This Online Depth of Field Simulator Helps You Wrap Your Mind Around the Concept

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Want to understand the concept of depth of field better? Polish photographer and programmer Michael Bemowski has created a fantastic and feature-rich online depth of field calculator and bokeh simulator that can help you wrap your mind around what’s going on when you change things like focal length and aperture.

We recently shared a couple of video illustrations on how aperture and focal length affect the depth of field in your shot — this web app does the same through an interactive calculator.

There are quite a few options you can customize for the simulated photo on the screen, including units, focal length, aperture, sensor size, subject distance, background object distance, and framing. You can even save setting combinations for future reference.

settings

As you tweak your shot settings, the “sample photo” illustration on the right side of the page will update in real time to show you how the shot will change as a result. Here’s a shot at 300mm and f/64:

sampleshot1

And here’s what you’ll get when you zoom out to 24mm:

sampleshot2

As you’re changing your settings, the depth of field simulator at the bottom of the page will also calculate and visualize your depth of field from a side view:

depthoffield

The app doesn’t need to communicate with any server, so there’s an offline version available for you to download to your computer as well. If you’d like to use the app on your phone, a button on the screen will change the layout to a mobile-friendly version. The service appears to be 100% free to use and is supported by ads and user donations. Enjoy.

Bokeh Simulator & Depth of Field Calculator [DOFSimulator.net via Reddit]

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