Iray Camera Wierdness - Depth of Field - Take Note!

Patroklos

So with Iray we can use our photography skills to set up the camera???

I was experimenting with depth of field and having real trouble using conventional settings, it simply does not work. It appears that even at f22 the depth of field is measured in mm!

I have found that to get depth of field right on a portrait I have to use an F Stop of 99 to 199!!! to get the subject in focus and throw the background out of focus.

Thank god for the quick iray render setting or this would take a month to get one render anything like right.

Patroklos

The trick with this seems to be;

1. Switch perspective on otherwise the proportions will be wrong.
2. Get the focus about right on maybe f22.
3. Open up the F Stop to say f2 and adjust to get the best focus on the eyes. This should be very precise, maybe down to .5 .
4. Close down the F Stop till the face is in focus and the background is out of focus - this will likely be a high number, far higher than you would use on a camera. Another oddity of Iray as far as I can see is that the image sharpens further if you then close down a further 25% to 50%. So if f50 looks good, f60 to f75 might be better, so long as the background is still out of focus.

If anyone gets better results by a different method I would really like to hear about it.

Thanks

Richard Haseltine

If you use the Perspective view (or another camera) you can see guides for the DoF attached to the render camera - a sphere for the focal point and planes that measure the in-focus range. Drag the sphere to adjust the Focal Distance, the cube to adjust the F-Stop.

Patroklos

Yes, I'm sure I saw that some time back.

Also, they seem to be invisible if you try to use a normal (say) f11 camera setting, as almost everything blurred out.

I will look again.

I do believe that concentrating on the eyes in a portrait is important.