There are some exciting new camera options out there these days, ranging from inexpensive, large-sensor hybrids from the likes of Panasonic and Canon to groundbreaking high-end digital cinema rigs from folks like RED and Arri. When contemplating buying or using these cameras, one has many resources to evaluate things like focal length equivalencies and depth of field. This chart from Barry Green is a great example — it’s extremely helpful and the kind of thing you could refer to again and again.

In fact, if you’re like me, you’ll need to refer to it again and again, because there’s nothing really intuitive about it. It’s a bunch of numbers. You might find yourself staring at it and thinking, “Yeah, but what kind of shot can I actually make with these camera/lens combinations?”

Read down the thread on DVXuser and you’ll see one member exclaim with glee that with only three Panasonic zoom lenses, he can cover every focal length from 7mm to 300mm on his Micro Four-Thirds (MFT) rig. Barry quickly points out that this is true, but at undesirably slow apertures. The poster is, I’m sure, left scratching his head, trying to grok just how these slower lenses are going to affect the cinematic look and feel of his shots.

You can feel my own frustration with this in my article on the Panasonic AF100. I discussed there the dilemma of MFT — is it “big enough” for cinema? Yes, but if you want cinematic DOF, you’ll need fast lenses, faster than most of what Panasonic makes.

Another example — you might be looking at the recent demonstrations of the fixed-lens RED Scarlet and wondering just how much DOF control you’ll have with an ƒ2.4 lens on a 2/3” sensor.

All the charts and sensor-size comparison images and spec sheets won’t answer the question: “Yeah, but what shot can I make?”

So I’m introducing a new Prolost feature designed to help answer that question. It’s called the Shot You Can Make (SYCM) Simulator, and it’s sort of a 3D “Marcie” for focal length and depth of field. Here’s what it looks like: