Free depth of field calculator for your phone!

Tobers

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Hi all,

I've been confused by depth of field calculations. I found a really good online depth of field calculator here, but it's not much good when I am out & about.

I thought that someone must have written one for a mobile phone. A quick Google, and I found a free DOF calculator application for your phone here!. It is a java app which works very well on my SonyEricsson w910i and should work fine on any java capable handset. Some of the text formatting is a bit off but I have a slightly wider screen than most handsets.

Works very well. I've compared a few results with the DOFmaster site and they match up to within a few centimeters.

Dont forget to set up your sensor size in the options!!!

If you do download it and have PayPal, bung the guy a few quid using the "donate" button as I've done - it's only fair.

Cheers

Tobers

edit: It also does angle of view for helping with panoramas.
 
Ha ha :D

I'm not nearly that talented. Should have said that I've got no relationship (carnal or otherwise!!) with the developer, just posted the link to help out poor folks like me who cant figure out their hyperfocal distance.

Tobers
 
How do you find out if your phone is java enabled?

Gordon

Download the app onto your phone and see if it works :thumbsup:

They've got a list of handsets on their site that they know it works with, but I imagine it will work with pretty much any modern (last 2 years) handset. Note that you can download the java app (.jar file) directly into your phone by directly to your phone - see instructions on the site.
 
Hi, thanks for the tip...

I have downloaded it and it seems to work fine on my phone (Sony Ericsson C902) - although I now need to know how to work it and what the end result is actually telling me! (sorry complete newbie).

would really appreciate a driving lesson for it? I love landscape and longer distance photography and so think this will server me well :D
 
Works great! And I've always guessed this in the past!

OK, now the 'focal length' and 'aperture' are the easy bits, but what is the 'distance' and how does this differ from the hyperfocal distance

Is the 'distance' roughly what you want in focus; the hyperfocal distance what you actually set on the camera ; and the near and far distances, the range of what will be in focus ?
 
Works great! And I've always guessed this in the past!

OK, now the 'focal length' and 'aperture' are the easy bits, but what is the 'distance' and how does this differ from the hyperfocal distance

Is the 'distance' roughly what you want in focus; the hyperfocal distance what you actually set on the camera ; and the near and far distances, the range of what will be in focus ?

OMG!!! I am even more confused now :confused::confused::confused:
 
Not used the calculator but what should happen is you say what focal length your taking the picture at e.g. 18mm and then the aperture e.g. F8 it will then return a number. On your lens you should have a marker at the top which has feet and metres and you'll also see a dot now what you need to do all this is in manual focus on the camera by the way is line up the number you've got back with the dot.

Unfortunately in a lot of cases you won't have an exact number that matches whats printed on your zoom lens so the depth of field calculator is only really useful in most cases as a guide for focusing.

I quite like taking pictures at 17mm using F16 because that returns a figure of 3 feet which I can match exactly and what it means is you take 3 feet and half it so that in theory everything from 1.5 feet from where you are standing to infinity is in focus. Worth mentioning your canon's crop factor is 1.6 as opposed to my Nikons 1.5 so you'll get a different figure returned.
 
Thanks Dazza - I had put the right crop factor in and so it is all set up for my camera... Still not clear on it all though - I really need to play with the Dof a lot more.

The other thing is that I only have the basic lenses which came with the camera and so they do not have the guages on them - this is what confuses me as all the course material is referring to this. I am watching some second hand ones on Ebay but not a lot of money available at the moment :thumbsdow
 
Not used the calculator but what should happen is you say what focal length your taking the picture at e.g. 18mm and then the aperture e.g. F8 it will then return a number. On your lens you should have a marker at the top which has feet and metres and you'll also see a dot now what you need to do all this is in manual focus on the camera by the way is line up the number you've got back with the dot.

That was kind of what I was expecting, but there is an extra input for 'distance':

Depth of Field calculator for 35mm and digital SLR cameras

In fact, now I look at the screenshot it looks even more confusing!

Anyone kind enough to explain the data in the screenshot?
Focal length=50mm ; Distance=5m ; Aperture=f2.8

Hyperfocal Distance is 43.9m???

Is this saying that the Hyperfocal length for Focal length=50mm ; Aperture=f2.8 = 43.9m
 
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Thanks Dazza - I had put the right crop factor in and so it is all set up for my camera... Still not clear on it all though - I really need to play with the Dof a lot more.

The other thing is that I only have the basic lenses which came with the camera and so they do not have the guages on them - this is what confuses me as all the course material is referring to this. I am watching some second hand ones on Ebay but not a lot of money available at the moment :thumbsdow

It's rare that I actually use "Hyperfocal Distance" for focusing these days, I tend to work on focusing the lens around a third of the way into the scene and then use the depth of field preview button (not all cameras have this to be honest worth looking at your manual) to give me an idea what I'm going to get.
 
That was kind of what I was expecting, but there is an extra input for 'distance':

Depth of Field calculator for 35mm and digital SLR cameras

In fact, now I look at the screenshot it looks even more confusing!

Anyone kind enough to explain the data in the screenshot?
Focal length=50mm ; Distance=5m ; Aperture=f2.8

Hyperfocal Distance is 43.9m???

Is this saying that the Hyperfocal length for Focal length=50mm ; Aperture=f2.8 = 43.9m

I take a printout of this chart out with me and I've based all my information on this for setting the focus :

http://www.nikonians.org/html/resources/guides/dof/wide_angle_tables.pdf

My tamron 17-50 runs out of figures beyond 7 feet or 3 metres so it seems by the chart I'm working from that at F2.8 I'd have to be taking the picture at 10mm to get a figure i.e. 5.8 that I could work with.
 
Thank you Mr T.
It works on a S.E. K510i :D
7420jm3.jpg
 
:rotfl:

My absolute favourite ever mobile phone pic is the one with Robert Maxwell and his lacky holding the battery for it, if I remember rightly the battery in this case is about the size of the one you have in a car.
 
There's quite a few iPhone/iPod Touch apps out there too. I use PhotoCalc which also gives you sunset/sunrise for your location. There's another nice little app called Tides which gives you the tide state in your location.
 

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