[TV orNotTV] NFL - CBS and Shallow Depth of Field

[Adam Bowie]

I've been watching some of the NFL Wildcard games this weekend, and I can't help but notice that in the Bears/Saints game, CBS seems to be using lots of "shallow depth of field" cameras with their mobile sideline cameras. 

It's unusual because 99% of sports coverage uses quite narrow apertures in cameras. In other words, nearly everything is in focus no matter how near or far it is from the camera. 

CBS seems to be shooting "wide open" which results in what should theoretically be quite cinematic shots, because it's what many movies and TV dramas use. The subject of the shot is in focus, while the background is blurred - "bokeh" in photographic parlance. 

The problem is that the zone of focus when you shoot wide open is really tight, and if you've got a camera operator moving, plus the players they're focusing on moving at the same time, even with high end TV cameras' autofocus, it's incredibly hard to keep the image sharp. 

CBS seems to have had this problem quite a lot, and it's really obvious on big HD (or better) screens. Dramas, of course, have the benefit of shots being planned in advance, with actors required to hit their marks. 

Maybe CBS has been doing it before today, and I hadn't noticed. They may be trying something out ahead of their Super Bowl coverage. But it has been really obvious in today's CBS game, and while the shots in theory look gorgeous, in practice, they're just out of focus.

Adam

[Doug Eastick]

Hmm. Wish I had noticed. 

But perhaps it was because I was listening to the games on SiriusXM all weekend.

Maybe I'll Rewind the TiVo from the weekend and check. I'm curious now.

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[Adam Bowie]

You can see an example at this point in the YouTube highlights of the game: https://youtu.be/S1TsLvj2tG8?t=506

That said, it's one of the better examples. Most of the rest of that video are from the fixed cameras, and it was only the mobile cameras that seemed to use it.

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[Doug Eastick]

Wow. That is a very bizarre look for sports.

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[Steve Timko]

I will bet a week's pay it's a stylistic choice. There is super fast autofocus now. The camera operator frames the picture, I bet, and someone in the booth controls the lens focus. And the rest of the background is bokeh. They want a different look.

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[Adam Bowie]

Because I read these kinds of sites, here's a piece that details the 120 cameras CBS will be using for the Super bowl: https://www.newsshooter.com/2021/01/31/cbs-will-use-120-cameras-to-cover-super-bowl-lv/

The piece notes that CBS will be using two Sony VENICE cameras to capture endzone celebrations, and includes an embedded Tweet from the SEA/WAS game to give an example of the footage. It was these cameras that CBS has been using that I referred to in this thread originally. Fox has been doing something similar using a Sony A7IV camera, which is actually a consumer-grade camera for their coverage. Certainly a light package to run onto the field with though.

Lots of 4K cameras in use, but not 4K feed this year.

Adam

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[M-D November]

I've noticed that WWE has been using a shallow depth-of-field (8K) camera for wrestler entrances for the last few weeks - example: https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1350274983197618179?s=20

(More here: https://www.essentiallysports.com/wwe-news-roman-reigns-wwe-introduces-a-massive-change-to-superstars-entrances-with-the-new-8k-feature/)

Frankly, I find it distracting - it looks too much like a video game cut scene to my eye. (For comparison's sake - https://youtu.be/D_-WcOY5kgo?t=10261 - if the "share link" function didn't properly save my start point, fast forward to 2:51 for a proper comparison.)