My photography and lighting calculator
Download:
my new photographic lighting and depth of field calculator for Windows®
freeware time limited version (expires in 2011) (~475kb zip file) - just unzip to your drive, run and have fun.
it is still in its early stages, but hope you will find it useful.
current version is 1.11
What it can do:
once you choose the type of camera film/sensor from a drop down box of possible values, it will determine the sensor size, circle of confusion, and 35mm equivalent crop factor.
enter an actual lens focal length and f/ratio and it will determine the 35mm equivalent lens focal length & the hyperfocal length.
enter a camera to subject distance and it will calculate the near and far depth of field.
now comes the powerful part - studio lighting calculations:
enter in the ISO and optionally select a lens filter such as polariser or ND
enter in values for the guide numbers (GN) measured in meters for ISO 100 for each of the lights and optionally the power settings, then the effective GN for the selected ISO will be determined taking into account power setting and lens filter.
set a fill light fill-ratio in f-stops and it will automatically calculate the needed fill light to subject distance as you alter either the f/ratio of the lens or the main light to subject distance (as this will automatically change the f/ratio).
similarly set the hair light desired relative exposure compared to main light and it will calculate the hair light to subject distance.
optionally set the colour of the background by right clicking on it
determine the approximate effect on the background visually by selecting which light will light it from the drop down box:
if you choose the background light, then you will need to adjust the background light to background distance with the slider to get the desired effect
if you choose the main light or fill light, then ensure you have the subject to background distance set so when you adjust the light to subject distance, this will appropriately demonstrate the effect on the background.
the ambient light setting automatically calculates the approximate shutter speed for the given ISO, lens filter & f/ratio to correctly expose for ambient light.
it can do lots more, check out the version history (see below).
Installation:
this is only designed for Win 9x, Win ME, Win 2000, Win XP/XP Pro, it may run in Windows emulation mode on Apple Macs but I have not tested it.
just download the zip file and open it, extract the exe file and copy to a new folder on your hard drive then run it.
it does not create any Windows registry entries and can be uninstalled by deleting the folder that you installed it to.
it does create a ini. file in the same folder to store location information - this may not work if the user does not have write permissions for that folder.
I have made every reasonable effort to ensure there are no viruses in the zip file
Known issues:
Version history:
Example of screen:
