Why out of focus shots in old TV series?

[brassplyer]

I'm going through the complete Route 66 series and notice it's peppered with a certain number of shots that are out of focus, they don't appear to be for some effect, they're just out of focus. How would this be possible? It was shot to film but didn't the cameras show the cameraman the same view the camera is seeing and wouldn't it be obvious the focus isn't right?

[timtape]

Not necessarily. It's easy these days to take for granted high quality through-the-lens viewfinders and later auto focus. it's also easy to take for granted high def TV these days. Some of the top 60's TV series such as The Fugitive were originated on high def 35mm film. Perhaps also Route 66.

35mm B/W film in the 60's was way higher def than the TV system. Watched on the standard def TV back in the day a moderately out of focus 35mm shot would often not be noticed. But remastering especially from the original 35mm camera negatives to modern HD formats can reveal even a slightly OOF 35mm shot. This can create a dilemma for remastering. They cant sharpen the OOF shots. They could dumb everything down to lower def and sometimes maybe they do. It's not much of a choice so I guess they leave the occasional OOF shots in and hope they arent too noticeable at original full resolution.

[lordsmurf]

Which shots? Outdoor shots, for example, may actually be paintings.

[october262]

I'm going through the complete Route 66 series and notice it's peppered with a certain number of shots that are out of focus, they don't appear to be for some effect, they're just out of focus. How would this be possible? It was shot to film but didn't the cameras show the cameraman the same view the camera is seeing and wouldn't it be obvious the focus isn't right?

see here - https://fstoppers.com/originals/have-you-ever-noticed-how-out-focus-lot-old-tv-shows-are-498529

[timtape]

Thanks for the article. They dont go much into why the tools contributed to the focus problem but obviously one was they couldnt do an instant replay of the shot. To see what they'd shot they had to send the film off to the lab and have the lab make an answer print from it, which was a copy and poorer quality, just so they could view it (because the camera film was a negative, not a positive). The same delay occurred for us shooting amateur home movies except most people shot in positive or reversal film so after processing we were viewing the original camera film rather than a copy of it.

There was no electronic viewfinder or foldout screen which we take for granted today. The viewfinder only got its light from the light lighting the shot. Brightness or contrast couldnt be adjusted because it wasnt electronic like TV.

The 50's Honeymooners comedy was shot in 35mm as was I Love Lucy. I havent seen these in the best resolution down to the film grain but I imagine there would be the occasional OOF shots especially on closeups or long lens shots.

Just for fun we can turn off the auto focus on our favourite camera (if it can be turned off) and try to follow focus on a person walking towards or away from the camera, especially on a tight zoom. It's not easy.

[darkknight145]

Are they out of focus or zoomed in. I've recently watched the original twilight zone TV series and I noticed that there were a number of shots that they'd obviously zoomed in post shooting for better effect.

[pandy]

Or they use digital equipment but with reduced luminance resolution to reduce required bitrate - it is quite common for broadcasters to use less than full luma resolution (i.e. 720/704 for SD) - this full SD was usually reserved for premium channels, regular channels use luma resolution like 352, 480, 540 pixels depends on internal broadcasters regulation.It will be good to verify this with spectral analysis.

Forgot to add that if they used SD equipment then horizontal resolution and perceived sharpness will always worse than full HD signal flow with down conversion to SD in last step.
There is Kell effect and other factors involved in this - to get full SD in practice you need to use HD equipment for at least picture acquisition - this is obvious when you analyze broadcast content in SD/HD transition period (let's say since 1985 to 1995)

Older recording made with optical tape may be out of focus due processing and eventual duplication (contact vs contact-less methods).

[salini]

Old TV shows sometimes have blurry shots because they used manual focus and couldn’t check the footage right away. The cameramen had to rely on simple viewfinders, and any mistakes weren’t clear until the film was developed. Now that these shows are remastered in HD, even small focus issues from the original film are easier to see