DOF calculator for birds/wildlife?

russellsnr

russellsnr

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Russell
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Hi, so I no you can get PhotoPills app but it has far to many options, Landscape, Milky Way, Star Trails etc,etc, I just need an easy to use app to calculate DOF (Preferably a free app) when photographing wildlife especially birds. Anyone can share what they use please? Thank You, Russ.
 
I'm wondering about how useful such a tool would be.

With film, I found that a quick touch on the stop down button showed me what I needed and a digital camera's live view is even better.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
I'm wondering about how useful such a tool would be.

With film, I found that a quick touch on the stop down button showed me what I needed and a digital camera's live view is even better.
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Have a look at this video, I found it quite interesting as I used to use a DOF calc when I shot landscapes but that app was years ago. If you want to jump to the important bit around 3min 45sec.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q2TkykJhM4
. Russ.
 
russellsnr said:
Hi, so I no you can get PhotoPills app but it has far to many options, Landscape, Milky Way, Star Trails etc,etc, I just need an easy to use app to calculate DOF (Preferably a free app) when photographing wildlife especially birds. Anyone can share what they use please? Thank You, Russ.
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Not a phone app, But this is free and works well.

At least as well as any D of F app works, given it depends on a subjective view on what is and isn't sharp.

A Flexible Depth of Field Calculator

www.cambridgeincolour.com www.cambridgeincolour.com
 
This might not suit everyone...

As a starting point I like to think about aperture size and if for example you're at 200mm and f2.8 on FF your aperture is going to be 71mm and that should immediately tell you that if you are close enough to get a subject like a bird a reasonable size in the frame you're not going to get much depth at all.
 
To be honest agree with Andrew with birds and wildlife sometimes only get a little while to get the shot and just isn’t time to try to guess distance and refer to an app
I normally am conservative and stop down a bit then open up to a wider aperture if there is time so adjust settings
 
myotis said:
At least as well as any D of F app works, given it depends on a subjective view on what is and isn't sharp.
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:agree: IMO, a DOF calculator is about worthless unless you really know what you are doing/want/need... and you usually don't.

Know that the CoC standard that the calculator uses by default is arguably very outdated and pretty poor... i.e. it is based upon approximately 20/40 vision, it doesn't account for non-standard viewing (on a computer screen), it doesn't account for cropping/composition changes in post, and it definitely doesn't account for pixel peeping high resolution sensor images.

IMO, experience is your best tool... E.g. using your 180-600/6.3 on FF 600/6.3 focused at 60ft the DOF is ~ 1ft (1.12'). From there, if you change the magnification by 2x it changes the DOF by ~ 4x; i.e. doubling the distance to 120ft or zooming out to 300mm results in a DOF of ~ 4ft (4.57'). Or, if you change the f# by 2x it changes the DOF by 2x; i.e. 600/12.7 at 60 ft the DOF is ~ 2ft (2.25').

So, just learn a couple reference distances you are commonly working with and then just SWAG the changes based on their relative effectiveness (magnification is 2x as effective as f# is). I don't usually think about the numbers perse; more just in terms of "enough/not enough." But keep in mind that cropping in post also has the same effect on the DOF/magnification (when displayed at the same size).
 
sk66 said:
:agree: IMO, a DOF calculator is about worthless unless you really know what you are doing/want/need... and you usually don't.

Know that the CoC standard that the calculator uses by default is arguably very outdated and pretty poor... i.e. it is based upon approximately 20/40 vision, it doesn't account for non-standard viewing (on a computer screen), it doesn't account for cropping/composition changes in post, and it definitely doesn't account for pixel peeping high resolution sensor images.

IMO, experience is your best tool... E.g. using your 180-600/6.3 on FF 600/6.3 focused at 60ft the DOF is ~ 1ft (1.12'). From there, if you change the magnification by 2x it changes the DOF by ~ 4x; i.e. doubling the distance to 120ft or zooming out to 300mm results in a DOF of ~ 4ft (4.57'). Or, if you change the f# by 2x it changes the DOF by 2x; i.e. 600/12.7 at 60 ft the DOF is ~ 2ft (2.25').

So, just learn a couple reference distances you are commonly working with and then just SWAG the changes based on their relative effectiveness (magnification is 2x as effective as f# is). I don't usually think about the numbers perse; more just in terms of "enough/not enough." But keep in mind that cropping in post also has the same effect on the DOF/magnification (when displayed at the same size).
Click to expand...
The calculator I linked to gives print size and viewing distance options and an "eyesight" option.

So while I don't think it's' all that useful in real life, for lots of reasons, it is still an interesting tool to assess relative differences in depth of field with different setups.
 
Personally i think it’s a non starter for wildlife 99% of the time my long lens F6.3 @ 600mm is wide open anyway and under normal circumstances that’s good enough , as Steven pointed out there’s simply not enough time to worry over d.o.f settings
 
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