Video Production Calculator
One flow for a whole shoot — camera + lens + aperture + codec + resolution give you field of view, depth of field, storage, card count and offload time together.
Lens & Framing
Full Frame · 35mm · f/2.8Storage & Workflow
ProRes 422 HQ · 4K UHD · 24pEach 512 GB card holds ≈1h 36m at this format; media must sustain ≈106 MB/s writes. Offload assumes 50 Mbps with 10% overhead.
Shoot Plan
PRODUCTION PLAN Camera: Full Frame (36×24) — A7/R5/S5/Z8/FX3 Lens: 35mm @ f/2.8 (FF-equiv 35mm, 54.4° horizontal) Depth of field @ 3m: 2.51–3.73 m Format: ProRes 422 HQ · 4K UHD (3840×2160) · 24 fps Data rate: 705 Mb/s (88 MB/s sustained write) 60 min shoot: 317 GB · 1× 512GB card Offload at 50 Mbps: 15h 39m
One flow, verified numbers: field of view and depth of field use the thin-lens and standard circle-of-confusion (diagonal ÷ 1500) models; data rates come from the same vendor-calibrated tables as the Camera Data Rate Calculator (ProRes, DNxHR, BRAW and REDCODE cross-checked against published specs). RAW and constant-quality formats vary a few percent with scene content, so add margin when ordering media. For live streaming settings, use the Streaming Bitrate Calculator.
What Is the Video Production Calculator?
The Video Production Calculator is an end-to-end pre-production tool: pick a camera body, lens, aperture, subject distance, codec, resolution, frame rate, shoot length, card size and offload speed, and it answers every question in one screen — horizontal field of view, crop factor and full-frame equivalent focal length, depth of field (near/far limits and total), recording data rate and required sustained write speed, total storage for the shoot, how many cards you need, and how long the footage takes to offload or upload. Instead of jumping between a lens calculator, a data-rate calculator and a transfer-time calculator, it chains them so changing the camera, codec or shoot length updates the whole plan at once, and it produces a copyable shoot plan to share with your crew. The sensor and codec numbers are the same vendor-verified tables used across the site's camera tools, so the figures match exactly.
How It Works
Set your camera and lens at the top, choose the codec, resolution and frame rate, then enter shoot length, card size and your offload speed. Every result updates live; Copy Plan gives you a plain-text summary of the whole setup — framing, depth of field, storage, cards and offload time — to paste into a shot list or send to the team.
When to Use It
Use it in pre-production to spec a shoot: how many cards to rent, whether your drives are fast enough, what lens covers the location, how much depth of field you'll have wide open, and how long the dump takes at wrap. Great for DPs, ACs, DITs, producers and solo shooters planning a day.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How is this different from your other camera calculators?
- It combines them. The Lens, Camera Data Rate, and Download Time calculators each answer one question; the Production Calculator runs all of them from a single set of inputs so you see the whole shoot at once and can copy it as a plan. The underlying math and data tables are identical, so numbers agree across tools.
- Are the numbers accurate?
- The data rates come from bits-per-pixel constants back-calculated from published vendor specs (Apple ProRes, Avid DNxHR, Sony X-OCN) and raw formats from bit depth ÷ compression ratio verified against RED's and Blackmagic's own figures. Field of view and depth of field use standard optical models. RAW and constant-quality codecs vary a few percent with scene content, so add margin when ordering media.
- Does it cover streaming?
- This tool focuses on the camera-to-storage side of production. For live streaming bitrate, encoder and platform settings, use the dedicated Streaming Bitrate Calculator.
Last reviewed: 2026-06-27