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'Deep focus' is a photographic and cinematographic technique incorporating a large depth-of-field. Depth-of-field is the front-to-back range of focus in an image — that is, how much of it appears sharp and clear. Consequently, in deep focus the foreground, middle-ground and background are all in focus. This can be achieved through knowledgeable application of the hyperfocal distance of the camera lens being used.
The opposite of deep focus is shallow focus, in which only one plane of the image is in focus.
In the cinema, Orson Welles and his cinematographer Gregg Toland were the two individuals most responsible for popularizing deep focus. Their film ''Citizen Kane'' (1941) is a veritable textbook of possible uses of the technique.

Contents

Notable uses of deep focus

Black and White

Color

See also

References

Notable uses of deep focus

The following films and television programs contain notable examples of deep-focus photography:

Black and White

★ ''Foolish Wives'' (1922)

★ ''Greed'' (1924)

★ ''Working Girls'' (1931)

★ ''Mad Love'' (1935)

★ ''Dead End'' (1937)

★ ''Grand Illusion'' (1937)

★ ''The Rules of the Game'' (1939)

★ ''The Long Voyage Home'' (1940)

★ ''Rebecca'' (1940)

★ ''Citizen Kane (1941)

★ ''The Little Foxes'' (1941)

★ ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' (1942)

★ ''The Best Years of Our Lives'' (1946)

★ ''Ugetsu'' (1953)

★ ''Sansho the Bailiff'' (1954)

★ ''Mr. Arkadin'' (1955)

★ ''Ashes and Diamonds'' (1958)

★ ''L'avventura'' (1960)

★ ''The Trial'' (1962)

★ ''The Manchurian Candidate'' (1962)

★ ''Birdman of Alcatraz'' (1962)

★ ''Seven Days in May'' (1964)

★ ''The Train'' (1964)

★ ''Chimes at Midnight'' (1966)

★ ''Faces'' (1968)

★ ''The Last Picture Show'' (1971)

★ ''Paper Moon'' (1974)

Color

★ ''For a Few Dollars More'' (1965)

★ ''The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'' (1966)

★ ''The Offence'' (1972)

★ ''Rumble Fish'' (1983)

★ ''52 Pick-Up'' (1986)

★ ''Eyes Wide Shut'' (1999)

★ ''The New World'' (2005)

★ ''Six Feet Under'' (2001-2005)

See also

★ Depth of field

★ Depth of focus

★ Shallow focus

References

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