How to Pull Focus in 1500FPS Slow-Mo

Oct 27, 2016

Here’s a 2-minute video in which cinematographer Matthew Rosen explains how he pulled focus at high speed for detergent ad.

The shot was of falling detergent powder, captured at 1500 frames per second with a Phantom Miro camera. After figuring out the furthest focus distance with paint brush bristles as a placeholder, Rosen used a long strip of masking tape to quickly pull focus from that point to the nearest focus point… in about 1/4 of a second.

What resulted is a slow motion shot of detergent being poured, with focus following the detergent as it falls to the Earth.