ahhhhhhhhhh ......... and yet again ......... are you suuuuuuuuurrrre it's not a one dimensional plane ( not including the minute distortion from glass shape .... which i'm sure you will throw in there somewhere). what makes up DOF? surely you know, everybody should know this, that's all that is talked about in this forum! in laymens terms ....... dof is the portion of the scene that appears sharp in the image. so, how the hell does one ball get in focus when everything on that same PLANE (or distance) from the lens manage to stay out of focus? hell, i guess my camera is broke more than i thought becuase my depth of field works like this ............... if my focal point is 3' from the lens, EVERYTHING 3' from my lens is in focus, depending on my fstop, from 1" to infinity. my camera doesn't distinguish or single out an object from a scene and then within processing only make that subject appear in focus............... are you tracking yet? do you see where i'm going with this? ....... or do you wish to continue telling me and whoever else is reading this "that's not how it works"?