Shallow DOF is a great "cheat" if you don't have that good a location or set/production design. It's the equivalent of vaseline on the lens...covers up a lot of flaws.

A lot of low/no budget productions don't have the cash or resources to get good locations or build great sets to show off some nice deep focus. You can't show it off if you don't got it.

I don't agree that it's a cheat. It's a depth cue and a tool. Not even 4 years ago low/no budget productions COULDN'T even get shallow DOF if they wanted... but now all the sudden it's a "cheat"? I don't buy it. I think it's mostly just become an elitist thing to say sadly.

@stonebat

Oh I know... I was just say'n in general and such. :)

GH2VK bodes well with deep DOF. The highest bitrate is produced in deep DOF.

Before vdslr revolution, I guess it must have been expensive to get shallow DOF. Good point.

shallow dof has been so overused, it doesn't look expensive anymore.

Shallow DOF is a great tool for selectively drawing the viewer's attention to something. A filmmaker can also do this with light (our eyes are phototropic and focus our attention on brighter objects), color, pattern, and other ways or combinations of these. But DOF is a great one.

One of the things I actually like very much about the m43 image size over FF is that it's a pretty good balance between shallow DOF and usable, focusable footage. I think that as filmmakers we had waited so long for shallow DOF that when the 5D finally made it easy, we overused it a little. Now I think some of the newness has worn off and people are moving more toward using appropriate DOF for the scene.

Im nearly finishing my short narrative film and try to avoid too much shallow DOF as its distracting and I agree that its being used to death on DSLR footage...sometimes its nice and arty but I dont see shallow dof in films all the time... only for focus points...so trird to approach it the same way. I concentrated more on framing.
Overall ive never gone faster than f2.5.

@Nino_Ilacqua Shallow DOF is maybe how the eye works, but our eyes are constantly changing focus faster than any camera and we see with our brains, which assembles all those images in realtime super quick.

We have super deep depth of field.

Shallow DOF makes it easier to design a set and compose shots. Ever since I've started learning more about cinematography, I've analyzed real films more, and find most shots actually have quite a deep DOF

As we all know shallow DOF doesn't only depend on the aperture, but also distance and focal length. That being said, opening up to 1.4 doesn't tell that much, it obviously isn't the same f1.4 at 0.5m @ 85mm focal length than f1.4, infinite, just one thing close to the optics.

For example, in Won Kar Wei's 2046 or In the Mood for Love, he uses deep DOF the other way round we are used to in DSLR cinematography, that is, instead of focused subjects in first term then blurred background, blurred first term objects with infinite focus afterwards. The first term objects are really meaningless, but help focus attention quite a lot.

I'd say it really depends, on night shots using shallow DOF is not only a must because you must use an open aperture but because lights get that magical blur we all love. It also depends on wether we are talking about a love movie or an action movie, you cannot use shallow DOF in Batman's night shots with all that action happening everywhere.

Also shallow DOF can have narrative importance, not only deep DOF.

So it's all really up to the director's intentions. I love for example how Won Kar Wei uses the deep DOF but with unfocused objects in first term. In night shots, or close-up conversations, I'm a lover of shallow DOF.

The way I see it is really this: it's up to you on how you use it, but remember what it's intended for. Every time you think about a scene, the position of your camera and the DOF must express the same thing you intend to narratively. And almost always, when you are thinking of impressive image instead of giving impressive emotions, you're screwing up things. That, at least, is my own experience.

That is, for cinema, not talking about Lady Gaga kind of music clip :P .

Cheers and nice talk, hope we keep it on, it's nice to see everybody's opinions in this stuff.

@Mimirsan I believe you. A film can be done at f/2.5 or slower. But it might not be easy to take all scenes at f/1.4 or faster. Also... not everyone looks great at shallow DOF... haha.

+1 @AdR

@AdR I generally agree, except that there's no 'right' or 'wrong' just the result we're looking to create. If the desired result if to mimic a feature shot on 35mm, then a lot of people are overshooting that mark. But we should realize that a new aesthetic is dawning based on these big sensors and fast lenses, and that's fantastic. Technology has always driven new aesthetics in cinematography.

Sure. FF is essentially Vista Vision size. And then there's 65mm and larger. But I don't recall bokake-style cinematography in those the way that DSLR filmmakers swung the DOF pendulum so far.