Scheimpflug calculator for iPhone

Hey all,
I was wondering if any body has come across or is working on an app for the iPhone/iPad which will help with Scheimpflug calculations? I have the Rodenstock wheel and would like something electronic, save having to use a torch and such. Anyone know?
Thanks

Does it need to be iOS or is droid acceptable?

Reason I ask is that I refuse to pay the Apple tax ($100/year to play, even if you don't want to sell apps) though I have an iPhone. Seriously considering getting a Nexus, for which I could freely write code such as this.

I have one I wrote awhile ago for android and wm6,just didn't think there was any interest to put it online.

largeformat pat said:

Hey all,
I was wondering if any body has come across or is working on an app for the iPhone/iPad which will help with Scheimpflug calculations? I have the Rodenstock wheel and would like something electronic, save having to use a torch and such. Anyone know?
Thanks

Click to expand...

Look for "Tilt Lens" on the iPhone App Store.

largeformat pat said:

Hey all,
I was wondering if any body has come across or is working on an app for the iPhone/iPad which will help with Scheimpflug calculations? I have the Rodenstock wheel and would like something electronic, save having to use a torch and such. Anyone know?
Thanks

Click to expand...

How/why would you use this app??

Sorry, but the wheel works for me quite well, and given where the world is going with iOsDroider, I think I'm going to keep the old way wherever I can (and there are fewer and fewer choices to do so). But then again, I won't use it, but someone else might.

Soon, you wont even have to look at the ground glass screen, but just use the app.

Study the theory, and in practice, determine all angles with cues gathered visually, as intended in large format. Using a calculator is certainly not necessary.

Poisson Du Jour said:

Study the theory, and in practice, determine all angles with cues gathered visually, as intended in large format. Using a calculator is certainly not necessary.

Click to expand...

Correct. What are you going to do, measure the angles of everything in your scene, then input these values to the I-thingy? Ludicrous.
Use the groundglass, it's what it's there for.

The calculator on iPhones and additional scientific calculator apps can be useful in the conversion of measurements where intersectors and planes are difficult to determine at close distances with very small movements e.g. in a macro shot in a 35mm set up yielding an image of acceptable overall sharpness (not just the peg of extended focus at a fixed aperture), it might be more convenient to then work the formula sine angle of tilt/swing = f/length / distance; if I am using my Canon TS-E 24mm (which I have used and taught for 24 years) and focused on a plane at e.g. 17.5cm from the principal point of the lens, it would be: sine angle of tilt/swing = (f)24/175. Then, a calculator conversion from sine to degrees provides the answer to this input of 8° — the amount of tilt/swing I would be applying for the established angle of the picture. I use a standard Android sci-calc for this; no sweat, no fuss, no confudlements, just cheer.

This calculation is only a good idea at close-ups/macro — it is of no critical consequence in absence in landscape where visual assessment is the most common (and least fiddly) method of establishing the principal planes, hinge line, depth of field, range of acceptable focus and extended focus peg for the given aperature; I imagine in the example I have given that the tilt/swing would effectively be far too great for large format — maybe 35° at an upscaled theoretical comparison to the larger [4x5] format (from 35mm); only very, very small movements of 35mm T/S lenses are required to effect quite large changes and characteristics as opposed to much larger movements in LF.

Unfortunately, while many people with LF aspire to coming to grips with Scheimpflug, in reality it is a very complex, technical and mysterious area of positional theory, not made any more easier by the very deep discourse of Harold Merklinger (albeit with excellent diagrams that clearly reflect what is being explained). So... visual approximation is and will remain the best method of setting measurements/movements — and you should be taking as long as you want until you are happy, the alternative being hopelessly bogged down in calculus and not getting any photography done!

Aaagh ... what is this world coming to! One more silly battery-dependent gadget tote around. Leave
the damn toy at home and use your eyes.

Hey, Drew, this means everyone can use some dimestore - oops dollar store - specs instead of a decent loupe and a black teeshirt as a darkcloth. No more need to carefully inspect the image on the GG, your Ithingy will set up the camera for you.

ROTFLMAO!

The one gadget I am seriously interested in patenting is the helium-inflated bellows. I figure it will lighten the load of the backpack by several pounds. Of course, the attached helium tank and valve needed to refill it after you use the camera will add about a eighty more pounds than you take away,
but that's the kind of thing one puts in very small print on the backside of the marketing brochure, if
at all. The inflation gage would have to have a digital readout, however, remotely programmed to an
I-phone across the meadow, of course - otherwise it wouldn't be cool enough to sell. Heck, pretty soon
even that crazy porcine dictator in N Korea will just have to own one of these!

I think there's more of a marketing future in brain supplements (to reverse the atrophy) for those who let the I-thingies do all their thinking. Just you wait, Alzheimer's will be rampant among these types.

Sinar relatively long-ago patented their little groundglass-marky yaw-free Scnoodleplug system, which was in fact convenient for certain types of studio tabletop applications. I forgot how to use it equally as
fast, since in the field there are soooo many subjective variables to the whole game, and the choice
as how exactly to best employ tilts and swings is really a case-by-case esthetic decision, one which
involves the overall look on the groundglass itself. I'd get totally confused if the image was even
right side up! (not really). Then at another point Sinar made a totally servo-controlled adjustment system so you could send a view camera into the hot zone of a nuke facility or whatever and control it
via external computer tether (prior to I-phones!). It was a commercial bellyflop. Not everyone feels deprived if they don't have the ability to launch an ICBM from a pad next to their backyard BBQ
while simultaneously doing stock trades from the same handheld device. Maybe time to get a life.

I do wonder why I post here sometimes, thirty two years staring into the ground glass. To have aback light screen for a formula with a screen you can enlarge to view, save having to wear glasses, or maybe even carry a torch. Maybe to some people need to think before they express a view towards a person. maybe you need a soap box on a corner guys.

largeformat pat said:

I do wonder why I post here sometimes, thirty two years staring into the ground glass. To have aback light screen for a formula with a screen you can enlarge to view, save having to wear glasses, or maybe even carry a torch. Maybe to some people need to think before they express a view towards a person. maybe you need a soap box on a corner guys.

Click to expand...

You do have a valid point.

What formula, exactly? Scheimpflug is theory with interconnected, often oppositional elements that cannot be understood without practising visually. A formula, if there is one, will not provide you with the means to make a better photograph, but quite possibly one that you are not happy with.

Thirty-two years staring at ground glass will have told you how important it is to ignore distractions and concentrate on the correct and valid alignment to produce the image you wish to. I would not give a piss about formulae or theorums when concentrating on the scene before me. Why would you want to do it?

What others have added is their prerogative; what I had said and explained was proferred in the hope of understanding what you are trying to do, and why. That has not been advanced, and those here that are genuinely interested...we are none the wiser.

I've spent a fair amount of my life helping people find simple solutions to complex problems, and I've
worked with engineers at times to get these kinds of things to market. On the other hand, there is a
class of engineers out there where seem to make job security synonymous with constanting coming up
with something redundant. This is what the very survival of the consumer electronics industry depends
on - one new gadget making the last one obsolete or fuddy-duddy as fast as possible. Now I'm not suggesting that Schnoodlephlug is a hot enough topic to engender this kind of attention. And if one has
a legitimate need for something like this, fine. But the way it's been phrased, it just sounds like someone new to the concept, and in this respect, ten seconds actually looking into a groundglass is a
heck of a lot more efficient that fooling around with some gadget and still having the check the glass
afterwards anyway. But some people are just addicted to gadgets. I'd prefer to save the money for film.

... sorry for all the typos.... my fingers are a little buzzed at the moment from just testing a particular
gadet than wasn't as smoothly geared or balanced as it should be!

Okay, ding ding, my turn...

I love analog and shoot LF as my hobby. On the week days I help people find solutions to problems requiring high-speed dig&#^l cameras. This week I had a situation where I needed x2 TSE lenses but unfortunately Nikon have removed the aperture lever fom their latest model macro, meaning we can't stop down with our camera mount. We've gone for the Schneider option, but I had to do a myriad of calculations to see if at the swing we required and the min focus distance, I'd get enough DOF. I needed some calculations to pre-visualize. Can't do that on a ground glass.

Point is, think outside the box. An iPhone app could have saved me literally an hour or more of time.
My eyes aren't great either so with macro on LF, I'd love an app. Technical photography is part visual with a whole lot of mathematics...take a peek at the ground glass, but also take out the calculator guys!