Re: Wow! that's a lot of technical stuff ...

There's a couple of great programs for the Palm Pilot called Pcam & Pcine. They have terrific depth of field calculators with a nice visual diagram to keep the info understandable. They also can be set for various formats and circles of confusion (the measurement for defining focus), so they work for various film and video systems. They're available in the archive section of the cinematography.net site for anyone to download. There's also a simple sliderule device called the Samuelson Calculator (aka Sammy Wheel) which can be used so quickly and conveniently in the field that almost every professional AC has one in his/her kit. It is available at any good camera rental house or at filmtools.com, but be warned that it's a bit expensive at around $150.

Mitch