If you're like most folks, you rely on your camera's aperture priority mode and small f-numbers to take photos with a limited depth of field. This technique isolates the subject from the (fuzzy) background. But there are also times, particularly when shooting landscapes, when you want everything in a photo to be in sharp focus, from the foreground all the way to the background. You can do this by shooting at your lens's hyperfocal distance. I explained what hyperfocal shooting is all about last week, so if you missed that one, you might want to catch up now. This week, let's pick up where we left off, and explain how to determine--and use--the hyperfocal distance.
How Do I Know What the Hyperfocal Distance Is?
I assume you've read last week's newsletter, but in case you want the digest version, here it is: The hyperfocal distance is where you can focus the lens to get the greatest possible depth of field.
Now that you understand the basic concept, you're no doubt wondering how to apply it. After all, knowing that the hyperfocal distance will enable you to capture uniformly sharp photos is pointless if you don't know how to determine the hyperfocal distance to begin with.
Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news: This information is readily available. The bad news: You might have to work a bit to get it.
Surrounding the focus diamond are lines that show the depth of field at different f-stops. As you might expect, bigger f-numbers correspond to deeper depth of field. At f/16, you can see that everything from about 7 to 20 feet will be in focus. At f/8, you only get about 8 to 14 feet of sharpness. (It's hard to be precise when reading numbers marked on the side of a lens. I'm approximating.)
I think using these older lenses to visually demonstrate hyperfocal distance is a good way to learn, because it graphically shows that the hyperfocal distance at any given aperture setting is the minimum possible focusing distance at which the depth of field extends to infinity. Obviously, you can still set the focus farther away if you choose to, but if you do that, the range of sharp focus can't get any bigger, and so you're just wasting depth of field "beyond" infinity.
Modern Hyperfocal Cheats
That's nifty if your camera lens has depth of field markings on the barrel, but I am afraid those days are pretty much gone. So how do we figure out the best focusing distance using modern cameras?
Thankfully, there are a few tools at our disposal. You might start with an online depth of field calculator, like the excellent one at DOFMaster.
If the far limit is not infinity, make it bigger. If it's already infinity, make it smaller. Try a few values until you just hit infinity. Now you know the distance you should focus on to get the best possible depth of field. You can also note the near limit of the depth of field, so you can be sure to position yourself for ideal sharpness of all the important parts of your photo.
Leap of Faith
Shooting photos the hyperfocal way can be a little scary the first few times you do it. It's a bit of a leap of faith to take a photo when you're not focusing on either your near or far subject, but rather at some indeterminate distance in between. Intuitively, it feels like you'll just end up with an out-of-focus shot. Don't forget, though, that if you're shooting with a digital SLR, you probably have a depth of field preview button that you can use to ensure your photo will be sharp before you take the photo.
Hot Pic of the Week
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Dwayne writes: "When reviewing my pictures from my trip to Aruba back in the spring, I realized that I had a special photo here as the color, the patterns and the background all worked together nicely. I cropped the photo and tweaked the lighting. I used my Canon EOS Digital Rebel SXi, with the flash set to -1 as a fill flash only."
Cat writes: "Since I had been reading your winter photo tips, I thought I'd submit this one. This was the result of our first white Christmas in over 50 years. It was taken with a Canon Rebel, and then I added a mini vignette in Photoshop."
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This story, "Maximize Your Depth of Field With Hyperfocal Photography" was originally published by PCWorld.