Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/12/27

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Subject: Re: [Leica] DoF, was: Noctilux-M v. Summilux-R
From: Lee <leeh0@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2003 12:15:39 -0800 (PST)

Hi,

One interesting thing occurred to me is the "reversed"
thinking of DoF.  Instead of a set of parameters like
a given lens, aperture and distance (and then to
figure out the DoF), it seems to me that DoF and the
"size" of image commands the aperture to use for a
given lens.  Probably portraits are the most popular
and sensitive case for DoF usage.  In this case, for
regular adult portraits of head and shoulder shots, we
typically want to have a DoF about 4" for facial
contour before taking a picture.  Therefore, you may
roughly use 50 focal lens at aperture of 2 or 85 at
aperture of 4 (to get comparable image size at
whatever distance needed).

I don't see a such "DoF" calculator (it should be
called "aperture calculator" for given DoF - modern
camera can have this built-in (little different from
canon's DoF priority)).  To me this is more useful. In
most cases, people know ahead what DoF they want and
the image size (which determines the distance and is
part of composition).  What they don't know is what
aperture to use.  btw, the marking on lens is hard to
use for such large aperture.

[To make it topic-related, in order to use Noct's max
aperture with DoF of 4", you may have to be roughly 6'
away.]

Happy holidays!

Lee

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Replies: Reply from Mark Rabiner <mark@rabinergroup.com> (Re: [Leica] DoF, was: Noctilux-M v. Summilux-R)
Reply from Ted Grant <tedgrant@shaw.ca> (Re: [Leica] DoF, was: Noctilux-M v. Summilux-R)