Aperture of 1.8 is not all great

[brett8883]

You are creating a circle of confusion.
All of your statements are are absolutely correct.
My post "You get more depth of field with a wider focal length at the same aperature and distance to subject." Absolutely correct. It is covered in the afternoon on the first day of a beginning photography class, right after covering the exposure triangle.
I was comparing aperatures, same lens/camera/setting, not the physical size of the aperature. Your example with the 500mm proves that. At 15mm opening the aperature would be f32.
Not so oddly this makes his statement still incorrect, yours and my post correct.

Circle of confusion is right. I must have been drinking when I said that. I sound very convincing but I’m going to have to go check my math on that. But later when once I start drinking…

 

[davedrone 178]

To get any meaningful suggestions people are going to see what you are seeing.
You really need to post some examples.
Upload one or two full-sized, original jpg image files to Google Drive or similar and post a link.

Not really trying to convince anyone else. After 25+ drones and counting, I know what I see.
Blurry picture and terrible battery life= return to sender.

 

[GadgetGuy]

You are creating a circle of confusion.
All of your statements are are absolutely correct.
My post "You get more depth of field with a wider focal length at the same aperature and distance to subject." Absolutely correct. It is covered in the afternoon on the first day of a beginning photography class, right after covering the exposure triangle.
I was comparing aperatures, same lens/camera/setting, not the physical size of the aperature. Your example with the 500mm proves that. At 15mm opening the aperature would be f32.
Not so oddly this makes his statement still incorrect, yours and my post correct.

Not to split hairs, but, hopefully on the first day of a beginning photography class they also teach the correct spelling of aperture. LOL!

 

[Meta4]

Actually after testing a few times, and to make sure I had the focusing correct, I'm very disappointed in the picture. It's very very soft and almost looks like 1080p. What Gives?

That sounded like you were asking for halp.

Not really trying to convince anyone else. After 25+ drones and counting, I know what I see.

But no-one else does

 

[YorksPhotos]

Not to split hairs, but, hopefully on the first day of a beginning photography class they also teach the correct spelling of aperture. LOL!

Spell check fale.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Spell check fale.

My only point was it wasn’t a typo, as you repeated the same misspelling four times. You apparently still thought it was the correct spelling, so not everything covered during the afternoon of the first day of a beginning photography class always sinks in. Some take 40+ years to learn. Spell check has nothing to do with it. LOL!

 

[Bill Lorenz]

That's why I wrote that the same subject with the same lens would have a greater depth of field at a higher f-stop than at a lower one.

The easiest way of putting it is that the image scale (=magnification ratio i.e the object size to the size of the image on the sensor/film) AND the aperture determine the depth of field. No more, no less. Wider angle = more depth of field (for a given aperture). Smaller sensor/film size = again greater depth of field. Larger sensor/film size = LESS depth of field for a given aperture.
Sports photographers like the smaller sensors on cameras when using long lenses as they get more depth of field for the same aperture.

 

[YorksPhotos]

Spell check has nothing to do with it. LOL!

It actually does, it failed as many times as I failed.

 

[waynorth]

I notice there are some confusion here about depth of field, what it actually is, and what factors affect it.
Cambridgeincolour.com is an excellent site about several aspects of photography, and their explanation of DoF is well written and quite complete:

Understanding Depth of Field in Photography

www.cambridgeincolour.com

 

[GadgetGuy]

It actually does, it failed as many times as I failed.

Spell check is designed for typos that you missed, rather than a lazy man's way of correcting words you always spell incorrectly. Yes, it can catch words you misspell, but why not learn to spell them correctly in the first place? It was taught on the first afternoon of your beginning photography class, presumably some four decades ago. I am betting you now won't misspell it again. Lesson learned.

 

[YorksPhotos]

Spell check is designed for typos that you missed, rather than a lazy man's way of correcting words you always spell incorrectly. Yes, it can catch words you misspell, but why not learn to spell them correctly in the first place? It was taught on the first afternoon of your beginning photography class, presumably some four decades ago. I am betting you now won't misspell it again. Lesson learned.

Yes officer it will not happen again. Back on topic.

 

[Droning on and on...]

I fully acknowledge I may not know what I'm talking about, but here goes.

Depth of field is a function of the size of the aperture opening. Hence the ability of the "pinhole camera" to focus on just about anything, having such a tiny aperture.

Since variable aperture is used primarily to control the amount of light entering the camera, it's common to use "f-stop" values - aperture size - to characterize light transmissivity for fixed-aperature (really, no aperture mechanism at all) cameras. However, two cameras with exactly the same size aperture/opening can differ in their "f-stop rating" due to different lens materials, the sensor, etc., while having the exact same depth of field.

Referring to the Mini 5 Pro as f1.8 is a convenience, not a real characterization of the aperture... It makes it easy to compare it to other 1" sensor cameras with fixed aperture, judge light sensitivity, and how other parameters like shutter speeds given EV, etc. are affected.

 

[Meta4]

However, two cameras with exactly the same size aperture/opening can differ in their "f-stop rating" due to different lens materials, the sensor, etc., while having the exact same depth of field.

Since the F stop number is the ratio of the lens focal length to the diameter of the front of the lens, two cameras with exactly the same size aperture/opening will have the same "f-stop rating".
Differences in lens materials, the sensor, etc have no impact on the F number..

Referring to the Mini 5 Pro as f1.8 is a convenience, not a real characterization of the aperture.

It's a real characterisation of the aperture, as real as for any camera lens.
It's the ratio of the lens focal length to the diameter of the front of the lens.
That the aperture size is fixed rather than adjustable makes no difference.

But all the discussion of depth of field in this thread is irrelevant to the OP's original issue.
He was mistaken in thinking his issue was caused by the lens of his drone having a shallow depth of field.
The wideangle lens of his drone has more depth of field than he will ever need and the issue was most likely caused by something like incorrect manual focus.

He seems to have lost interest in the issue and moved on.

 

[brett8883]

You are creating a circle of confusion.
All of your statements are are absolutely correct.
My post "You get more depth of field with a wider focal length at the same aperature and distance to subject." Absolutely correct. It is covered in the afternoon on the first day of a beginning photography class, right after covering the exposure triangle.
I was comparing aperatures, same lens/camera/setting, not the physical size of the aperature. Your example with the 500mm proves that. At 15mm opening the aperature would be f32.
Not so oddly this makes his statement still incorrect, yours and my post correct.

Ok, so I’ve so been drinking again… and now able to recall my train of thought here…

I just want to start by saying, we all knew what you meant. None of this should be taken as I don’t think you know what you are talking about. I know you do, but because you corrected someone on a technicality you’ve opened yourself up to some, all in good fun, jabs on the technical correctness of your statement especially at 3am after a night of drinking.

“You get more depth of field with a wider focal length at the same aperature and distance to subject.”

As a stand alone statement this is only true if you have the same sensor size and by aperture you mean f-number. So not “absolutely” true.

When comparing the dof of different camera systems with different sensors sizes, as we are in this thread, you can’t sweep circle of confusion under the rug. It makes a huge difference and you could easily have a situation where a wider lens has less DoF at the same f-number and distance from the subject.

F-number is a value of how much light is able to pass through a lens and can only be used as a stand in for aperture when comparing two lenses of the same focal length. The same aperture regardless of the focal length you get approximately the same dof, all else the same.

To @anotherlab ‘s point, comparatively speaking the mini 5 does have a shallower depth of field to the Mavic 2 Zoom. He clearly didn’t realize that the mini 5 had a larger sensor and how that changes the lens system which is why you are currently getting trolled due to flat out calling him wrong. lol There was some nuance he missed in @Meta4 ‘s comment but I wouldn’t call him wrong.

Not your fault but I also just take issue with the idea of teaching that focal length plays a direct role in depth of field. It plays a role but not a direct one. Field of view plays a role in magnification which is a function of focal length, sensor size, and distance from subject. Physics also limits the absolute size of aperture to a function of the focal length but it’s not a direct relationship. When you are taught that it’s the absolute size of the aperture, instead, you can easily compare the relative depth of field of different lenses by simply taking the focal length divided by the f-number because the absolute size of the aperture is the more direct and independent factor in dof.

Well lost my buzz now so will go back to watching football and pour one for ya

 

[YorksPhotos]

Ok, so I’ve so been drinking again… and now able to recall my train of thought here…

I just want to start by saying, we all knew what you meant. None of this should be taken as I don’t think you know what you are talking about. I know you do, but because you corrected someone on a technicality you’ve opened yourself up to some, all in good fun, jabs on the technical correctness of your statement especially at 3am after a night of drinking.

“You get more depth of field with a wider focal length at the same aperture and distance to subject.”

As a stand alone statement this is only true if you have the same sensor size and by aperture you mean f-number. So not “absolutely” true.

Well lost my buzz now so will go back to watching football and pour one for ya

Somewhere in all that mess I think I posted same camera settings. Even that probably wasn't as clear as it could be. I should have said same camera, lens and settings.

Game has got me thinking Fireballs but not apple. It's a good one.

 

[brett8883]

I fully acknowledge I may not know what I'm talking about, but here goes.

Depth of field is a function of the size of the aperture opening. Hence the ability of the "pinhole camera" to focus on just about anything, having such a tiny aperture.

Yes the small aperture plays a big role. However a pinhole camera also has no focusing so you could also make the argument that a pinhole camera has nothing in focus too