Nikon 50mm DOF indicator

mrgas

mrgas

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Hi

I've just bought a "nifty fifty" for my D60 and its an absolute revelation ! I can't believe how good it is , I've only had it a day and i'm loving it

All I'm wondering is , is how does the depth of field indicator work ? theres two sets of numbers and i cant really work out how they work and theres nothing in the handbook , theres just the numbers " 16 11 11 16"

Any ideas please ?

thanks
 
mrgas said:
Hi

I've just bought a "nifty fifty" for my D60 and its an absolute revelation ! I can't believe how good it is , I've only had it a day and i'm loving it

All I'm wondering is , is how does the depth of field indicator work ? theres two sets of numbers and i cant really work out how they work and theres nothing in the handbook , theres just the numbers " 16 11 11 16"

Any ideas please ?

thanks
Click to expand...

ok - they are against the focus distance indicator on your lens and refer to acceptable focus limits at those apertures. So for example at f16 (refered to by 16 on your DoF indicator) then you'll have (for example) a focal distance shown of 2 meters and the two 16 marks show you where the acceptable focus at f16 is on the same gauge - say between 3 and 1 meters (example only if focusing on an object 2 m away)

Hope that makes sense?

Hugh
 
As Hugh says, they are the approximate depth of field at any f-stop and range combo.

But, I'd imagine they are designed for a 35mm camera, (??) so although the actual dof distances will be the same mathematically they will appear as increased distances because of the effect of your cropped sensor has on the field of view.

...so in many ways they are not that useful to you as a direct guide.
 
Forbiddenbiker said:
As Huge says, they are the approximate depth of field at any f-stop and range combo.

But, I'd imagine they are designed for a 35mm camera, so although the actual dof distances will be the same mathematically they will appear as increased distances because of the effect of your cropped sensor has on the field of view.

...so in many ways they are not that useful to you as a direct guide.
Click to expand...



so are they much use to me ?

thanks
 
Forbiddenbiker said:
I don't think so no, not if its the old nifty fifty classic.

A fine lens but the visual focal length on your D60 is nearer to 85mm.

So Its going to say x-y is in focus, but when you finally view the images dof it will appear wider than x-y.
Click to expand...

just to clarify , this is the lens i bought

you can see the indicator i'm referring to on the pic

thanks

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/50mm-f14-afs.htm
 
The DOF scale is calibrated for full frame cameras so there will be an error if used with a croped sensor one

OK just ran a senario through a DOF calculator

50mm lens. Full frame camera. Aperture f8 Focus distance 5M

DOF 3.4m-9.6m

Change this to a croped sensor camera and you get the following

DOF 3.8m-7.1m

Its roughly the eqivelent of a I stop difference, i.e from f8 to f5.6 ( but only roughly)
 
:) Depth of field is a measure of the 'in focus' range within a finished photograph. so its also worth remembering that those figures are calculated for a fixed distance for both formats. ... in real use you would have stepped back quite a way to frame the same scene with the cropped format, this in effect lengthens the dof out again so it becomes wider than the full frames dof.
 
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