DOF & Digital

[Anonymous]

Somebody with more electronics / optics knowledge than me, please clue me in as to why apertures on digital cameras don't seem to give nearly as much control over DOF as with film? I mean, I set my Minolta's f-stop to 3.5 (lowest it'll go) and I still get a huge DOF. I would really like to experiment more with DOF, but unless I'm shooting macro, my camera just doesn't seem to be all that suited for it. It's my understanding that that's something really intrinsic to most digital cameras. :?

 

[NKT]

Great question...From what I understand, it has to do with the size of the sensor in consumer digital cameras. The small size of the sensor in relation to the size of the lens results in much larger DOF than 35mm cameras. Here is a link that will explain it much better than I can:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutor ... /dof.shtml

 

[Anonymous]

Groovy, thanks NKT. I haven't checked the link yet, will do it later this afternoon. So from your understanding then, would a D-SLR (assumably having a larger ccd) have better DOF control?

 

[NKT]

Yup...a DSLR definitely would have better DOF control, since the sensor size is bigger and somewhat closer to the 35mm standard. A full frame sensor (such as the Canon 1Ds or Kodak 14n) should give you even more control.

 

[Anonymous]

Yup...a DSLR definitely would have better DOF control, since the sensor size is bigger and somewhat closer to the 35mm standard. A full frame sensor (such as the Canon 1Ds or Kodak 14n) should give you even more control.

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[jamesw]

This post contains 100 times more than you want to know about digital cameras and DOF:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?ac ... 31d3a22a42

Smaller sensors have smaller pixels. That means that the size of the aperture can only get so small before light is diffracted and hits multiple pixels as the same time (bad). That's why digicams only go up to f11

Cheers
James