Is the DOF of a digicam the same as a film camera?
I have a Sony/Nikon/Canon/Whatever compact digital camera. When I used to shoot film (35mm) I could get much more bokeh (background blur) at f/stops like f/2 and f/4 then I can now. A. The depth of field (area from near to far that is in focus) varies with lens focal length, f/stop, distance to subject, etc. If you look on the lens face of your compact digital camera you’ll see that the focal lengths are very small numbers, like 7mm to 20mm. The 35mm equivalent may be 35mm to 105mm, but the DOF is based on the actual focal length, not on the 35mm equivalent. So digicams have much larger DOF than 35mm. Technically, there is a complicating factor having to do with the resolution of the imager (thanks to Jonathan Sachs for this info), so the actual DOF may not be as dramatically larger as the focal length would suggest, but the difference is still significant.
