Get PhotoCompute at the Apple Store.

PhotoCompute is a toolbox of programs designed to help you solve photographic problems in the field. It is geared toward manual photography, and will give you faster and more precise control over your creative process.

The convenience of automatic cameras makes photography easier and more accessible, but it does not create better pictures. The real power in photography comes from knowing how to control the camera and flashes manually, so that you have control over the way the picture looks, and not rely on the (often less-than-ideal) interpretation of a scene by the camera. Calculating photographic parameters can help set up good pictures more quickly, giving the photographer complete control over focal ranges and exposures.

Calc+

A set of core PhotoCompute functions is built into the Calc+ screen. Calc+ provides an accurate way for you to set up camera settings, including exposures (with or without flash), given the distance from your subject and a choice of camera body, lens, and a potential teleconverter or set of extension tubes. Calc+ works from an underlying database of camera equipment that you need to define before you can use it. (See the Equipment Entry menu for more details.) Clicking on the top bar allows you to change your equipment selections.

The calculations performed by Calc+ are more accurate and complete than any standard depth-of-field calculator. A lens that is capable of 1.0X macro photography will be correctly represented in the calculations at macro distances, which is never the case in any standard DOF calculator. Furthermore, you can’t estimate the effects of teleconverters or extension tubes with DOF calculators.

Even more, Calc+ can compute exposures, and exposures both with and without flash. And not just any flash exposures, but exposures with as many flash units as you want to throw at the scene. This makes setting up difficult photos (e.g., macro photos) incredibly easy because it incorporates both manual flash controls (distance from subject, flash power levels) and camera body parameters (ISO, fStop, exposure time).

 

Solver

Although the core of PhotoCompute’s functionality may be considered to be Calc+, a set of supplementary functions is provided in the Solver:

 

Calculator

The calculator is just a full screen calculator with basic mathematical functions.

Field width

The field width solver allows you to generate a list of equipment (all combinations of camera body, lens, teleconverter, extension tubes) that will satisfy a given field width.

Fill flash

Given the exposure for a background and a distance to the subject, the fill flash solver will give you all of your flash options for each camera and flash combination. The iPhone can be used to capture the background exposure setting for the calculation.

FStop calculator

Using the fStop calculator you can compute the number of stops between two fStop settings, or the fStop to select if you want to increase by a certain number of fStops.

Lens Equation

The lens equation solver provides a number of options to calculate various parameters that describe how lenses work.

Guide number from ISO

The guide number from ISO screen allows the user to calculate a new guide number for a new ISO, given an initial ISO and guide number.

Filter exposure adjustment

The filter exposure adjustment screen allows the user to either obtain the number of fStops between two parts of a scene (e.g., clouds and mountains, or foreground and background) for the purpose of selecting a graduate filter, or to calculate the exposure adjustment for a very dark filter. The iPhone can be used to capture one or both exposures for the purposes of the calculations.