[sivadbop]

Hi,

So I don't know if anyone uses 3D modeling software like Rhino (if you happen to be a designer on top of a photographer), but I've built this tool for visualizing your field of view and depth of field.

I made it for a more smooth visualization of the relationships of DoF to focal length and field of view. Helps me start to intuit how making changes would affect my photograph. The program is great because instead of punching numbers into applet boxes, you get all the parameters on sliders so you can go nuts cross-referencing settings.

I'd like to add a function that allows you to enter desired parameters for a "Brenizer" panorama... You put in the lens angle you want to simulate, and how thin you want the DoF, and it shows you how many shots you would have to stitch together, at which f-stop and focal length, from how far away. I would even build in parameters for how much you are comfortable overlapping your pano shots to help with stitching.

If anyone actually uses Rhino/Grasshopper, I'd be happy to share! Porting this to a web platform is currently over my head, but who knows...

24mm f/1.4 subject @ 10ft



85mm f/1.4 subject @ 10ft



200mm f/11 subject @ 48ft

[sholtzma]

I am very interested in your progress on this project. I'd love to have, in the end, a way of visualizing AOV and DOF by entering lens, focal length, aperture, camera-to-subject distance, and sensor size. I suggested long ago in the "Dear Pentax" thread that Pentax introduce some way of seeing DOF into their cameras, aside from the standard (but rather inadequate) "DOF preview". Pentax did introduce focus peaking, which is okay but not ideal. I might even be finally convinced to buy a smartphone or tablet if I could use it to access your kind of program while shooting.

[tuco]

... Porting this to a web platform is currently over my head, but who knows...

In the old days we could just look at the DOF scale on the lens and get a good feel as to the DOF you're getting in the scene. But todays many lenses either don't have that or are pretty useless as the DOF scale is so compressed for the gearing in short barrel movements for the auto focus. For some people this is a probably good way to help a person visualize the effective DOF vs focal length vs subject distance.

I don't know anything about your rendering software. You'd need to programmatically have it generate an image or something from your parameters to get a dynamic output from user input. But you could generate JPEGs for a bunch of different combinations focal lengths, subject distances and focus distances that a person can choose from a menu and display that. Perhaps still useful and much easier to build and defend when you don't have to accept random input from a user on the web.

[sivadbop]

For some people this is a probably good way to help a person visualize the effective DOF vs focal length vs subject distance. .

Yeah, I see this as a teaching tool. And an exercise for my own understanding. I would never practically need this kind of precise control over DOF in the field. Plus, that would take all the fun out of shooting and then seeing what you get!

I'd love to have, in the end, a way of visualizing AOV and DOF by entering lens, focal length, aperture, camera-to-subject distance, and sensor size. I suggested long ago in the "Dear Pentax" thread that Pentax introduce some way of seeing DOF into their cameras, aside from the standard (but rather inadequate) "DOF preview". Pentax did introduce focus peaking, which is okay but not ideal. I might even be finally convinced to buy a smartphone or tablet if I could use it to access your kind of program while shooting.

Those are the parameters I'm starting with. The translation from a measurement of DOF to an understanding of the composition will always have some degree of abstraction short of a full live preview. The qualities you are trying to quantify are --ahem-- blurry, after all.

I imagine we're not too far off from some kind of 3D scanning technology that can fit on a camera body, giving you some more data to work into whatever visualization tools they have built in. I actually have a Kinect scanner that I can use to import an actual real-world scene into this tool, then single out regions that will be in different states of focus. It takes about 2 minutes to get a single useful scene, however. And a lot of equipment. Not exactly ready for prime time.