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Camera Lens for Shadow Puppet animation?

Started Feb 8, 2021 | Questions thread
D Cox Forum Pro • Posts: 32,980
Re: Camera Lens for Shadow Puppet animation?

The two things to consider are field of view and depth of field.

You can draw a simple diagram of a triangle to work out the best field of view.

The base BC is the width of your stage, and the top point A is your camera lens. The height of the lens above the stage is the height of the triangle. The angle at A is the angle of view of the lens.

As you can raise and lower the camera on the copy stand, the angle of view has some leeway.

Here is a table giving fields of view for various lenses and sensor sizes. Your camera has an APS-C sensor, which is what Nikon users call DX.

https://www.nikonians.org/reviews/fov-tables

As for depth of field, you want a lens that opens fairly wide but doesn't cost a fortune. An f/1.8 lens will probably do, and an f/1.4 lens would be ideal. Note that the cheapest lenses on the market don't have auto focus, and manual focussing a camera that is on a copy stand is awkward.

Don Cox

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