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Thread: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

  1. #1

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    Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    With everyone making and using digital apps applicable to LF photography, let me float an idea for an app: Something that will help me preview a scene by simulating different focal length lenses. This would be used as a composition previewing too, basically.Right now I use a small piece of plastic with a rectangular frame cut out of it, which I hold at various predetermined distances from my face and I look through it in order to determine how a scene will look if I use different focal length lenses, but it seems to me that being able to do this digitally using a cellphone camera would be a great idea esp since you can then really compare the different framings in a single shot simultaneously and maybe see how things look in black and white, etc.

    Of course, considering how inept I am with digital things, a much better tool is probably in existence that I have no idea about, right? I suppose a digital camera with a zoom lens can sorta do this but I would figure out how to set a dslr lens focal length to, say, match the view from a 240 mm lens that has a 45degree angle of view on and 8x10 camera, without doing a hell of a lot of math. Instead if I could just take a shot with a cellphone camera, and the app automatically shows the composition with different focal length lenses, that would be useful I think

  2. #2

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    Re: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    Well, I don't know who this "everybody" is that you are talking about. It's not you and it's not me either... so it can't be EVERYBODY.

    I still use my fingers. I use four of them to form a square or rectangle, depending on how I'm visualizing the image. I push my fingers together if using a longer lens, and hold them farther apart when using a wide lens. I'm thinking of having some index marks tattooed on my fingers to make them a more accurate tool.

    When I'm not being so lazy I also have a couple of those plastic gizmos that have a filter in them that helps visualize both monochromatic color and the image composition. But most of the time I'm too lazy and I think I've only used them 2 or 3 times in the past 30 years.

    More often than not I just stare into the GG and go from there.

  3. #3

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    Re: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    Check out viewfinder pro in the App Store. It sounds like what you are describing.

  4. #4
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Re: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    except it can't do wide angles wider than the angle of view of the phone lens.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  5. #5

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    Re: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    Kirk is right, it'll only go as wide as your phones camera. On my phone 240mm is as wide on 8x10 and 120mm on 4x5.

  6. #6
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Re: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    120 on 4x5 isn't tooooo bad, but 90 would be better.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  7. #7

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    Re: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    Everybody since it seems like everybody except me is way better at digital stuff. �� I had one of the filter gizmos too but lost it, however depending on the gg to test out various focal lengths isn't always practical, nor can zi always remember how to hold my fingers to roughly match various focal lengths at different formats

    I will check out viewfinder pro but some aps out there cant handle LF formats.

    I'm sure the techno type can figure out a way to get a wider angle of view than the camera lens on a cellphone, perhaps by stitching. My cellphone camera already allows me to stitch multiple shots to create panoramic shots.

  8. #8

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    Re: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    Yes viewfinder pro sounds about right except it only goes up to MF formats, and is an iPhone app so the rest of us uncool folks using windows phones can't use it. But I should have known that someone already thought about this, just wish they could make it for 8x10 formats and nonIphone phones too...

  9. #9

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    Re: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    It works for any format I believe. I use it for 4x5, 8x10 and 4x10. There must be an android equivalent?

  10. #10

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    Re: Focal length preview tool app as composition aid?

    Stick with your analog card and string. Can't be improved on, and no battery to go dead.

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