Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Depth of field app with some MF features  (Read 5469 times)

torger

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3267
Depth of field app with some MF features
« on: May 04, 2016, 01:56:47 am »

I've announced this app in "digital cameras & shooting techniques" earlier, a section that noone reads :) . Anyway, I've just released an update which adds some further features and I think it has some extra relevance for medium format and other high res cameras so I make a post here too.

It's "Lumariver Depth of Field", a depth of field calculator running on both iOS and Android. In addition to normal depth of field it has a screen for tilting, and it also has a focus stacking feature. It's intended for full-sized scenes, typically landscape and architecture photography. There's no macro support at this time.

I the latest version I added a camera database with 80 cameras and 479 lenses, it's not feasible to have them all ever produced though so cameras and lenses can also be entered manually. In addition to the usual suspects (Hasselblad H & V, Phase One, Rodenstock, Schneider, Fujinon, Nikkor) it contains all ALPA lenses with exact effective focal length and nodal point separation, which means that the distance scale in the app matches the high precision focusing rings on the camera.

The user interface is optimized for one-hand operation on a mobile phone, but it's scalable so you can use it on a tablet too.

An intro and link to the full documentation is here: http://www.lumariver.com/#LumariverDoF
A 90 sec intro video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOQYFlHCz70

A couple of screenshots attached. I've made a lot of free software in my days, this is not one of them though -- it costs $9/€9 in the stores. I use it myself with my Linhof Techno instead of my own table cards I've used earlier. I still have the cards with me though as a mobile phone doesn't have infinite battery time.
Logged

Joe Towner

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1365
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #1 on: May 05, 2016, 12:04:44 pm »

Nice, will check it out.
Logged
t: @PNWMF

alan_b

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 318
    • West Coast Architecture + Interiors Photographer
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2016, 01:31:32 pm »

Nice! Purchased - looking forward to putting it to use!
Logged

torger

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3267
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2016, 04:05:40 am »

I hope you'll like it. I've put quite some effort in making it useful, that is I've thought through which use cases there are and designed the app to be able to answer those questions.

For example if you have a high precision distance scale, you often just want to set the near and far limits and get the answer to which focus distance and f-stop to set, while if you have a live view you focus at some object at some specific distance and then want to know which f-stop to use to cover a specific range.

The tilt screen is a bit more complex, but one can start simple with that. If you have live view you really don't need to calculate the focus distance, you just focus at the middle of the tallest feature in the scene. You then only use the calculator to calculate which tilt to set to get a specific hinge distance, and then the span to figure out which f-stop is required to cover the tallest object in the scene. If you have a high precision focusing ring you can calculate exactly which focus distance to set too.

The "virtual ground" feature of the tilt screen is intended for the use case where you put the hinge distance a fair bit below the ground to gain wedge span. This is useful for longer lenses, say 70mm and up when it comes to medium format. You can then see when the DoF wedge comes up through the ground and make sure that it's before the ground becomes visible within the field of view.

I use the app myself with Linhof Techno and ground glass focusing, and a rangefinder for checking distances. I don't always use the rangefinder though, in general the distances you're interested in are fairly close and after a while one gets quite good at estimating those.

Before writing my own DoF app I tested lots and lots in the market. There are only one or two that supports tilt at all, and I didn't find anyone that had the wedge-span-at-infinity concept which I personally think is quite important. When it comes to plain DoF apps there's a bunch (about 100 apps!), but 90% of them are disqualified as you can't configure the CoC. Of the remaining the user interface is often a bit cumbersome to navigate, and often lacking support of key workflows, like setting near and far limits and getting the focus distance rather than the other way around. I get the sense that many apps are written by good programmers but not being so familiar with the gear photographers use. In my app I chose the approach to make the configuration a bit more of an effort (such as setting up which camera and lenses you have), but once configured it's supposed to be smooth to use.

Most DoF apps are free though and my costs some money so it's not a fair comparison. I lacked a truly serious DoF app though and I gladly pay some money for apps that work than have 20 free apps that doesn't work as good. In photography I use two apps currently, my DoF app and a viewfinder app to plan shots before I unpack and place the camera.

(I discovered a small bug in v1.0.4, there's a feature to enter specific distance value (enable in settings, then tap the center row in the scroller) and if your lens is configured with nodal point separation like the ALPA lenses, that separation is added to the distance, so if you enter say 2.00 meters you get 2.02 for a wide angle lens with 20mm nodal point separation). I'll fix that to the next release, but I'll wait a while to see if something more turns up.)
Logged

trias260

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 15
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2016, 01:57:00 pm »

bought it - and used it. Very nice and helpful tool.
Thank you for your work!
Logged

MN

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 62
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2016, 03:27:18 am »

Bought it too.

What viewfinder app are you using?

Thanks
Logged

torger

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3267
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2016, 03:47:31 am »

What viewfinder app are you using?

I'm on Android, and I was using an app called "Viewfinder" but it seems to have disappeared from the stores so when I recently upgraded my phone I couldn't get that. Then I switched to "Cadrage" which has the most necessary functions, but I haven't had any time to use it much in the field yet. It's like most viewfinders aimed at the video market.

I haven't found the "perfect" viewfinder app for my needs yet. For example I'd like to have one with adjustable exposure as when shooting outdoor the auto-exposure of the phone camera adapts to the sky making it hard to see what's on the ground, so I usually use my finger to mask out the sky from the camera :-). It would also be cool to have shift in the viewfinder app, it's probably not that necessary though.

I'm using it like a "planning viewfinder", that is I don't mount the phone on the camera "ALPA style", but I hold it in my hand while the camera is still in the backpack and just use it to scout the optimal camera position and suitable focal length before unpacking the camera.
Logged

MN

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 62
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #7 on: May 12, 2016, 11:24:59 am »

Thanks for your quick reply.

Quote
I'm using it like a "planning viewfinder", that is I don't mount the phone on the camera "ALPA style", but I hold it in my hand while the camera is still in the backpack and just use it to scout the optimal camera position and suitable focal length before unpacking the camera.

I am finding myself more and more using my iPhone in a similar fashion, as a quick notebook of possible position, especially if there is no obvious "best" position or angle.
Logged

torger

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3267
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #8 on: May 13, 2016, 10:19:07 am »

André of Alpa kindly provided me with the nodal point distances for all Alpa lenses including the Rodenstocks, so I've just pushed a v1.0.5 to the stores which corrected a few numbers on the Rodies which I had to guess before. I also fixed the bug with manually entered distances that wouldn't take nodal point separation into account.

It's available now on Android, while there's a bit of delay (hours or even days) until it's out on iOS App Store as Apple reviews all updates manually.
Logged

trias260

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 15
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2016, 04:33:11 am »

As the "live view" screen of the iphone6 has pretty the same angle as the SK 43XL, I use the Iphone quite often without any app.
I have to say, that the SK43XL is my mostly used and beloved lens.
Additional I use viewfinder mark II. There are limitations, but it is helpful to have a quick comparison between different lenses.
Shifting would be a nice tool.....
Logged

Dladymon

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 20
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #10 on: May 14, 2016, 05:36:38 pm »

I just bought the app for based upon the OP saying there is support for Hasselblad V.  I have the Hasselblad 503 but do not see that camera in the selectable camera section.  Is my camera classified as something else with this app?
Logged

torger

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3267
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2016, 03:29:44 am »

I just bought the app for based upon the OP saying there is support for Hasselblad V.  I have the Hasselblad 503 but do not see that camera in the selectable camera section.  Is my camera classified as something else with this app?

All cameras are supported as you can enter them manually. The database with cameras and lenses is only there for convenience to make it quicker to enter common lenses, digital cameras and digital backs. When it comes to medium format I have chosen to not put the body in there as it's the digital back that provides the properties relevant for depth of field (sensor size, pixel pitch). So in your case you'd pick CFV-39 or CFV-50 (just noted I've forgot to put CFV-50c in there though... but one can select H6D-50c and rename or add a generic and edit).

There are so far no analog camera bodies in the database (I'm expecting most large format users there, and then there's again varying film size per body), but there's a number of film size presets when you make a new camera. So what you do when the camera is not in the database you add a new generic camera and then edit it's properties so it matches. For a camera body it's very little work. Just set the name of the camera and the sensor/film size and you're ready to go. Live view size and pixel pitch are optional. If you use film and scan you can set the pixel pitch to the scanner's pixel pitch.

There are a bunch of V-lenses in the database though (although probably not every model ever produces), so entering lenses should be quick, and that's the tedious part.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2016, 03:47:05 am by torger »
Logged

BAB

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 515
Re: Depth of field app with some MF features
« Reply #12 on: June 16, 2017, 05:57:02 pm »

where is the link for videos with sound
Logged
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kic
Pages: [1]   Go Up