Apertia · Library
What information makes a saved focus plan reproducible by another photographer?
A saved Apertia plan keeps sensor, focal length, aperture, focus distance, the near and far points and a shoot day; note the strict CoC setting separately.
What the notebook stores
Each entry in Apertia's plan notebook records the date it was made, the kit setting at that moment (sensor preset, focal length, aperture and focus distance), the nearest and farthest sharp points, whether the plan was unlocked, and an optional shoot day. The focus distance and f-stop are not stored as answers: when you open the plan, the planner recalculates them from those inputs, so the same inputs always give the same result.
One input lives elsewhere. Strict circle of confusion is a switch in Settings, not a field of the plan, and it changes the tolerance behind every result. A reader who recreates the plan with the other setting will see different limits.
Hand a plan to someone else
- Name the subject and the two details that must be sharp, with their distances from the sensor plane.
- Give the sensor preset, the real focal length and whether the far point is Infinity.
- State whether Strict circle of confusion was on.
- Copy the result: focus distance, f-stop, and for a stack every frame's distance and range.
- Add what actually happened on the day, such as a different stop or a moved tripod, as a separate note.
Worked example: a two-frame plan
A plan for a 50 mm lens on full frame, nearest point 1000 mm and farthest 1300 mm, solves to f/11.089. Shared as only “2 frames at f/11” it cannot be checked. Shared with its inputs, anyone can enter the same values and see frame 1 at 1128 mm covering 1000–1297 mm and frame 2 at 1532 mm covering 1297–1876 mm. If the reader has the strict setting on, the same inputs give a different plan, which is why the setting belongs in the note. A shoot-day reminder then repeats the first focus distance and the f-stop on the morning of the shoot.
- Inputs
- full frame · 50 mm · 1000–1300 mm
- Result
- 2 frames at f/11
- Frame 1 · Frame 2
- 1128 mm · 1532 mm
Common mistakes
- Sending only the f-stop and focus distance without the near and far points that produced them.
- Leaving out the sensor preset, which changes the circle of confusion.
- Writing a large number such as 99999 mm instead of saying the far point is Infinity.
- Overwriting the original plan with field changes instead of noting them beside it.
Plan versus capture
A reproducible plan explains a calculation; it does not show that the frames were shot as planned or came out sharp. The DOFMaster equations listed below let a reader recheck the numbers, while the photographs remain the evidence of what happened.