Mad newbie wants to make a simulator

[JOHNNY inside]

Hi, every1!

Wow! Honoured to be part of this community! I feel so small among all of you here, technically and knowledge talking. Anyway, I'm here to learn. But I don't want to take without paying back somehow... so, I'm first trying to understand photography and then, with the use of Flash, I want to make a camera simulator (I've seen one already that's pretty cool, but I want to add DOF to the image too).

Anyone happy with this idea and something to share with me?

As for the alpha (to 1.0) version, I'm just trying to play with a 3 levels of DOF:
- Close, middle, far objects (blur apply to each one to simulate Macro or Landscape).

Also play with the Light and Darkness of each object according to:
- f-stops, Iso, shutter speed.

Wanting: Simplified explanations about ISO, F-Stops, Shutter speed and how they all work together (because, it was confusing for me to see, from the simulator I've tasted, that the same picture could be balanced with 3 different combinations of these 3 values).

And I'd also love to have a 1024x768 sharp image to use (I'll have to cut out that image into 3 parts, so objects at different distances should be simple). The best shot you could take will require a pic of background, a new pic with the subject on the pic and finally an object close to the camera. If focusing becomes a problem, you can take each pic focusing on its object. And... please use the basic rules of composition for creating this image. As I'm planning to add a grid to the LCD of the camera.

The copyright of this simulator will be shared among me, this site and the persons giving the pics and the info. It will be a freeware, so no money will be earned with it.

[dlambert]

Have you seen this one?

SLR Camera Simulator | Simulates a digital SLR camera

[Indigo November]

The one thing that I hate about those things is that they always exaggerate the noise.
ISO 400 does not really give that much noise. Never found a simulator that got noise right...

[dlambert]

Well, the link I posted is sort of fixed with respect to both the camera and the lens, but I think it does a pretty good job of showing the tradeoffs you're looking at when evaluating exposure, which is what you want for a learning tool.

At the size of that photo, I'd bet that "real" noise levels would be so low that a beginner very well might miss the fact that noise increased at all, so I guess it's stronger as a learning tool than a real simulator.

[JOHNNY inside]

So, I guess the best is to stop playing the Einstein role here and enjoy the forum. But how am I supposed to do so if the piece of hardware I'll have (must arrive next week) is almost a point-and-shot and everyone here uses advanced tech-toys? Well... anyway, I just wanted to help. Thank you, guys!

[dlambert]

Well, like Indigo pointed out, there are ways to improve on what's out there already. If you've got some mad skilz you want to exercise, I'd bet there are people here who'd feed you feature requests until you're blue in the face!

[JOHNNY inside]

I believe that the camerasim.com one is pretty cool and it literally uses all the features Flash (in fact Flex) can bring to create this simulator. So, why inventing the wheel again? Anyway, thank you for your replies. You'll see me snooping around in some topics later. As for now... I believe this topic is closed.

Thank you, guys for your comments, honestly! You do rock!