Re: [Leica] DoF, was: Noctilux-M v. Summilux-R

[Ted Grant <tedgrant@shaw.ca>]

Lee offered:
Subject: Re: [Leica] DoF, was: Noctilux-M v. Summilux-R


> 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. <<<<<

Aw geeesh Lee com'n, photography is bad enough to learn all the bits and
pieces without adding some techie thing to confuse people.  Hell what's
wrong with just pointing the camera at the subject at f8 and be there? :-) I
mean that's worked for a zillion years, why mess with people's minds at this
late date?

> 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).<<<,

Holy jumpin' did you drink too much over the holiday? Heck most portrait
shooters already know this kind of stuff and amateurs wouldn't have a clue
what yer talking about without a bunch more diagrams to follow. Even then
they'd not likely understand what the hell yer talkin' about..

> 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.]<<<

Holy Cow!!!! Man I never worry about the Noctilux and depth of field because
I'm concentrating on the light and subject and certainly I'm way too busy
shooting pictures. The only time I think of making changes is when I want to
kill a distracting background then I pop it wide open and it becomes a
"clean" background.

Most cases I'm nearly wide open to start off with, a stop or bit down
because what's the point of paying the big bucks for a Noctilux f1.0 and
then start stopping down with it? Quite frankly that's rather stupid!

ted



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