Depth of Field calculator
Potentially for the catagory of fascinating and useful comes
Digital Rebellion's online Depth-of-Field calculator.
Now, for those who may be oblivious, Depth of Field is the area of focus within and image being photographed or filmed. A deep depth of field will have sibjects in the Near and Far ground in focus; a shallow depth of field will have only the subjects at a specific distance in focus with objects closer or further awa in the frame out of focus.
Far too often Video cameras are seen as being 'un-film-like' because of deep depth of field, or more correctly, a lack of control over depth of field. In truth the amount of and control over depth of field has virtually nothign to do with whether a camera is video or celluloid based, but simply to do with the quality of the lens, the fstop and the size of the image receptor.
So here enter Digital Rebellion's handy little depth of field calculator. Simply select your camera model and its sensor size, its fstop and focal length alogn with how far the subject is away and Vola! Instant read out of the spatial depth of field you'll have in the shot. In other words a reading in meters of how much space will be in focus.
SO for example a Sony EX1 with 1/2" sensors at a focal length of 100mm and a subject at 10meters will have:
Near distance: 9.723 meters
Far distance: 10.293 meters
Total depth of field: 0.571 meters
meaning that at 9.7m the image will be in focus and 10.2 meters it will be out of focus so there is a space of half a meter of depth where things are sharp.
Useful? Certainly good to compare cameras. Very useful if you're the sort of filmmaker who likes to be anal about hard blocking and camera position.
Digital Rebellions handy little utilities dont stop there - a
Pixel Aspect ratio calcuator is also availible, greta for scaling down vidoe for online and wnatign to keep widescreen aspects.
Also a
Video Footage calculator which tell you how much space your video fils will take up when captured in all the major formats.
And also a
Power Load Calculator for working how many lights you can run off a single circuit in any given country without blowing something up.
Posted at 12:00AM Jun 18, 2008
by Mike Jones in video |
