Ff dof

[PhotomanJohn]

Richard - Thank you for having some fun with this thread. Your comments may not have helped the new photographer's understanding of the subject but do illustrate that there are different ways of looking at the subject. One is from the definition of DOF which includes the circle of confusion being a function of the diagonal dimension of the format. An the other takes into account how we use the images that are created. These things and the general lack of basic understanding by even professional photographers puts discussing DOF in the same league as discussing religion and politics.

Colin, how were the marshmellows?

John

[Ricco]

The full frame camera is has both a wider and a more narrow DOF as compared with a crop camera...

If you focused at 10 feet with a 50mm lens, shooting with f/4 on a 1.6x crop camera and the same on a full frame camera; the DOF of the cropper would be 1.84 feet while the DOF of the full framer would be 2.94 feet.

See! I told you that the full frame camera has a greater DOF than a crop camera...

Circle of confusion for a 1.6x crop camera = .019mm
Circle of confusion for a full frame camera = .03mm
.

This was the bit that confused me! I can follow the whole "you need to reframe the shot / zoom more / move closer" therefor less DOF bit, but I can't get my head around the above.

To me, this means that the "picture" on the sensor isn't actually the same between a crop and FF.


P.S. I didn't want to start WWIII.....

P.P.S. I was thinking about shooting a wedding, any tips? (Just kidding)

[Colin Southern]

These things and the general lack of basic understanding by even professional photographers puts discussing DOF in the same league as discussing religion and politics.

No no no - you mean same as discussing "UV Filter -v- no UV Filter" - "Mac -v- PC" - and "Canon -v- Nikon" I'm dreading the day when someone posts up "Hi - I'm new to photography - should I buy a Canon or Nikon? Are Macs really better for processing? And I've heard that using a UV filter for protection is a good idea"

Colin, how were the marshmellows?

Great

[xpatUSA]

(tongue-in-cheek alert) . . .

Perhaps thing would get easier if the word "crop" was only used to describe a post-processing action?

But then, I find "05" on watch dials irritating, so just ignore me . . .

[rpcrowe]

Actually, DOF is pretty cut and dried. A portion of the image is either in acceptable focus or not! What is left up to the judgement of the viewer is the quality of the out of focus areas of the image or Bokeh. Generally, the smoother and most creamy bokeh can be considered more attractive while choppy and unsmooth bokeh is genarally considered unattractive because it draws attention away from the principle subject.

However with every subjective judgement in photography, I am sure that there are some folks who enjoy choppy bokeh that attracts attention. Thus we occasionally see photographers shooting through cut-outs of hearts, etc. which provide bokeh in the shape of the cut-out.