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New depth of field calculator app

torger

Active member
I've added Dave's span unit swap feature plus the 45x30mm Leica S size in the pre-defined list in my development version. I'll sit tight for a few days before releasing an update to the stores though to see if it drops in any more stuff I need to fix/add.
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
The default setting is setting CoC = airy disk diameter, which has the advantage that it's unrelated to sensor size and pixel pitch so it doesn't matter what camera properties you have. However if you do know your sensor size and pixel pitch you may gain from using a more advanced setting, as discussed in the manual.
Read the manual? Oh dear ;)

When I was entering a custom camera, the pixel pitch in grey said 6µ, but the CoC calculator used 1µ until I went back and entered 6µ by hand. I like Max(pixel, airy), but can see plenty of arguments about what pixel multiplier to use. This calls for some experiments!

Best,

Matt
 

torger

Active member
Read the manual? Oh dear ;)

When I was entering a custom camera, the pixel pitch in grey said 6µ, but the CoC calculator used 1µ until I went back and entered 6µ by hand. I like Max(pixel, airy), but can see plenty of arguments about what pixel multiplier to use. This calls for some experiments!

Best,

Matt
You pointed out a user friendliness mistake, the gray value is "placeholder example" and doesn't really mean anything just an example of what you could type in there. I should change that so it says 1um which is the actual value that is active if no value has been entered. Something for the next update.

There's indeed many ideas on ideal pixel multiplier. I've settled for 2.5x, but 2x is also very common. In the end you want something workable, if you get just too much pixel peep perfectionism and set like 1x then the depth of fields will be so shallow it becomes hard to work with. On the other hand one could choose to have a super-perfectionist "sharp CoC" and a bit more relaxed "soft CoC" as they easily can be switched between at will in the main screen, so it depends on how you want to work it.
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
BTW, I love having the two levels of sharpness selectable. A wonderful feature!
:thumbup:

Using my DoF laboratory, I agree that one can go crazy examining at high magnification and concluding that DoF is always almost zero. Backing off to a reasonable (1-1 or less) view gives numbers quite like yours. Oh, the target here is at 11 feet, more or less.



--Matt
 
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MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
I trust you have another on deck; that bottle is getting dangerously low.

Dave
Hmm. Excellent point. Not to worry, though, it has many friends. But when I want a focus target, somehow I always reach for the Maker's Mark. :cool:

Thank you for your concern :),

--Matt
 

dchew

Well-known member
Anders,

I'm going to go in a completely different direction: Here is an app where I have the following data captured for a shot:
Lens
Back
f-stop
lens focus distance

Can you guess where I'm going? Just two more pieces of info, image number and x/y mm shift, and we've got everything we need to know for tagging and/or applying an LCC. What do you think about also using this app as a way to record image data in the field?

Just one more button configured with a 3-second press that brings up a window for image number, x shift and y shift.

Oh that and a way to record and export the information, but that's easy right??
:LOL:

Dave
 

MILESF

Member
+1 for Dave's suggestion. I was on the point of starting a thread to ask how people take notes on shoots. It's something I am conscious I haven't got the hang of using a techincal camera.

Anders,

I'm going to go in a completely different direction: Here is an app where I have the following data captured for a shot:
Lens
Back
f-stop
lens focus distance

Can you guess where I'm going? Just two more pieces of info, image number and x/y mm shift, and we've got everything we need to know for tagging and/or applying an LCC. What do you think about also using this app as a way to record image data in the field?

Just one more button configured with a 3-second press that brings up a window for image number, x shift and y shift.

Oh that and a way to record and export the information, but that's easy right??
:LOL:

Dave
 

dchew

Well-known member
Yeah it was actually colorspace's thread about this that made me think:movements-captureone

After several years of using this stuff I didn't have a good answer. Then I thought, "But maybe Torger does!"

+1 for Dave's suggestion. I was on the point of starting a thread to ask how people take notes on shoots. It's something I am conscious I haven't got the hang of using a techincal camera.
 

Steve C

Member
Bravo Dave!

After 3 years of bugging Phase One to add this data capability, I have lost hope in getting it. Would gladly pay for a simple way to enter data into my iPhone that records image number, lens, focus distance, shift, tilt, filter applied. So far, my best solution is to take a picture of each lens setup and another of the back with the image number.

Come on Phase One, throw us a bone! I need this information in the metadata!
 

torger

Active member
Making it possible to take notes with it sounds like a nice idea, I'll think about it. I don't take notes myself though, I always make an LCC in the field and I'm satisfied with that. By the way I think it's quite likely that future digital backs and cameras will make it possible to run apps in the back itself. We'll see.

About the DoF app I pushed version 1.0.4 to Google Play and App Store yesterday. It's already available in Google Play, but App Store is still "processing", hopefully it will appear today but it's a bit random how long it takes as they employ a manual process.

New stuff in 1.0.4 is

* possible to cycle units %h/%w or all by tapping the flat projection diagram in the tilt screen (enable in settings)
* on tablets/iPads the user interface now rotates according to device orientation
* there's a database of cameras and lenses now. It's by no means complete, but it's a fair chunk of stuff, 80 cameras and 479 lenses to be precise
* full support for ALPA HPF rings, the distance scale should match exactly now if you pick the lenses from the database.

Unfortunately ALPA haven't published nodal point separation and Rodenstock doesn't have it in their data sheets. Schneider has it in their data sheets so there I could just read the number and enter into the database, but for all the Rodies I had to figure it out by trial-error matching to the distance scale tables, so there might be some small mismatch. If there's an error it's on the scale of millimeters so it doesn't matter, but the OCD part of me wants it to be exact match of course :).
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
Bravo Dave!

After 3 years of bugging Phase One to add this data capability, I have lost hope in getting it. Would gladly pay for a simple way to enter data into my iPhone that records image number, lens, focus distance, shift, tilt, filter applied. So far, my best solution is to take a picture of each lens setup and another of the back with the image number.

Come on Phase One, throw us a bone! I need this information in the metadata!
Me too. The nearest thing that I've ever heard from them was concern that people would forget that they'd been entering EXIF data and that it would be applied to images not subject to movements/LCC etc. Well guess what, yes they would, but just like WB in a raw file they could always be reset.
 

torger

Active member
At last v1.0.4 of Lumariver Depth of Field is through Apple's thorough review process and available in app store.

As stated a couple of posts backs the main new thing related to medium format is that there's a camera/lens database and that includes all ALPA lenses with exact effective focal lengths and nodal point separations which make the distance scale in the app match the distance scale on the HPF rings.
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
Anders,

Really a great app. Algorithms are one thing, but a decent UI is much tougher to pull off than anyone appreciates.

The lens database is a great and (probably) infinite task. My own requested addition would be for Contax, as I have a few N lenses on the Sony and a few 645 lenses on the Leica.

Best,

Matt
 

dchew

Well-known member
Anders,
I wonder if there would be a benefit to projecting the angle of view out from the lens in the upper left figure? I guess in a way that duplicates the info on the right figure, but it might help with understanding how all this fits together. Or it might just clutter everything up.

You're going to ban me from posting any more "ideas"...

Dave
 

Jamgolf

Member
After a period of using this app I think it is an excellent app and I whole heartedly thank Torger for developing it.

Here are a couple of things that I think will make it even better:

1. Add a third mode in addition to the current two modes (i) no-tilt (ii) tilt (iii) tilt+swing
This mode would allow the user to see the combined effect of mixing tilt and swing.
This feature would take this app from excellent to legendary :)
The price can be adjusted to account for that also.

2. Caching: I use the 32HR at f8, but I have to reselect f8 every time I start the app.
Each lens' last used setting should be cached and used.

Thank you Anders ! - I look forward to these features :)
Cheers!
 

torger

Active member
Anders,
I wonder if there would be a benefit to projecting the angle of view out from the lens in the upper left figure? I guess in a way that duplicates the info on the right figure, but it might help with understanding how all this fits together. Or it might just clutter everything up.

You're going to ban me from posting any more "ideas"...

Dave
Sorry I missed this post back in May. I did think about putting in the angle of view there, I think it wouldn't clutter too much, the reason I left it out was that then the app needs to know if the lens is shifted and by how much, and I'm sort of out of screen space, so I chose to leave out that feature.
 

torger

Active member
After a period of using this app I think it is an excellent app and I whole heartedly thank Torger for developing it.

Here are a couple of things that I think will make it even better:

1. Add a third mode in addition to the current two modes (i) no-tilt (ii) tilt (iii) tilt+swing
This mode would allow the user to see the combined effect of mixing tilt and swing.
This feature would take this app from excellent to legendary :)
The price can be adjusted to account for that also.

2. Caching: I use the 32HR at f8, but I have to reselect f8 every time I start the app.
Each lens' last used setting should be cached and used.

Thank you Anders ! - I look forward to these features :)
Cheers!
Thanks for the kind words.

Regarding that third mode, while I certainly think it's interesting I think it will be quite difficult to visualize in an understandable way, and the cases where I have found myself using both tilt and swing is in cases when ground glass / live view focusing makes more sense than using the app, as it's for example macro, or fine-tuning focusing on a patch of ground.

Many cameras don't even support tilt+swing, and some do it the way that they rotate the whole tilt mechanism, either in fixed steps or stepless. Actually I think a rotating tilt mechanism is generally easier to work with than separate tilt and swing controls (I have the latter on my Techno). I'll think about tilt/swing a bit, but I don't think I'll make it in the nearest time, as it will probably be quite complicated to learn how it works and be used by very few.

I'll certainly consider 2, there's some caching already today but as you have noted it could be expanded.
 

etrump

Well-known member
Anders,

I picked up the app a few weeks ago. A lot to like and very well worth the purchase.

One thing that I think would be a nice feature (unless I missed it somehow) is a mode for focus stacking that would reasonably match the XF focus stack app. Would be nice at a certain aperture, far and short distance to know how many shots is required to fully capture the scene. It does not appear that it varies the point of focus based on the distance from the camera but rather divides the range by the number of shots.

Ed
 
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