Hyperfocal distancing...

[Davi]

during the brief bit of sunshine I had yesterday morning I tried to really get to grips with hyperfocal distances. I've got the App so I don't have to carry around charts, I've got the basic understanding of what's going on... so stupid question time... how do you actually apply your hyperfocal distance?! It's all well and good knowing I needed a hypefocal distance of 12.73 meters, but I was standing on a beach with little for reference and a brain incapable of guesstimating distances.

[Nick Grant]

It should be marked on the lens as you focus.

[Davi]

Nick Grant said:

It should be marked on the lens as you focus.

indeed but in my experience so far, the hyperfocal distance is well beyond the marked scale, in fact I've yet to have a given HF distance that corresponds with the lens' available scale!

[Fume troll]

1. Determine the hyperfocal distance for your aperture/focal length combination from chart or app. This will change if you have a crop sensor by the way, maybe that's where you're going wrong?
2. Find something at that distance, and focus on it with AF.
3. Switch Manual Focus.
4. Recompose shot and fire away.

I've tried it but never really found it to be worth the effort. The 1/3 - 2/3 rule works for me most of the time.

Have a look here too: http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/download.html

Cheers,

FT.

[Davi]

Full sensor on my D700 so no issue there - but it's this bit:

Fume troll said:

2. Find something at that distance, and focus on it with AF.

That really prompted my question - there simply wasn't anything at the distance I could get to, and I had no means to measure accurately anyway, from where the tripod was sat - I just wondered if there was any clever trickery people were using, or if I was missing something really, really obvious for it. I ended up using the 1/3 rule in the end! Cheers for the link will have a read once it's DL'd

[Fume troll]

Some ideas here: http://www.dofmaster.com/hyperfocal.html#estimatin...

Cheers,

FT.

[paul911]

Davi said:

Full sensor on my D700 so no issue there - but it's this bit:

Fume troll said:

2. Find something at that distance, and focus on it with AF.

That really prompted my question - there simply wasn't anything at the distance I could get to, and I had no means to measure accurately anyway, from where the tripod was sat - I just wondered if there was any clever trickery people were using, or if I was missing something really, really obvious for it. I ended up using the 1/3 rule in the end! Cheers for the link will have a read once it's DL'd

No need to physically measure, use the distance scale on the lens.

[Yellabelly]

Or look at the focus points on your viewfinder you should find at least on set that approximate to 1/3 the screen which will give you a pretty good position to work from, just set that as the focus point and see how it works out.

[Davi]

paul911 said:

No need to physically measure, use the distance scale on the lens.

The distance on the lens gives (in m)...

0.4 0.5 0.6 0.8 1 1.5 3 ∞

The hyperfocal distance according to my app was 12.73m - unless I'm doing something very wrong?

[paul911]

So set it between 3 and ∞, no?

What lens is it?

[Davi]

paul911 said:

So set it between 3 and ∞, no?

What lens is it?

LOL well yes, it's going to be somewhere between 3 and ∞ - I assumed it had to be fairly accurate though, am I incorrect in that assumption?

That was with the Sigma 28-70 F2.8, I found it seemed to be sharpest around F13 so was aiming for that at 70mm focal length as I couldn't really get as close the main subject I was after.

[paul911]

I’d assume so, as it would almost be set to infinity, but don’t know for sure.

I usually just focus on the foreground object at f11, and that’s usually sharp from front to back (that’s about 1/3 into the image).

If I can’t get focus lock, then I manually adjust the lens to just beyond the foreground object distance. Again this usually works.

[Davi]

I'm beginning to think I'm being too pedantic with this thanks for that, will go back out and try some more shots! (well, once it's stopped pissing down with rain anyway...)

[Nick Grant]

I think the fact that there is very little distance between three meters and infinity on the lens tells you all you need to know, it's not going to make much difference

[AndWhyNot]

Davi said:

I'm beginning to think I'm being too pedantic with this

Yup.

Treat it like a speed limit (prepares for further discussion ) as opposed to a target. In your case 12.whatever metres would be the closest you could focus for max DoF but there's no real reason you can't focus beyond.

[Davi]

LOL okay, both those points taken - I guess I should have figured that one out myself with the little movement between 3m and infinity. I blame the headache I have (we'll ignore the fact I've not had this headache quite as long as I've been trying to work out where I was going wrong...)

[xrrr]

I use 2 methods...

Either:
Pace it out.1 stride = approx 1m

or:
Do the 1/3 into the scene method

I don't think you have to be *that* accurate to be honest.

[Fume troll]

Digital Camera Autumn 2006, page 52
Andrea Thompson to Colin Prior

Quote:-

Q "How often do you focus using hyperfocal focusing?"

A "Hyperfocal focusing is an utter waste of time! I often wonder who thought up this rule and if they ever tried applying it. If you are using it in landscape photography be prepared for a big disappointment. If you want the distant mountains to rendered unsharp use the hyperfocal distance, unless you are using a view camera where you can apply front tilt, focus on infinityand use the aperture to pull in the foreground - that way you'll achieve success"

That said, his images tend to have little or nothing in the near foreground.

Cheers,

FT.