An Android app to help you take stunning photographs

DOF Calculator is a simple app for Android that will help photographers take better shots by calculating depth of field.

For those of us that are newbie photographers, depth of field describes the range or zone from near to far that appears to be in focus. Tweaking the depth of field allows photographers to achieve various effects such as focusing and sharpening an object and creating a blurry background thus causing the object or person to somewhat pop out of the image, this is known as shallow depth of field.

This image below is an example of shallow depth of field and how depth of field can add a dramatic look to images.

After selecting your particular camera within DOF Calculator, the app will ask you to input the focal length, aperture and subject distance (object or person).  Users can also adjust the subject distance to meters, centimeters, feet and inches.

Within seconds, the app will spit out the results for your ideal depth of field shot; near focus limit, far focus limit, depth of field and hyperfocal distance. Assuming the subject was at a distance of 10ft, the pic below shows that the near focus limit is 6.4 ft and the far focus limit is 24.7 ft. That should give you an idea of how you’d apply the results from the app.

The <3 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

Image courtesy of Dofmaster

Since I’m not a professional photographer, I couldn’t speak to the accuracy of the calculations so I did a few test runs using depth of field web applications. Using the same depth of field recipe (camera, focal length, etc) that was used in the DOF Calculator app, the web apps produced the same results proving it’s pretty bang on.

This handy Android app is free and works with a wide range of cameras including; DSLR, SLRs and compact cameras from Canon, Samsung and Sony.