Why does depth of field change between Live View and video recording on a Canon 5D Mark II?
Asked 6/5/2011
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On my Canon 5D Mark II, I was testing video and focused on a soccer ball using Live View. Before I started recording, the scene looked like it had a very different depth of field than it did once I pressed record. As soon as recording started, the look changed noticeably.
Why would the depth of field in Live View look different from the depth of field during actual video recording? Is this related to aperture or a camera setting?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
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Usually, LiveView is shot with the aperture wide open, hence minimum DoF. When actually shooting (or recording), the aperture closes down to whatever your setting is. Try setting to max aperture to record what liveview sees.
Originally by user1024. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1024
15y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This is usually caused by how the camera handles aperture before and during recording.
On the 5D Mark II, Live View often shows the lens wide open when you are not actually recording or taking a shot. The camera does this to give autofocus and viewing the most light. Once you start recording, the aperture stops down to the f-stop you have selected, and that changes depth of field.
So if Live View looks different from recorded video, the most likely reason is that Live View is previewing the scene at the lens’s maximum aperture, while video is being recorded at your chosen aperture.
If you want the recorded video to match what you saw before recording, try recording at the lens’s widest aperture, or check your Live View/movie settings. One community answer also noted that changing the Live View/Movie Function Settings, including the movie display mode, resolved the mismatch.
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