The interesting question is where to focus if you want "infinity"/far-objects and as much of the foreground to be sharp and/or what CoC to use for hyperfocal when you do not know in advance what kind of output and viewing distance you should count on.
I am also working through Jim's post, looking for more insights into the topic.
To be safe-ish, twice the pixel pitch. To be safe, the pixel pitch. To be really, really safe, half the pixel pitch. You probably won't like how little DOF there is with any of those.
Personally, I'd like a high pixel fill-factor and an OLPF with a null at about 0.5 cycles/pixel. 🙂
I know I'm somewhat reviving a slow thread by now - sorry.
Math is good. I like math. But in this case, I don't find it very helpful.
My depth of field rule of thumb -- most SLR/DSLR cameras have a DoF preview toggle -- use it, and use your eyes to determine whether the DoF is what you want. Get in the habit of looking at it even when it doesn't matter much for what you're shooting, because you'll get to know about what it's going to be in different conditions.
Please ignore.
Thanks for the 'move back' demo. As a 3 or 4 diopter myopic, I found it most instructive.
Y'all might find this of interest after reading it through a time or two ...
www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/TIAOOFe.pdf
The only 'rithmetic involved is figuring the aperture diameter (a long-forgotten fundamental factor in everyday photography - now obscured by the f/number paradigm).
Everything else is just point-and-shoot 😉
His “arithmetic” might be right but it is irrelevant. What matters for the perception of detail is the angular resolution, not the absolute resolution on the scene.
a la Merklinger:
