Polaroid Land Camera – DoF Calculator!

posted in: Uncategorized | 2

In a group on Flickr I saw someone asking about the Depth of Field of a Polaroid Land Camera, which made me wonder for myself. So I posted the following:

Good question, I hadn’t considered looking at a DoF table for my land cameras so you got me thinking! I have an app for the iPhone called ‘PhotoBuddy

This includes a DoF calculator and the ability to choose various camera systems. Unfortunately Polaroid Land Camera isn’t listed, BUT you can enter your own custom film size.

I entered film size 107.95mm x 82.55mm (4.25″ x 3.25″) and then a focal length of 114mm. (36mm is the 35mm equiv. focal length, which feels about right!)

f-Number a either f/8 or f/9 (there’s no f/8.8 available).

Here are some results:
100cm subject distance – 95.1cm near | 105.4cm far (DoF 10.3cm)
150cm subject distance – 138.9cm near | 163.1cm far (DoF 24.2cm)
200cm subject distance – 180.3cm near | 224.5cm far (DoF 44.2cm)

I’m not sure if these are correct or not, let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments below.

2 Responses

  1. Neto Mancia

    Hi James,

    I’m really enjoying your articles and photography. I’ve have my own personal Excel spreadsheet that does all sorts of DOF and film format conversions and when calculating any “Instant Film” DOF you need to take into account the white border, which is included in the 3.25 x 4.25 measurement. The actual image size is approx. 73mm x 95mm, at least for Fuji’s instant film.

    The 114mm f/8.0 is approx. a 41mm f/2.0 in 35mm terms.

    • James

      Hi Neto,

      Many thanks for your comment and kind words about my blog and photography! Thanks for pointing out the white border issue with my calculation – that’s a great point and it does make a bit of a difference. 🙂

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