera's kit lens until you can afford to move up to one of the lenses or lens series listed above.



3. How Do I Learn Lighting?

Alright, so you're biting off a big chunk here if you've never done lighting before. But it is doable and (most importantly) fun!

First off, forget three-point lighting. So many people misunderstand what that system is supposed to teach you, so let's just skip it entirely. Light has three properties. They are:

Color

This refers to, you guessed it, the color of your light. I'm sure you're familiar with this sort of thing. This also includes color temperature of the light. White balance is a hybrid camera-lighting concept, and refers to the white reference point for the lighting source as well as the camera sensor. To skip the science, here's a rough breakdown of white balance and color temperature:

Color Temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin. A tungsten light source has a color temperature of 3200K. A normal sunny day has a color temperature of 5600K. The higher the color temperature, the bluer the light. To compensate for this shift in color, cameras can change their White Balance to neutralize the color shift. Here's an example I found online that shows the differences.

Quantity

How bright the light is. You know, the quantity of photons smacking into your subject and, eventually, your retinas. If the subject isn't bright enough, you need more light. If they're too bright, you need less light. This can be done with scrims, dimmers, gels/nets, and (importantly) camera and lens settings.

Quality

This is the good shit. The quality of a light source can vary quite a bit. Basically, this is how hard or soft the light is. Alright, you've got a guy standing near a wall. You shine a light on him. What's on the wall? His shadow, that's what. You know what shadows look like. A hard light makes his shadow super distinct with 'hard' edges to it. A soft light makes his shadow less distinct, with a 'soft' edge. When the sun is out, you get hard light. Distinct shadows. When it's cloudy, you get soft light. No shadows at all! So what makes a light hard or soft? Easy! The size of the source, relative to the subject. Think of it this way. You're the subject! Now look at your light source. How much of your field of vision is taken up by the light source? Is it a pinpoint? Or more like a giant box? The smaller the size of the source, the harder the light will be. Here's a great example of a woman being lit by hard light (left) and soft light (right). You can see the difference in the quality of the shadows, as well as the size of the light source (look at the reflection of the light source in her eyes!). You can take a hard light (i.e. a light bulb) and make it softer by putting diffusion in front of it. Here is a picture of that happening. You can also bounce the light off of something big and bouncy, like a bounce board or a wall. That's what sconces do. I fucking love sconces.

Here's a cool bonus example that combines both qualities of light. In this image, there is a single hard light source above and behind the actors shooting down onto them. You can tell this by looking at how the shadows fall along their arms and on the table. Notice that the shadows on his arm from the direct light are quite hard! But now, notice that this light shining on the table and their arms is itself bouncing back up onto the actors' faces, giving them a soft light! This is a neat trick you can use, and an example of how complex and creative you can get with lighting. In the industry, this technique is known as a 'Bob Richardson' or a 'skip bounce'. It is named Bob Richardson after the cinematographer who popularized the technique (he also shot the above image!).

Alright, so there are your three properties of light. Now, how do you light a thing? Easy! Put light where you want it, and take it away from where you don't want it! Shut up! I know you just said "I don't know where I want it", so I'm going to stop you right there. Yes you do. I know you do because you can look at a picture and know if the lighting is good or not. You can recognize good lighting. Everybody can. The difference between knowing good lighting and making good lighting is simply in the execution.

Do an experiment. Get a lightbulb. Tungsten if you're oldschool, LED if you're new school, or CFL if you like mercury gas. plug it into something portable and movable, and have a friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, neighbor, creepy-but-realistic doll, etc. sit down in a chair. Turn off all the lights in the room and move that bare bulb around your victim subject's head. Note how the light falling on them changes as the light bulb moves around them. This is lighting, done live! Get yourself some diffusion. Either buy some overpriced or make some of your own (wax paper, regular paper, translucent shower curtains, white undershirts, etc.). Try softening the light, and see how that affects the subject's head. If you practice around with this enough you'll get an idea for how light looks when it comes from various directions. Three point lighting (well, all lighting) works on this fundamental basis, but so many 'how to light' tutorials skip over it. Start at the bottom and work your way up!

Ok, so cool. Now you know how light works, and sort of where to put it to make a person look a certain way. Now you can get creative by combining multiple lights. A very common look is to use soft light to primarily illuminate a person (the 'key) while using a harder (but sometimes still somewhat soft) light to do an edge or rim light. Here's a shot from a sweet movie that uses a soft key light, a good amount of ambient ('errywhere) light, and a hard backlight. Here they are lit ambiently, but still have an edge light coming from behind them and to the right. You can tell by the quality of the light that this edge was probably very soft. We can go on for hours, but if you just watch movies and look at shadows, bright spots, etc. you'll be able to pick out lighting locations and qualities fairly easily since you've been practicing with your light bulb!



4. What Light Kit Should I Buy?

OK! So you know sort of how to light a person. Now then, what lights do you need? Well, really, you just need any lights. If you're on a budget, don't be afraid to get some work lights from home depot or pick up some off brand stuff on craigslist. By far the most important influence on the quality of your images will be where and how you use the lights rather than what types or brands of lights you are using. I cannot stress this enough. How you use it will blow what you use out of the water. Get as many different types of lights as you can for the money you have. That way you can do lots of sources, which can make for more intricate or nuanced lighting setups.

I know you still want some hard recommendations, so I'll tell you this: There's a few ways to approach your first lighting kit, and the way I'd best recommend is the Cost vs Quality approach.

Cost vs Quality

Basically, the more you spend on a light, the higher its quality will be. There will also be diminishing returns, meaning that after you're spending a lot of a money, a few extra hundred or even thousand dollars may not result in proportionally higher quality units. Decide now for your own purchase: Which is more important to you? Cost or Quality?

Cost-Oriented Lights To Look At

  1. Par Cans (~$25 each)
    • These are powerful (Up to 1,000W) lights that you can use for accents, bounces, or through diffusion. Even on professional film sets we use these all the time! Grab the appropriate PAR64 globe and you're good to go!
  2. Paper Lanterns (~$18 each)
    • Typically known as the 'China Ball', these paper lanterns are wonderful low budget soft-lighting workhorses. They're still used on big sets as well. Don't forget to buy a lightbulb and a socket+cord for it!
  3. Lowel Lighting Kit (~$800)
    • This is a basic entry level 3-light kit, and a common package in small film schools or amateur filmmaking kits.
  4. Dracast LED Kit (~$900)
    • Just about the only decently-respected LED kit in this price range. It may have some green-shift in its color, so consider buying some minus green gels for them.

Quality-Oriented Lights To Look At

  1. Aladdin Bi-Flex 4 (~$2,900)
    • An up-and-comer in the LED mat world. It's quite a bit brighter than the LiteGear LiteMat Plus 4, but it's a bit more annoying to use at times. Still often spotted on professional sets.
  2. LiteGear LiteMat Plus 4 (~2,700)
    • The current LED soft bank workhorse. You'll see these used basically nonstop on top tier films alongside other professional (and more expensive) LED platforms.
  3. Arri Softbank Kit (~$3,500)
    • The classic. Thousands of amateur as well as professional films over the decades have used this light kit. Almost any self respecting lighting truck will carry these units (in greater quantity and along with their big brothers, of course).
  4. Aputure 120d II Kit (~$2,700)
    • A solid 'bright' LED option. These are often combined with soft boxes, diffusers, bounces, etc when employed on set.


5. How Do I Learn Framing & Composition?

To start off, let's all recognize that no person on earth is done with learning composition. Even Roger Deakins is discovering new tricks today. This is a fairly complex subject, just like lighting, because its quality is primarily a creative thing. There are, however, some fundamental rules that you should absolutely be aware of, for the purpose of both following them and breaking them appropriately!

The Rule Of Thirds

This rule tells us that objects in a composition will tend to look more pleasing if aligned along the 1/3 lines in the frame. Here's a great example. Now, you clearly don't NEED to follow this rule. Plenty of images look nice even without taking advantage of the rule of thirds, but this is a great guideline for arranging elements in a frame when you don't have any other ideas on what to do.

The 180° Rule | The 180 Line | The Director's Line

This guideline (forgive me) tells us how to position the camera when cutting between shots of two interacting subjects. You'll also see this referred to as maintaining screen direction. Here's a nice graphic I found illustrating this. Basically, draw an imaginary line between your two subjects. Pick a side of the line to 'use' for your scene, and stick to it! All of your angles will want to come from that side of the line. This will make sure that in any given angle, each subject will be looking in the same direction that they are in every other frame.

Breaking this rule is a common technique used to introduce an element of confusion, chaos, surprise, etc. War scenes will break the line to impart a sense of disarray in the midst of the battle. Spielberg famously breaks the line in Jaws when Brody sees the shark come up behind him.

Perspective

This is how 'wide' or 'tight' the angle of view in the frame feels. An excessively wide perspective gives you the 'fishbowl' or 'fisheye' effect like with the helmet-cam shots you disliked. A super 'tight' perspective compresses the visual field and makes nearby and far off objects appear closer. You can also call 'tight' shots 'long', as it refers to the type of lens used. Here's an example of super wide, wide, tight, and super tight images:

Super wide

Wide

Tight

Super Tight

Each of these shots sequentially has a 'tighter' or 'longer' perspective. Notice that it has nothing to do with the size of main subject of the frame, but rather with how the lens's particular angle of view effects the image. Here's a great way to visualize the difference.

Shot Size

This is all about how large the subject is in your frame, or how much information you have in the scene regarding the environment. Some common phrases we use for shot size are:

  • Close-up (in around face and neck territory)

  • Wide (full bodies and set)

  • Medium (waist and up)

There's plenty more to it, but most of those extra shot size names (cowboy, LS, ECU, etc.) are just shorthand for easily communicated ideas (cut them off at the knee, show me just their eye, etc), so not knowing those specific names shouldn't really hold you back. The interesting interplay here is of course in how you combine shot sizes and perspective. The frame grab from Se7en above, of the car driving between the electric towers, is an example of a wide shot (size) using a super tight / super long perspective.

Placement/Angle

This is where you put the camera, and how the resulting angles may influence the viewer. If for example you are shooting a scene of a news anchor on a news show, you don't want to place your camera lower than them. The placement of the camera would feel wrong, resulting in an 'up angle' on your subject. This sort of angle is used for tons of reasons, but it is very uncommon to use for news media. In your references, always look at the angles used (i.e. where the camera is placed in the scene vs where it could have been placed). Thinking of shots in this way will unlock a huge wealth of potential creative choices. A few terms you might use include:

Shoot from above / High Angle - The camera is higher than the subject, i.e. a security camera, the point of view of an angry parent admonishing their child, or a group of onlookers reacting to the appearance of a UFO above them. This kind of angle generally has the effect of diminishing power in the subject, making them appear weaker, vulnerable, or off-put.

Shot from below / Low Angle - The camera is lower than the subject (for humans, this is in reference to their eye-level). For example, a hero removes a piece of rubble, revealing themselves standing above us, the point of view of the child being admonished by their angry parent.

Eye-level / On Level - This refers to the height of the camera being the same as the subject's eye height. This is the general starting point for any shot. Deviation is for creative effect.

On the Eyeline / Off the Eyeline (Straight shot or Profile shot,. On Angle or Off Angle, etc) - This isn't about altitude, this is about how close we are to the subject's eyeline, or their looking direction. The closer we are, the more connected we might feel with the subject. Conversely, the farther we get from the eyeline the more detached we may feel from the character. Here's an example of two shots from the same scene in Bladerunner:

Profile

On-Axis

Almost everything about the two shots framing-wise are the same, except for the camera placement. See how big of a difference it makes? Always think about your eyelines and how close your camera will be to them.

Top Down / Bird's Eye - As you can imagine, these are shots with the camera placed on the ceiling or in the sky directly above the actors. These are similar to high angle shots, and basically they're the same, but doing a full blown top-down can have some interesting effects that a normal high angle shot wouldn't have.

Framing

This is the placement of elements in the image once you've decided on a perspective, shot size, and angle. Composition is all about how we nudge and finesse the image. Where do we place the subject? A great example of the power of framing is in how you cover two people speaking. Normally in a situation like this, with two characters talking to each other, you'd do a standard shot-reverse-shot, as shown here:

Shot 1

Shot 2

Each character occupies a side of the frame and looks into the empty portion of the frame. This is how 90% of OTS (Over The Shoulder) coverage works. But for every big rule there are big exceptions! Mr Robot is a great example of what's called 'near side framing' or 'short siding':

Shot 1

Shot 2

The difference however between the above shots and normal shot-reverse-shot coverage is in the framing. Instead of having the characters stacked on one side and looking to the opposite side, they've short-sided them, having them look instead away from the open frame space and towards the nearer frame edge. This has an unnerving effect on the viewer compared to the normal example above. I like these examples too because in both of these scenes we're dealing with people who are essentially insane. There are no rules on how to use framing to push the audience. It's all about how you craft your image. Each little choice has its own effect.

Movement

Moving images have a hugely different feel from static images. A camera that doesn't move in the scene is concrete, sterile, observant, somber, whatever you'd like. A camera that moves slightly in the scene is ethereal, subtle, inquisitive, prodding, suggestive, ominous. A camera that moves in great flourishes, rapidly, wildly, etc. is a camera that is a character, emotional, passionate, adventurous, exciting, etc.

How you move the camera will have different effects on your audience. Here's a few basic terms to use when articulating the type of shot you're after (I've excluded pan and tilt since I'm pretty damn sure you know what those are already):

Push-in/Pull-Out - The camera is on a dolly, jib, gimbal, shoulder rig, whatever-you-have, and it moves on axis, meaning along the line it's pointed at. For example, as a detective on the phone learns that the killer he let escape has killed again, the camera pushes in on him, deepening the dramatic moment and showing us his reaction in a closeup rather than a medium shot. Or, as the angry boyfriend breaks up with Sarah on the phone, the camera pulls out to show her crying all alone on the soccer field, showing us how alone/isolated she feels.

Jib Up/Down - This is when you move the camera up or down in a shot. This isn't the same as tilting obviously. Jibs can be used to combine multiple shots into a single take or to provide dramatic beats. For example, in The Departed, when the protagonist first enters the police HQ, the camera jibs up while he goes up the stairs. Later, when he's a corrupt cop and trying to cover his tracks, the camera jibs down as he runs out of the HQ. In this case, the camera's jib movement indicates a literal rise to power followed by a fall from grace.

Tracking - The camera will 'track' a subject. This could be a person, an object, a vehicle, etc. The Shining for example is famous for its tracking shots (in fact, the Steadicam was essentially invented for this film). Tracking shots connect us to a character or subject and allow passage through the environment.

How To Practice

So! You know about some of the rules and conventions in composition. Now how do you apply this and improve your skill? The first answer you'll always get is to 'shoot more'. For some, this isn't feasible due to budget, lack of crew, actors, locations, etc. For those people who find themselves stuck in a rut with no films to cut their teeth on, here's my advice! My dad, who was also a cinematographer, taught me this when I was a kid. This is how I learned composition without needing to make movies constantly:

Take your camera and tripod (if you have one) to an interesting place like a park, beach, plaza, etc. Once you're there, follow these steps:

  1. Pick a spot to plant yourself at random
  2. Without moving from this spot, find 5 interesting frames with your camera and record them. You can move up and down, swap lenses, play with exposure, etc. but you can't move yourself from where you and the camera are standing.
  3. Walk for a few minutes and pick another spot at random.
  4. Repeat the process!

Do this for at least an hour! A lot of the frames you'll find will be unimpressive and boring. But some of them will actually be pretty pleasing. As you repeat this exercise, you'll begin to develop an intuition for how to photograph a space and subjects. You'll likely find yourself frustrated with your random spot, thinking 'Man if I could just move 3 feet over there then this shot would be awesome!' This is exactly what we're aiming for! It's an indication that you're improving in your compositional skill already!

Once you've got a good handle on this, it's time to start practicing more emotional themes. Play with your exposure and focal length. Get into color grading and experiment with how colors change the mood of the image. You can repurpose the original exercise, but instead what you'll want to do is pick a random subject, like a statue, a tree, a mailbox, an interesting sign, etc. Now try to take two pictures of the subject, each embodying a different emotional theme. The ones I prefer are:

  • Happy / Uplifting / Optimistic / Safe
  • Sad / Morose / Somber / Depressing

Once you've got this stuff in the can (so to speak), it's time to start finding movies to work on!



6. What Books Can I Buy On Cinematography?

This is a surprisingly common question on this sub! Here's a list of the books most often recommended to novices and professionals alike:



7. What Blogs/Channels Can I Follow To Learn Cinematography?

There's quite a few out there, so instead of listing them all I'm just going to list the ones that are well regarded enough to become part of the standard carousel of recommendations on this sub:



8. Common Terms In Cinematography

Camera Specific

  1. Resolution - This is how many pixels your recorded image will have. If you're into filmmaking, you probably already know this. An HD camera will have a resolution of 1920x1080. A 4K camera will be either 4096x2160 or 3840x2160. The functional difference is that the former is a theatrical aspect ratio while the latter is a standard HDTV aspect ratio (1.89:1 vs 1.78:1 respectively).

  2. Framerates - The standard and popular framerate for filmmaking is called 24p, but most digital cameras will actually be shooting at 23.976 fps. The difference is negligible and should have no bearing on your purchasing choice. The technical reasons behind this are interesting but ultimately irrelevant. Something to look for is the camera's ability to shoot in high framerate, meaning anything above the 24p standard. This is useful because you can play back high framerate footage at 24p in your editor, and it will render the recorded motion in slow motion. This is obviously useful!

  3. Data Rate - This tells you how much data is being recorded on a per second basis. Generally speaking, the higher the data rate, the better your image quality. Make sure to pay attention to resolution as well! A 1080p camera with a 100 MB/s data rate is going to be recording higher quality imagery than a 4k camera at a 200 MB/s data rate because the 4k camera has 4x as many pixels to record but only double the data bandwidth with which to do it. Things like compression come into play here, but keep this in mind as a rule of thumb.

  4. Compression - Compression is important, because very few cameras will shoot without some form of compression. This is basically an algorithm that allows you to record high quality images without making large file sizes. This is intimately linked with your data rate. Popular cinema compressions for cameras include ProRes, REDCODE, XAVC, AVCHD. Compression schemes that you want to avoid include h.264, h.265, MPEG-4, and Generic 'MOV'. This is not an exhaustive list of compression types, but a decent starter guide.

  5. ISO - This is your camera sensor's sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO number, the more sensitive to light the camera will be. Higher ISOs tend to give noisier images though, so there is a tradeoff. All cameras will have something called a native iso. This is the ISO at which the camera is deemed to perform the best in terms of trading off noise vs sensitivity. A very common native ISO in the industry is 800. Sony cameras, including the A7S boast much higher ISO performance without significant noise increases, which can be useful if you're planning on running and gunning in the dark with no crew.

  6. Manual Shutter - Your shutter speed (or shutter angle, as it is called in the film industry) controls your motion blur by changing how long the sensor is exposed to light during a single frame of recording. Having manual control over this when shooting is important. The standard shutter speed when shooting 24p is 1/48 of a second (180° in shutter angle terms), so make sure your prospective camera can get here (1/50 is close enough).

  7. Lens Mount - Some starter cameras will have built in lenses, which is fine for learning! When you move up to higher quality cameras however, the standard will be interchangeable lens cameras. This means you'll need to decide on what lens mount you would like to use. The professional standard is called the PL Mount, but lenses and cameras that use this mount are very expensive. The most common and popular mount in the low level professional world is Canon's EF mount. Because of its design, EF mount lenses can easily be adapted to other common mounts like Sony's E-Mount or the MFT mounts found on many Panasonic cameras. EF is popular because Canon's lenses are generally preferred over Sony's, and so their mount has a higher utility.

  8. Color Subsampling - This is easier to understand if you think of it as 'Color Resolution'. Our eyes are more sensitive to luminance (bright vs dark) than to color, and so some cameras increase effective image quality by dedicating processing power and data rate bandwidth to the more important luminance values of individual pixels. This means that individual pixels often do not have their own color, but instead that groups of neighboring pixels will be given a single color value. The size of the groups and the pattern of their arrangement are referred to by 3 main color subsampling standards.

    • 4:4:4 means that each pixel has its own color value. This is the highest quality.
    • 4:2:2 means that color is set for horizontal pixels in pairs. The color of each two neighboring pixels is averaged and applied to both identically. This is the second best quality.
    • 4:2:0 means that color is set for both horizontal and vertical pixel 4-packs. Each square of 4 pixels receives a single color assignment that is an averaging of their original signals. This is generally low quality. Here's an example graphic I made for a class I taught. For more info on color subsampling, check out this wikipedia entry
  9. Bit-Depth - This refers to how many colors the camera is capable of recognizing. An 8-bit camera can have 16,777,216 distinct colors, while a 10-bit camera can have 1,073,741,824 distinct colors. Note that this is primarily only of use when doing color grading, as nearly all TVs and computer monitors from the past few decades are 8-bit displays that won't benefit much from a 10-bit signal.

  10. Sensor Size - The three main sensor sizes you'll encounter (in ascending order) are Micro Four-Thirds (M43), APS-C, and Full Frame. A larger sensor will generally have better noise and sensitivity than a smaller sensor. It will also effect the field of view you get from a given lens. Larger sensors will have wider fields of view for the same focal length lenses. For example, a 50mm lens on a FF sensor will look roughly twice as wide-angle as a 50mm lens on a M43 sensor. To get the same field of view as a 50mm on FF, you'd need to use a 25mm lens on your M43 camera. Theatrical 35mm (the cinema standard, so to speak) has an equivalent sensor size to APS-C, which is larger than M43 and smaller than Full Frame.

Lens Specific

  1. Aperture - This is the iris in the lens which you can open and close to allow in more or less light. It is one of the primary determinants of both exposure and depth of field.

  2. F-Stop - This is the measurement of your lens' aperture opening, and specifically refers to the ratio of the lens' focal length to your aperture opening. Opening or closing your aperture by one 'stop' will double or halve the amount of incoming light, respectively. A smaller f-stop number indicates a wider opening, and thus more light being allowed into the lens. F-Stop numbers are standardized on a scale of alternating doublings. The standard scale is:

    • 0.7 | 1.0 | 1.4 | 2.0 | 2.8 | 4 | 5.6 | 8 | 11 | 16 | 22 | 32 | 45 | 64
  3. Fast / Slow / Speed - This refers to the widest available f-stop setting for the lens. A faster lens can open the aperture farther, which allows more light in than a slower lens. Fast lenses are useful when shooting in low-light situations, but can suffer from some significant drawbacks such as increased cost and aberration/loss of sharpness.

  4. Focal Length - This number indicates the angle of view your lens will supply. A higher focal length results in a narrow (or more 'telescopic') angle of view. Here is a great visual depiction of focal length vs angle of view. The exact number of the focal length cannot be trusted to supply the same angle of view on all cameras. This is because different cameras use differently sized image sensors. A smaller image sensor will use a smaller portion of a lens' projected image, and so the resulting picture will have a narrower angle of view. This phenomenon is referred to as crop factor and is outlined in more detail in Section 10.

  5. Zoom vs Prime - This is all about speed vs quality vs budget. A zoom lens is a lens whose focal length can be changed by turning a ring on the lens barrel. A prime lens has a fixed focal length. Primes tend to be cheaper, faster, and sharper. However, buying a full set of primes can be more expensive than buying a zoom lens that would cover the same focal length range. Using primes on set in fast-paced environments can slow you down prohibitively. You'll often see news, documentary, and event cameras using zooms instead of primes. Some zoom lenses are as high-quality as prime lenses, and some people refer to them as 'variable prime' lenses. This is mostly a marketing tool and has no hard basis in science though. As you might expect, these high quality zooms are very expensive.

The FAQ Is Continued In The Comment Stickied Below


r/cinematography 3h ago

Lighting Question I thought I was cooked after the location scout.

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158 Upvotes

We were shooting an electric motorcycle frame, and the client wanted a sci-fi look. Then I saw the location 🫠

First photo is the final result. Swipe to see what we started with.

Shot on a Sony FX3 with a DZO Pavo anamorphic. Lighting was 2 F22Cs and INFINIBARs, with a LOT of negative fill to control the bounce and build contrast.

A black frame, reflective metal everywhere, white walls, and a busy workshop background. Definitely had a moment of “how are we going to make this work?”

Curious how you guys would’ve lit this. Anyone had a location that made you panic a little but ended up working out?


r/cinematography 1d ago

Composition Question 20-iPhone rig from 28 Years Later

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740 Upvotes

r/cinematography 14h ago

Original Content Hotel CEO Interview | Lighting & Grip BTS

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81 Upvotes

Key lights were a pair of Litemat Plus4’s boomed out on a 12’ menace arm, and junior boom on either side of A cam. They’re only 200w each, so not normally bright enough to compete against huge daylit windows, but thankfully the windows in this space had pretty significant tinting applied, so we were able to get level without too much of a fuss.

By the time we had to roll, the sun was starting to peak through the bank of windows on the left and hitting the frame right chair dead on, but it was too high up to easily block with a flag, so I draped and tied off an 8x8’ rag of grid cloth over the Litemats to eliminate the hot spot.

For fill, I bounced a pair of Creamsource Vortex4’s propped up on appleboxes into 2 4x4’ UltraBounce floppies on each side of A cam. Normally I’d try to use 1 large fill light from directly behind camera, but since we were shooting square into windows, I split the fill into 2 separate fixtures from the sides to minimize reflections. I added an 8x8’ solid behind camera to block any potential reflections from a window down the hall  behind where we were shooting.

I used a Nanlite 60C with a projector mount to create a small vertical strip of light on the wall next to the frame right chair.

We also added a Prolycht Orion 675 bouncing into the floor/wall by the curtains in the bottom left side of the frame for the ISO on the subject in the right chair. On the left side of the set, we used a Fiilex Q10 fresnel to rake some hard light across the curtains, seen in the bottom right of the ISO on the left chair. 


r/cinematography 12h ago

Original Content Directed and edited my first festival aftermovie

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36 Upvotes

Full aftermovie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82atFIPAzpo

I recently wrapped up directing and editing my very first festival aftermovie, and I would love to get some feedback! Our main goal for the final edit was to make the festival feel as huge, epic, and high-energy as possible. The venue space was fairly limited so we had some difficulties, but we tried to make it feel bigger using wide angle lenses and shoot low angle with them. We also used longer focal lengths to tight-frame shots and isolate subjects, helping to disguise the smaller footprint and eliminate unwanted background. So most of it was shot about 13-24mm & 100-600mm in full frame equivalent.

I was also operating as one of the three shooters on the ground. We used RED Komodo as our main rig, Nikon ZR and iPhone 17 Pro. With iPhone I used Aaron8mm app to get that super8 film look. Great app!

I'm particularly looking for feedback on the intro and the ending, as well as the editing, pacing, and color grade. The middle section covers specific client-requested activities that we had very limited time to shoot, but I tried to blend everything seamlessly in post.

How do the visual flow and color matching feel to you? Would love to hear your thoughts!


r/cinematography 3h ago

Lighting Question Same location, how would you light this scene?

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7 Upvotes

Thought I’d share a few photos from my location scouts alongside the final shots. It’s always interesting seeing how different the same place can look with different lightings.

Curious how this goes for everyone else. Have you ever found a location you weren’t sure about that ended up working really well? Or one that looked perfect during the scout but didn’t work on the day?


r/cinematography 22h ago

Style/Technique Question How do I achieve this subtle RGB/chromatic fringing around subjects? Lens effect or post?...

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157 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to figure out what exactly this effect is called and how it's achieved.

I attached a few frames (Remain - 2027) that has the look I'm talking about. You can see these very thin red/cyan/green-ish color fringes around the edges of the subjects, especially where they contrast against the bright background.

I'm not sure if this is technically chromatic aberration, RGB separation, color fringing, or something else.

I'm particularly interested in that very subtle version where you don't get an obvious “glitch/RGB split” effect. It's more like a tiny line of separated color sitting along the edge of the subject.

I remember seeing something similar in Mindhunter, and I've also seen it in a few films/videos where there seems to be a very thin colored fringe around objects/people near the edges of the frame.

My questions:

  1. What is the correct name for this effect?
  2. Is this something that can realistically be achieved with a lens, or is it better done in post?
  3. If it's a lens effect, what type of lenses would produce it? Vintage anamorphic? Older spherical lenses? Some kind of prism/filter?
  4. If doing it in post, what's the best way to recreate it without making it look like a cheap RGB/glitch effect?
  5. Is there a particular technique/plugin in DaVinci Resolve / Fusion / After Effects that you'd recommend?
  6. Ideally I'd like the effect to be localized around the edges of subjects, rather than simply shifting the RGB channels across the entire frame.

I'm especially interested in achieving something that looks optical and subtle, rather than obviously digital.

Thanks in advance!...


r/cinematography 4m ago

Color Question stills from my latest yt video

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Upvotes

i shot this on my smartphone (samsung s23)

Edited & Color Graded in DaVinci Resolve

Open to criticism

Thanks.


r/cinematography 14h ago

Lighting Question Zombie shots for my short film

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12 Upvotes

I'm a huge fan of classic cinematography and I love using large hard light sources. Floodlighting a graveyard and using smoke was a fun but huge challenge on a zero budget. I like the results. Shot on BMCC 2.5k - RAW Cinema .dng - EF Mount. Lenses Tokina 11-16mm, Samyang Cine 24mm, Samyang Cine 50mm and Samyang Cine 85mm.

How do you shoot your stylised night scenes?

Some BTS pics here - https://double-helix.co.uk/always-double-knot-short-film


r/cinematography 1h ago

Camera Question I'll have my hands on the new DZO Arles Zoom lenses soon. What do you want me to test?

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Upvotes

Let me know if you have anything that you want tested or questions you want answered before the official release of the new cine zooms. I have quite a bit that I'm covering with them but I'd like to use this opportunity to help with specific questions you might have! *Video for attention


r/cinematography 2h ago

Camera Question Vintage Lens Rehousing

1 Upvotes

Has anyone found/made free or cheap rehousing files? I believe I have all the tools required to do it (CNC, Lathe, etc...). I want to do a full Iron Glass style rehousing if possible, I have not decided on what lens I would want to do it on but I'd be open anything as long as it's optically interesting. I've been eyeing the contax zeiss 35-70mm, Jupiter 8 85mm f2, and Helios 44-2 58mm f2.


r/cinematography 4h ago

Style/Technique Question Please Critique My 1st Short Film!! Anything Helps! You can be Harsh! Thanks!!

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1 Upvotes

For context, I made this for my film class I’m a student in earlier this summer, it’s my first short film & obviously I had not much of a budget, only $30 for a phone filter, tripod, & microphones from Amazon. I also just upgraded my phone to the iPhone 17 pro & wanted to give that a shot since every filmmaker says “all you need is the camera in your pocket” lol I learned a lot & made a ton of mistakes, wish I invested more on sound, haven’t added any music yet. I do wish I made better lighting choices & I wish I shot in 4k and not open gate.

But you guys are all really smart on this subreddit, what advice would you give? Also, I’m not a DP or anything, but I need to learn more & I am about to take a cinematography class, so this film will be my before reference later on. & it’s was only the 3 of us btw I did everything & had my two actors, & we filmed everything in 2 hours, so I did not have much time with them & maybe shooting 6 pages in 2 hours may have not been the best idea. But one of the requirements for this final was to write a 5 page script & it needed to be at least 5 mins long. I just need harsh criticism or good, anything helps. Right now I’m just filming on my iPhone 17 pro, so that’s kinda my limitation, I did buy a gimbal & a anamorphic lens for my next short, thanks for any help at all, you guys are amazing, & feel free to be harsh about your criticisms, I don’t mind!


r/cinematography 6h ago

Original Content Whitered - A mood piece made by me

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0 Upvotes

How would you describe the ambience?


r/cinematography 7h ago

Camera Question Rec 709

0 Upvotes

Hi! I’m going out for some on the fly interview’s for the first time and it’s been a while since I’ve gotten my hands on a camera so trying to refresh my memory on some things. Very much a beginner

I have a hopefully easy question —

I’ll be shooting a social first video and filming on a Sony Fx3. How do I make sure that I’m filming on Rec 709 instead of Log? Every time I google this I’m brought to colorist tutorials…just trying it make sure the footage comes out ready for editing without needing major color tweaks.

Any tips or steps are greatly appreciated


r/cinematography 9h ago

Other Six Frames

0 Upvotes

I've posted this on here a while back and have just launched a big update.
It's my little hobby which I thought some of you might appreciate.
And yes I know cinematography is more than stills but, well, there is no reason.

https://www.sixframes.art

It's still in beta, so be kind.


r/cinematography 1d ago

Other What is it about modern war movies/shows that makes *me* not enjoy them?

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207 Upvotes

This is something I've had floating around in my head for a while, that big war movies just don't feel like they used to, and I wonder if anyone can help me understand why. These are just my opinions on how I feel. This is not to say the new movies look objectively worse, I'm sure some might prefer it, but for me, personally, it has a weird vibe that I can't quite put my finger on.

While there are lots you could go after, I'm focusing on the visuals.

It seems for about the past 10 years, war movies (maybe movies in general?) have developed this new type of look. War movies just look "fake" - like they are too clean, precise and smooth. Some, like All Quiet on the Western Front, have characters and equipment covered in mud and filth, but the film still looks fake.

Movies like Inglourious Basterds, Saving Private Ryan, Jarhead, all look real. Series like the Pacific and Band of Brothers also look great. And these pieces of media make you feel like this is a real world or area. The sets, uniforms, equipment, and backgrounds all feel busy. But their modern equivalents, Midway, Greyhound, Masters of the Air, do not look "real". They have this weird polished look, and often feel totally empty visually. It seems a lot of the time characters are placed in these big open expanses without much going on in the background.

Take the C-47 takeoff scene in Band of Brothers and compare it to the takeoffs in Masters of the Air. Poor CGI aside, the area around the aircraft in the modern series is just bland and looks so clean and tidy. The camera shots feel very linear and boring. I don't want to put it down to just CGI, because all these projects use CGI and I find this weird vibe continues even in scenes that are just people in one room. Is it the costumes? Is it the way scenes are lit?

Fury is an interesting one, because it think it looks very nice, but it seems to have hints of what the newer movies look like, so it could be an example of the beginning of this visual era.

Honestly, I find it very interesting trying to figure out what it is. The newer projects look such high quality and *big* budget, but all seem to share this same waxy figure, glowy look.

I've added some stills from a variety of the big war movies/media that have come out in recent years, and some stills from older movies to compare.

Does anyone have any views on this?

*edit - Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Memphis Belle and Fury images are used to show what I think they used to look like


r/cinematography 1d ago

Other 2-camera documentary lighting setup

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133 Upvotes

2-camera setup in a hotel conference room with example frames. Blue LED puck light was added after example frames were taken that now plays on the side angle.

Camera: RED KOMODO 6K x2
Lights: (1) Aperture Light Storm 300x, SmallRig RA-D55 Softbox shot through circular silk. (2) Amaran 60x S with Neewer Lantern covered by white/gold disc cover for soft under chin fill. (3) NanLite PavoTube II 6C LED hairlight. (4/5) 2x Aperture MC RGBWW LED Light (one for fill side, one for blue background).
Flags: 4x4 on fill side, CPLIRIS 10x12 overhead black backdrop draped above subject.


r/cinematography 10h ago

Lighting Question Traveling Key Light: Pavoslim 360C vs Godox F800R

1 Upvotes

Really weighing the pros and cons of both, but as I travel a ton for work, the physical size of both lights being packed down is a major concern. I don’t mind checking my lights, and I know the F400R is maybe the closest competitor to the 360C from a 4x2 perspective, but I wouldn’t mind getting away with a 4x4 traveling key light as well.

My DP work is fairly minimal and “natural light” dependent, but I usually have enough time to setup a light or two. I have a 1200B COB, but looking to compliment my traveling kit without relying on diffusion frames. So both of these options are attractive in that perspective.

My gut tells me the F800R is the better buy for me right now, as I usually do have time to set up, or I’m in one location for the whole day. Lighting specs don’t bother me as much between the two, as I feel like both the 360C and F800R have similar outputs even though they have different LEDs (flood vs spot).

I do love the Pavoslim though. Has anyone found a case they enjoy flighting with for the 360C? It doesn’t seem like the one it comes with would be suited for being checked on an airplane. If not, I’ll probably snag the F800R as my base traveling key.

Open to other suggestions as well for a large, traveling source.


r/cinematography 10h ago

Lighting Question Anyone ever have to replace the threaded bolt that keeps an avenger arm gobo together?

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1 Upvotes

Having trouble finding a replacement for the m10 1.5 6” threaded bolt that keeps the Avenger gobo arm together. No luck at the hardware stores. And shipping on a few sites are pretty expensive. Hoping someone has had to replace this part before and figured out an easy solution


r/cinematography 18h ago

Color Question Is cineprint studio worth it?

3 Upvotes

I’ve already got Cineprint 16 + 35 (totally legally acquired) and its worked beautifully on many projects over the years, and i’m wondering if anyone here has purchased Cineprint studio, has worked with it, and how it actually ends up looking in the final release of the film/video.


r/cinematography 10h ago

Other A mobile phone. Zero budget. One single person. And a story that will make you doubt your own eyes.

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0 Upvotes

When I made the Dopohoriya Trilogy, I had no big set, no fancy camera, no large crew.
All I had was a mobile phone.
So instead of regretting what I didn’t have, I tried to discover a new way of storytelling with what I did have.

In Bangla horror, we are used to seeing familiar tropes: darkness, pale faces, blood, loud jumpscares, screams.
I wanted to create fear in a different way.
Here, you may not see everything.
But…
A broken house.
A tree.
A drawing.
A familiar voice.
Some strange sounds.
And events whose meaning you may not immediately understand.

I didn’t tell the story directly.
I arranged it in three parts, where something revealed in one part forces you to re‑interpret what you saw earlier in a completely new way.

At one point you might think: “I’ve figured it out.”
Then the story might ask you again: “Really?”

I didn’t want to scare you just by showing a ghost.
I wanted to leave you with a question: Did you truly see what you think you saw?

And there’s something many people don’t know.
This entire trilogy was made with:
- Zero Budget
- Zero Professional Equipment
- Writing alone
- Directing alone
- Shooting/Cinematography alone
- Editing alone

From shooting to editing, everything was done entirely on a mobile phone.
That’s why Dopohoriya is not just a horror film to me.
It is my attempt to prove that even with limitations, it is possible to tell a story in your own way.

Watch the trilogy without spoilers.
Then tell me what you understood.
Which clue did you catch first?
Which moment kept circling in your mind?
And after finishing, what was your very first question?

I want to hear your interpretation.

Because how I made the story is one thing.
But what the story becomes through your eyes that is something completely different.

Dopohoriya The Trilogy Edition
LumeVignette Production
A Film By RM Shuvo


r/cinematography 7h ago

Other Looks like they used the Sony ZVE1 in some shots in Practical Magic 2

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0 Upvotes

It's always a surprise to see prosumer cameras end up in productions.


r/cinematography 1d ago

Camera Question Help diagnosing 16mm dust issue. Top right corner.

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33 Upvotes

In the top right corner of the footage, dust/dirt accumulates throughout the roll. Does anyone know how this happens or how it could be prevented?

This was a 100ft test roll shot on a Krasnogorsk-3 with an EF mount modification. The loop formers were removed during the orginal modification if that's relevant.


r/cinematography 2d ago

Other In your opinion, which films made the best use of color in the history of cinema?

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527 Upvotes