Les Jones

Word of the Day > Word of the Day: Hyperfocal Distance (Photography)

DOFmaster.com:

The concept of hyperfocal distance is easy to understand: focus a lens at the hyperfocal distance and everything in the photograph from some near distance to infinity will be sharp. Landscape photographs are often taken with the lens focused at the hyperfocal distance; near and distant objects are sharp in the photos.

"The hyperfocal distance is the point of focus where everything from half that distance to infinity falls within the depth of field." - John Shaw

There's a great tutorial there showing how to calculate a lens's hyperfocal distance for a given aperture using the markings on the lens. My first reaction is that this is really interesting. Then the fascination was replaced with disgust, which was replaced by gratitude that I live in a time of reliable autofocus lenses so that I don't have to think about this crap.

The depth of field calculator is also really cool. It's truly amazing how razor thin the depth of field is on short lenses at near distances. No wonder macro shooters prefer to mount their cameras on a focusing rail.

The DOF calculator also doubles as a hyperfocal distance calculator. For my 50mm/1.8 lens the hyperfocal distance at F11 is 36 feet, so anything at F11 that's 18 or more feet away would be in focus, which is sorta handy to know. Um, except that I wouldn't use that lens at F11 when I could use my 18-55mm zoom. The only reason I have the 50mm prime is because it's an amazingly fast, sharp lens that's also inexpensive and lightweight. I only use it at large apertures. At F2 the hyperfocal distance is 216 feet, which is pretty much useless to know. Again, I'm so, so happy to live in a time of reliable autofocus cameras.

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