Blog — FocalMath

Longer-form pieces than the calculators and reference pages allow — the reasoning behind a formula, the history of a convention, or a full field workflow rather than a single computed number. Start with the mega-pillar below if you want the whole site's math in one place; otherwise browse by whatever's bugging you this week.

These posts are deliberately opinionated in a way the calculators and reference pages aren't — a calculator gives you a number, but a blog post can argue that the number you were about to trust is measuring the wrong thing, or that a rule of thumb everyone repeats deserves more scrutiny than it usually gets. Expect posts on buying decisions (crop sensor or full frame for a second body), on myths (does more megapixels actually mean a better photo), and on genuine field workflows (how a Milky Way shoot actually gets planned, start to finish, not just the exposure triangle at the moment of the shot).

The mega-pillar post — Every Photography Number That Actually Matters — is the closest thing this site has to a single-page summary of everything else: depth of field, exposure, astro shutter limits, crop factor and print resolution, and how the five actually connect to each other rather than living in isolation. It's the right starting point if you want the full picture before diving into any one calculator or guide in depth.

New posts get added irregularly rather than on a fixed schedule — when there's a genuinely useful piece of reasoning worth writing up, it gets written up, rather than padding a publishing calendar with filler. If you have a specific question you'd like to see covered here, the contact page is the fastest way to suggest it and we do read every suggestion that comes in, even ones we can't act on right away.