- Hey guys, my name is Matt Johnson and every time
I post a wedding filmmaking behind the scenes video,
I get a lot of shock comments from people saying,
"How are you using a manual focus lens with a gimbal?"
People ask, because I still film weddings
with a Sony a7S two and an adapted sigma Nikon mount
24 millimeter lens.
This adapter doesn't support autofocus.
So how am I manually focusing on a gimbal?
And why?
"Matt why don't you just buy native lenses
"that have autofocus?"
Today I'm gonna walk you through the techniques I use to
manually focus this lens while using a gimbal
and hopefully that will help you, if you find yourself using
a camera or lens that doesn't support autofocus as well.
I'm also gonna tell you why I often prefer
manual focus lenses when filming.
Let's start with the techniques,
which is why you clicked on this video.
To use a manual focus lens with your gimbal my technique is
pretty simple and it's comprised of three things.
To sum them up: shoot with a wider lens, make sure that lens
has a closed aperture and keep the same distance away
from the subject you're filming.
Let's dive in deeper.
First off, you have the lens and I typically use a wider
lens on a gimbal.
I love this sigma 24 millimeter f1.4 lens.
The reason I use a wider lens, is because the wider your
lens is, the more is in focus even at more open apertures.
You ever use a fish-eye lens?
I have an eight millimeter lens and I'm not even sure why it
has a focus ring because adjusting it makes basically
no difference in the focus of the image
because it's so wide.
So this sigma lens at 24 millimeter is no fish-eye,
but at more open apertures like f1.4, where it's letting in
a ton of light, it is still wide enough that it keeps a lot
of things in focus.
If you use a wide lens on your gimbal, you're going to be
able to keep more things in focus.
"I don't have a wide lens Matt."
That's okay, the second technique is gonna help you
regardless of what lens you have.
The second part of my technique to use a manual focus lens
on a gimbal is you want your lens to have a closed aperture.
"What are you saying Matt?
"Set my lens to f22 so everything's really dark,
"but at least it's all in focus?
No, nothing that extreme.
But I do want you to be very aware of the aperture that your
lens is set to while you are filming.
In my experience on a gimbal you usually want more things
in focus, you may be shooting a wider establishing landscape
shot or a shot of a wedding couple wide in a field.
These are all places where you don't need
to be shooting at f1.4.
In fact, I rarely go down to f1.4 on a gimbal,
unless I'm filming a wedding reception exit
and I need the light.
I'm often times at f4, f5.6 or f8.
Now thinking about a wedding reception exit
with a couple walking toward the camera as they leave
the venue ties in very well to the third part
of my technique for manually focusing with a gimbal
and that is keep the same distance away from your subject
that you are filming.
All lenses have a plane of focus.
Everything inside that plane is in focus.
Everything outside of it is blurry.
Here I am inside the plane of focus.
Now I'm out and I'm blurry, back inside the plane of focus
back out of it now I'm blurry.
So if I'm filming with a gimbal, you're not gonna see me
filming a shot where I'm running up to the couple
from wide to tight, changing the focus as I go, no!
Instead, I'm gonna hold my gimbal with one hand
and use the other to set the focus on my camera manually.
And then always try to stay the same distance away
from the subject I'm filming.
"Well, that sounds boring, Matt, the point of a gimbal
"is you're supposed to move, you don't move."
No, I move all the time.
But I'm very careful about how I move, you will oftentimes
see me moving either with the couple
or in a circle around the couple.
I never move in closer or further away
because they won't be in focus.
If you stay the same distance away from your subject,
you may need to get a bit more creative with your shots,
but you'll find that it's still easy to keep them in focus.
And those are my techniques
for using manual focus lenses on a gimbal.
"But why Matt?
"Why don't you just buy native lenses and use autofocus?"
That's easy, I still don't fully trust autofocus yet.
It's getting so much better with face and eye autofocus,
but if I'm filming a wedding that's full of once
in a lifetime critical shots that can't be missed,
my brain knows where I want to have in focus,
I can turn the focus ring of my lens to make my camera
match up with what my brain wants.
But if I'm using autofocus, I just have to hope
that my camera knows what my brain wants.
If you're filming a bride walking down the aisle
or a couple exiting the reception,
can you fully trust that your camera isn't going to
face detect on one of the people cheering on the side
or on the background et cetera?
I've seen one too many posts online where someone is begging
for help because their camera decided to autofocus
on something other than the subject
that it was supposed to be focused on.
For that reason, I still choose to manually focus.
You may think I'm crazy though.
Please leave me a comment down below and let me know
if you use autofocus or if you are still
manually focusing like I am.
With that I hope this video has been helpful to you,
especially if you still have a lot of manual focus lenses
and you've been considering using them with a gimbal.
Also if you happen to be a wedding filmmaker like me,
you probably want to book more couples
and film more weddings.
For this reason, I've created a free guide that's gonna
give you some practical changes that you can make right now
to your wedding filmmaking business to start booking
more couples and filming more weddings.
It's a free gift to you.
You can download it at the link down
in the video description.
Thanks so much for watching, and have a great day.