With high definition digital cameras available at affordable prices and a global screening opportunity phenomenon called YouTube, film making enthusiasts have experiencing a golden age! The next challenge that they saw ahead of them was how to make their videos to look more like ‘film’. This is when a new gadget was introduced; 35mm DOF adapter. DOF adapter creates the shallow depth of field that comes out a full frame film camera which results in giving digital videos a ‘film look’.

Of course nowadays with the amazing videos captured by DSLR cameras and even the industry leaning towards using them, there’s less need to buy a digital camera and then use a DOF adapter to create the film look effect for amateur cinematographers, however, with most of the advanced digital camcorders inability to create a similar outcome the market remains open for DOF adapters. 35mm DOF adopters come in different designs and the price range goes from 50 to even 5000 pounds for a full package. There are a few good cheap alternatives which obviously don’t give you the clarity of the professional ones but outcome a very interesting result. The one I’d like to introduce here is Static DIY 35mm DOF. This low-weight adapter which works with no power source creates an interesting distortion on the frame and gets the best focus only in the center of the image(something like a zoom blur effect on the edges). This works particularly well when creating a dreamy look environment. I did a little test with this adapter using Canon XH-A1 and a Canon EF 50mm lens. In a good sunny day or enough light it perform quiet good and the noise level is very low. Focusing is very tricky because of the distortion but if everything goes well the final image is pleasing; see my test video from below.

A few months back I made a collection of some of the good presets available for XH-A1 but it took me nearly 8 months to find the time to make a new one. This set includes 8 new presets and a bonus which you need to try on your own!. You can watch a quick preview of them in the video below.

Download this collection from here. See the previous presets here

It’s true that you can always colour grade your footage in post, but if you use the camera’s colour settings and try to get as close as you can to your preferred setup, not only you will have less to do in post production you may not even need colour grading. Different cameras offer different solutions to make this process easier but for some such as Canon XH A1 there are presets that you can download which changes the look and feel of your film instantly. The camera has 9 built in presets and  of course you can make yours as well using the custom settings that enables you to save your desired settings designed for different situations.  Let’s have a look at some of the presets for XH A1 that you can download here  and how you can install them in your camera. Look at list corresponding to the numbers on the video here.

After downloading all the presets (*.CPF files), create a folder called ” PRESET” in your memory card copy them there. Now insert the memory card back in and turn on the camera. Using the custom preset button now you should be able to access all your new presets. If you want to replace your existing presets with one of the new ones  it’s possible by accessing the custom preset settings from the menu (as shown here). You can download this 18 presets from here. There are more which I’ll try to introduce in the near future.

Reference: http://www.dvinfo.net

“The Broken” was chosen as the second popular student work by the audience of our course degree show (Media Technology@Kingston University). I was a bit surprised since if I had to pick myself I would have chosen “The Fall” amongst my other works to be the better one in terms of the storyline. I’m not so sure how close The Broken‘s audience understanding was to my idea behind the shots.

Love at first sight? not even close!
There’s no definitive feeling in The Broken, it’s just confusion and trying to understand these confusing feelings. The first time when Danny and Mia look at each other it’s not love; it’s one of those feelings that you don’t understand at the time and makes you wonder;”what was it?”. Sometimes you try to understand it and if you are lucky you get a chance but usually it’s a lost moment and something that will remain in your mind for a very long time if not forever.

The consequence of a never made decision
Just because you choose not do something,  or just imagine it, it doesn’t mean you won’t suffer the emotional consequences. Sometimes living through the pain can be less painful than just imagining it !

A Surreal world
The story is not happening in a real world and everything is the product of Danny’s imagination. Mia may not even exist in Danny’s life and she’s a just representing Danny’s lost connection to the real world, a connection that he chooses to keep broken at the end.