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Hi all, this is my first post  

I've been trying to make an animation with DOF and trying to control where I want the focus point to be. (In the animation I'm just keyframing the camera toward and eventually inside a fractal.) Obviously the closer you get to the fractal, the smaller the Z1 and Z2 sharp values need to be in order for it to keep focused on the same spot. What I've tried is to change the Z1 and Z2 sharp values so that as still-frames, each keyframe is in focus in the same spot I want. When I animation preview it, however, it doesn't seem to be changing these Z sharp values as it goes along - when it animates to the keyframe I gave the right focus to before, it's completely blurred. It's as if the Z sharp values actually just stay in whatever value you first gave it and doesn't animate.

Could you please tell me what I'm doing wrong, or point me to an alternative workflow? Do people just do it in post using some kind of depth pass? Is there a depth pass option?

Thanks so much!

Thanks for your reply Don and thanks for your tutorials on youtube they've helped a lot.

I've done exactly that and my DOF doesn't seem to change.. I've checked each keyframe to make sure the Z1 Z2 sharp values are changing and they are. Actually even the very first frame is slightly off and blurs in a different area than the view panel.. And yes these are proper renders from the render button on the bottom of the animation window.

I also tried changing "Sorted" to "Forward" in the DOF tab to see what it did but I don't think it changed anything?

PMed you the file!