A friend died about 3 years ago, and unbeknownst to anyone, Fred had spent 30 years making tiny "Worlds" in the evenings – we discovered the "Worlds" spread about his house and that term for them in his diaries. He made about a thousand. Tiny worlds made out of copper or aluminium, most of them the size of a dice.
As part of a 90-minute audio-visual I'm doing about Fred, I want to bring those tiny "Worlds" to life, as if they are a planet rotating slowly in space. The plan is to bring up a dozen or so of these "Worlds" for 10 seconds between each chapter.
That's the plan; the implementation is proving difficult. The end result will be a video, but first, I want to find out what type of camera can best do this. Attached is a still from a video I did this afternoon using a metal ring (the actual "Worlds" are of similar size). I was using a GH3 with a x2 close up ring, at the closest distance the 14-140 lens would allow. When finalised, the background will be black, and the string somehow made invisible.
Problem - Depth of Field
I had assumed that an expensive camera such as the Nikon D850 with 105mm macro lens would be the way to go. A mate offered his services about a week ago, but the depth of field on a still was very shallow. But it was only a quick test.
Another mate with the same camera, heard about this project and said "Forget using a DSLR. You want to try my iPhone 13." We haven't tried it yet, but he did photograph his thumb on the spot, and the depth of field did look impressive – on the phone. I didn't see it on my 27" iMac.
Ques
Given that I want to photograph a tiny "World" 10mm across, against a black background, and for it to fill 90% of a 1080P video, what will give the widest DOF – a D850 with a 105mm macro lens, or an iPhone 13? Or some other option?
Note: It may turn out that a shallow DOF gives the most aesthetic results, because of the various parts of the World going in and out of focus as it rotates. But at the moment, I’m looking into a wide DOF.
