mask or blur background

Corpvid wrote on 10/19/2009, 8:38 PM

Hey Edit Gurus, I need a hand with this one.

Shooting a project tomorrow, that involves industrial machinery. The client wants his product to be the focus of attention, and not show machines from other vendors. I'd like to blur or mask the background to hide the rest of the plant. Any quick ideas? I plan on editing the project in Vegas, but I also have the Adobe line of products as well as FCP.

thanks

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 10/19/2009, 9:11 PM

Best approach is to shoot with reduced DOF.
Wide aperture, long lens, fast shutter speed, ND filters, even a blurring vignette in any combination can accomplish this.

You can do it in post, but it's more work.

farss wrote on 10/19/2009, 9:19 PM

If you cannot get a shallow enough DOF using the camera then try putting a black silk between the subject and the background. At a pinch simple black shadecloth stretched onto any sort of frame will do. It is vital to have it a bit out of focus otherwise you can get problems with moire / aliasing.

I've done a bit of this in post, can indeed be a major pain if things move in the frame.

Bob.