Question How to increase depth of field on an Android Samsung A35

[riogrande]

I have a new Samsung A35 and would like to take photos and increase depth of field. Since the camera has no way to adjust the aperture, is there another way to get more depth of field? Decrease the shutter speed? I am trying to take a long shot of a long model train but much of it is out of focus.

Thanks

 

[rvbfan]

That would be a limitation of the software in the phone itself and also the hardware. You could fool around with a Gcam port or something like Open Camera. Both may have what you are looking for.

 

[riogrande]

I vaguely recall from years ago when I used to use old film SLR cameras, you could play with either the F stops (which smart phone cameras generally do not have) or the shutter speed to play with depth of field. But if I can't do it with the camera in the Samsung Smart phone, I may have to go find my old digicam when I need depth of field. It's kind of a shame smart phones don't allow you to control aperture because so many in the present day rely on their phone cam for photography.

 

[Mooncatt]

There are only three things that affect depth of field. Aperture, focal length, and distance from camera to subject. Shutter speed has no effect on it. Obviously the aperture is fixed in this case. One option would be to move further back and crop it in closer in post, but the tradeoff is potentially a lose of detail. You could also switch to the wide angle lens with a slightly narrower aperture. That would increase DoF as long as you don't move in closer to fill the frame with the train, but the tradeoff here is much lower resolution and possibly general lower image quality (common on secondary lenses).

There is potentially a third option if you are willing to put in some extra work and don't have a moving subject: Focus stacking. Macro photographers rely on this for the same reason, only their focus depth may be fractions of an inch. Set up your static scene and put your phone on a tripod. Then take multiple photos at different focus points so that each part of the subject is in focus in at least one photo. Then load these up in an editor as different layers and mask out (i.e. hide) unwanted out of focus areas of each image. What will be left is the in focus parts that would line up each other as if it were one image with a large DoF. If the phone shifted any during the photos, you may need to move some of the layers to realign things, but that shouldn't be too difficult. I think there are some computer programs that can help automate the editing process, but I haven't used any for that.

It's kind of a shame smart phones don't allow you to control aperture because so many in the present day rely on their phone cam for photography.

That would be a rather mechanically complex and delicate thing to do on such a tiny camera as a phone. I know some high end phones have an adjustable aperture, but it's still very limited and doesn't really close down many stops. It's also not what the market has wanted. Everyone wants a wide aperture for better light gathering and bokeh effects.