DoF calculator

[Jean Choiniere]

Im not sure if this is the right section to ask this in but here it goes...

Back in december of 2009 I graduated from film school in central florida (guess which one :P), anyways, while in school I developed an app for mac OS X as a visual aid for DoF calculation, to help others and myself learn how DoF works with different formats and lenses an so on. Everyone I showed it to said it would work better as an iPhone or Droid app, which I agree and I looked into developing it for the iPhone and Droid. The thing is, it is MUCH harder to develop for iPhone and Droid, and developing apps for smart phones is beyond my capabilities, just making this app for OS X was challenging enough.

 

Here's the app in question...

I called it Confucius

It is available for download on the "downloads" section on my site... www.jpchoiniere.com

 

Basically my question is, is it worth it?

Is such an app worth the effort to make a smart phone version of? is it something a 1st AC or anyone on a set could make use of?

 

also, I am aware that such apps already do exits for smart phones, but I have yet to see anything with similar visual interface as this. Im just looking for everyones 2 cents on this.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

It's a nice looking little app (just downloaded and opened it up) but in terms of working for film, it's missing all the film formats ;) The visual interface is nice and I do like the sliders, but I'd be concerned how well it'd translate into a touch screen device. Why not get an IPod touch-- which can run almost all the apps an IPhone can, and download some of the focus calculators. Kodak has a free one which I use (when needed) and is very nice, and it's free. I don't mean to discourage you, it's a damned nice app and I can only imagine how hard it was to code it, but I think we are at a phase where we are pretty covered for DoF calculators and unless you can differentiate yours substantially (plugging in the CoCs for all lenses made perhaps?, or linking it with some sunpath locations via GPS?) I don't know if it'd be worth the hassle.

[Dominic Case]

Everyone I showed it to said it would work better as an iPhone or Droid app, which I agree and I looked into developing it for the iPhone and Droid.

You may think this is good news - or bad news - but in fact Kodak have already developed a DoF app for iPhone. It's the only worthwhile part of the app, but it seems very good, and visually very simple to understand. Look for Kodak Cinema Tools v1.1

[Chris Durham]

In terms of Android, I've found a very handy tool called CamCalc. Not perfect but pretty nice and focused mostly toward cinema calculations with usefulness for stills. Only a couple of bucks which is much less than the only viable option before very recently which was FilmCalculator (I believe) for around $40. This isn't as complete, but I've been using it and it's pretty damn handy.