Tilt-Shift and Time Lapse Films

[NeonKnight]

Oooooo yeah. Gonna try this myself

[RobA]

Also, I've been trying to think of a horizontal layout example. Do you have a picture that would be laid out horizontally instead of vertically to give me an idea?

anything where a horizontal line is not "in focus"... like this one:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Im...C-Train)_5.jpg

Here is the dof I used (not completely horizontal, I had to add in the sky blur and road blur, otherwise a line of sky and road would be in focus:


and the result:


-Rob A>

[RPMiller]

Thanks. I think I get it now.

[Ascension]

Heh, I can see all the 3d modelers out there creating things just to turn it into a jpg and then blur it all out. Speaking of which, I might like to make something in Sketch Up and then blur it all out. Thanks to the both of you for the mini tuts much appreciated.

[waldronate]

Cameras and the human eye both have a characteristic called depth of field. The closer something is to your eye then the smaller the distance range over which you will have things in focus. You can see this if you hold one thumb out at arm's reach and the other close to your eye. Notice the background; it will be slightly blurry. As you move the far thumb toward your eye, notice how things in the background get more and more blurry.
The near-field and far-field blur giving a shallow depth of field image is one of the cues your brain uses to determine distance. Your brain also knows that distance*area covered is proportional to size. So if you lie to your brain by making "far" and "near" items more blurry, your brain wants them to be very close, meaning that they must therefore be very small.

[RPMiller]

Hey cool! Thanks for the explanation of how the effect works. We were wondering about that here at work. I've taken to calling it the "Mr. Rogers Effect" for simplicity sake.

[Midgardsormr]

In case you'd like to take actual pictures: http://www.creativepro.com/article/b...a-lens-peanuts

Instructions on turning an old lens into a tilt-shift lens for about $15. The Zeiss lens the author converted goes for anywhere from $40 to $300 on eBay.

[RPMiller]

Had some time today at lunch so I hunted down another picture to play with. Here is the result:

Before:



After:

[Gamerprinter]

Many 3D apps, including the ones I use has a built in depth of field for the rendering camera as a filter. Basically, you choose the object you want the camera to focus clearly on, then set the blur difference. The camera will automatically determine the level of blur from those objects closest to the focused object, as from the objects much more separated from the focus.

You can apply the Depth of Field filter to animated 3D scenes as well. Combining depth of field with motion blur can really make a scene both realistic and more difficult to discern due fighting blurs.

GP

[RobA]

Had some time today at lunch so I hunted down another picture to play with. Here is the result:

Before:



After:

I think you hit that one out of th park!

The clear blue sky is really helpful in simplifying the scene. Another think I have done is run a painterly effect (oilify, etc) on the sky before the focal blur so it looks like a painted backdrop rather than real sky.

And, as mentioned a shot downward rather than upward helps to trick the brain, too.

-Rob A>