Math and Photography project

Hey everyone,

 

I'm doing a project in my math class this year involving photography and math.

I need some charts or lists showing things like:

-Amount of light that apertures allow

-Focal range of apertures

-What the 'mm' of lenses means

-Anything else you can think of that has to do with math

 

Of course I have the beginner info like shutter speeds, but I need enough to do

a fifteen minute presentation. Any ideas, PLEASE drop me a line at

jonathanelcock@yahoo.com or leave me a link here or something.

 

Thanks,

Jon Elcock

This should give you all the equations, charts and graphs you'll need:

 

http://www.photo.net/learn/optics/

Thanks a lot.

Read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_confusion

 

Use it to help and not plagiarize!

Here is some more intellectual food to digest:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm

 

Do you think this has helped digitizing photography?

An interesting project would be to derive the formulas for depth of field as a function of focal length, aperture and circle of confusion. There is a fair amount of math involved.

Well if you ask Tim Holte he may find this rather pedantic.

You can use MS Excel to calculate the development of f-stop numbers and use this information to show that the f-number is also the square root of the reciprocal of the reduction in light for any lens. The f-stop number can also be used to calculate the distance from subject to fill light for studio setups to accomplish various lighting ratios when these lamps have the same intensity.

 

Short of giving you the answer straight out, I will tell you to begin with the largest aperture possible for a lens, which will work out to yield f1, and work to the next smaller one by calculating and halving the area of the opening. The f-stop is the focal length/dia of aperture. If you set this up carefully, you will be able to select the column with your initial calculations and drag it to the right using the dark cross in the bottom right corner. You will see the full development of f-stops work itself out in front of your eyes! You will be able to find photographically significant f-stops into the range of tiny openings useful for making pinhole cameras.

 

This exercise can also help you learn more about writing formulas in Excel. For example, '="1/" & [f-stop number cell]^2' will give you the reduction in light for the f-stop and demonstrate that this number is the recipriocal of the square of the f-stop number in the same breath.