Talk:Depth of focus

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Is it really necessary to use the non-metric units at all? And if so, why always name them before the metric ones?

• It is no more necessary to use one than the other - but it is relevant to the conversation that both are commonly in usage in photography. There is no intended bias by naming one before the other, nor does it matter, so long as both exist. Furthermore, manual of style dictates that multiple systems should be embraced in order to further accessibility to readers from around the world, and deletion of other units is generally frowned upon. By the way, you can benefit greatly from discussions by joining the Wikipedia community with a username and signing your comments with ~~~~ (four tildes). Thanks! Girolamo Savonarola 20:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Depth of field

Both articles seem to be on the same subject - the optical phenomenon of one thing being critically focused, and other thing in front and behind falling gradually out of focus. A portrait, as contrasted with a landscape.

Wikipedia ( and its readers ) would benefit from taking the best parts of both articles, and consolidating them. And the people who are donating their time to improve WP won't be duplicating work. ForrestCroce 17:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The concepts are closely related, but certainly not the same. The applications are different. The equations are differnet. Still, one could cover depth of focus in the depth of field article is one wanted to. Anyone else have an opinion on this? Dicklyon 22:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to sound contentious, but you're using different words to describe the same thing. As light is projected from a lens, it's focused on a plane, and defocused on other planes, more and more so the further away they are from the point of focus. It's true most photographers give more attention to DOF on the subject-side of the lens than on the film-plane side, but in both cases the same thing is going on. If you take a picture and your subject is out of focus, something on another plane - close to the camera or further away - is in focus. A lot of medium and large format cameras are focused by moving the film plane.

The butterfly graphic kind of describes this, but some of the diagrams of the light path through a lens, being reversed and all, do a better job of explaining how behind/in front of the lens is related. So, these are the reasons I think the two DOF articles are the same, and that wikipedia would benefit from merging the best parts of both of them. I'll give up the floor now. ForrestCroce 01:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose - They are different concepts, and they each deserve separate articles, not in the least in order to prevent them being confused or mislabeled. They have different effects. Should every physical property of a lens belong on the same page? If it were merging to a larger article, such as optics, as a subsection, there might be some merit. However, depth of field and depth of focus are two different but comparable concepts. Are a negative and print the same thing? After all, they both require development...

As for medium and large format cameras, they are moving the lens and film plane in relation to each other, which is essentially what lenses with focusing elements do internally - the depth of focus concept is specifically tied into the concept of flange focal distance and back focus - ie, the relation of a fixed lens mount to the film plane. It's a technical consideration, not an artistic one like depth of field. Girolamo Savonarola 20:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose for the reasons given above. --MichaelMaggs 10:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)