Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: trevarthan on July 18, 2014, 07:38:34 pm
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I was testing hyperfocal distance on my 24mm 1.4g today. My iphone app calculators say it's about 4 feet at f16 on this body. How can I set that quickly in the future? Mark the lens body? I could see getting into a situation where there is nothing available to focus on at 4 feet.
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If your lens has a focus distance indicator, which it must being a higher-end model, just manually set the focus to 4 feet. If there's no 4 ft. numerical marking you'll have to guesstimate a bit...usually there are 3 & 5 ft. markings, or you can set the distance to a bit past 1 meter.
-Dave-
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Holy crap. I just figured out what that distance/dof scale on my lens is for, along with the depth of field preview in the settings menu. *facepalm*
Why did it take me so long to learn that? Sigh. This helped: http://www.dofmaster.com/hyperfocal.html#focusing
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The easy and quick "rough and ready" way to set hyperfocal distance any "proper" lens (i.e. one with a DoF scale on the lens body) is to place the infinity mark opposite the mark for the aperture you are using. Reading from the opposite mark for the same aperture will show you the minimum distance which will be in reasonable focus at that setting.
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I'm guessing I place the mark in the center of the infinite symbol. I was playing with that today across two different lenses (24mm PC-e and 24mm f1.4G). Oddly, the PC-e is missing the f11 mark, and the 1.4G is missing the f8 mark. So, I may still find reasons to use both lenses.
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Adjust your camera strap so that the camera hangs 4 feet from your foot. Then you can quickly focus on your shoe and shoot.
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I was testing hyperfocal distance on my 24mm 1.4g today. My iphone app calculators say it's about 4 feet at f16 on this body. How can I set that quickly in the future? Mark the lens body? I could see getting into a situation where there is nothing available to focus on at 4 feet.
Be careful about hyperfocal distance when shooting at tight DOF requriements. If you focus too short infinity will be blurred and I assume you wont like that. On modern cameras the much better approach is to use live view for focusing and checking DOF.
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Wouldn't the scene be too dark if you were setting up a long exposure and live view was previewing depth of field accurately?
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Wouldn't the scene be too dark if you were setting up a long exposure and live view was previewing depth of field accurately?
Yes, there can be exceptions, of course and in these cases I would go for a safe side focus distance. If there is too little light to really use live view stopped down to e.g. f/16 then (on a Nikon) set the aperture to the lens fully open and then focus at the distance that you judge is a bit longer than hyperfocal distance. On a Canon the live view is always for the lens fully open and you need to push the DOF preview button to get the live view of the stopped down DOF. You can do the same thing using Camranger http://camranger.com/
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Get a super fine tip paint marker (or failing that a silver Sharpie pen) and put a mark on the proposed hyperfocal setting. You can change it later....as you probably will if you discover that DOF/HyperFocal is display size-specific. In other words, the hyperfocal for a 4" x 6" print is different than the mark for a 10" x 15" print.
And....always keep in mind that depth of field is an illusion.
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One problem: on zoom lenses (except expensive ones), even where there's a focus scale, often it's accurate only at long focal lengths. At wider angles it may be significantly out.
I've been caught out several times photographing in near-dark, where autofocus won't work and manual focus is difficult. Even with a torch so I can see the distance scale, I know it's no use at wide angles! I end up stopping down to ensure a reasonable depth of field, and using even longer exposures.
When I get round to it, I'll note at least the infinity position at several focal lengths on the lenses I use most often.
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not on this subject, but I would be leery of shooting at f16 because of diffraction. It will show up at f11 in most cases.
imho
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not on this subject, but I would be leery of shooting at f16 because of diffraction. It will show up at f11 in most cases.
imho
Yes, f/16 does give diffraction and f/11 a bit. They way to counter this when DOF is a challenge is in my opinion to use live view (when possible) and check DOF. In addition or alternatively simply shoot a number of different apertures, like f/8, f/11 and f/16 and choose the best one in Lightroom. As mentioned I use a different sharpening setting for f/16 to counter diffraction a bit: amount=50, radius=1, detail=100 and masking=30 where for f/11 and f/8 and lower I use radius=0.8 and detail=70. I use the same on all my cameras (Canon and Nikon). The different setting for f/16 does help a bit but the resolution is visibly less than f/8 and f/11. Not to speak of f/22 which I never use.
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I think landscape photographers are unjustifiably obsessed with front-to-back sharpness. Focus on what matters, use hyperfocal distance or stop down if necessary, but there is really no need for absolute sharpness "to infinity and beyond." Slight defocus in the distance, or very close in the foreground, only improves the perception of 3D and sharpness of the main subject.
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I think landscape photographers are unjustifiably obsessed with front-to-back sharpness. Focus on what matters, use hyperfocal distance or stop down if necessary, but there is really no need for absolute sharpness "to infinity and beyond." Slight defocus in the distance, or very close in the foreground, only improves the perception of 3D and sharpness of the main subject.
I think sharpness in landscape pictures most of the time benefit from front to back sharpness, but I find cases where a slight out of focus of the background will work very well. I hardly ever find unsharp foregrounds to work very well. If you an important foreground subject, I find it useful to shot the same composition with different aperture settings and then decide in Lightroom which one really looks the best as it (from my experience) is rather difficult to judge when you take shot.
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I used the Canon 24 f/1.4 MK II for years and rarely went beyond f/11. I'd only resort to f/16 in extremis. I'd much rather take the time to do a focus stacking sequence, if weather conditions permit; and the retouching tools in both Helicon Focus and Zerenestacker are pretty good.
Merrill
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If there's nothing at 4 feet to focus on (and presumably nothing closer) and you're shooting a 24mm why would you want to use the hyperfocal distance? Like Bart said, you risk losing infinity for 0 gain.
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This is probably slightly off-topic, but one of the reasons to use manual focus lenses for landscape is that they tend to have a proper focusing ring, a longer "turning range" of said ring, leading to proper DOF scale markings.
AF lenses, at the least from Canon, have really ridiculous DOF scale, the aperture markings are so close to one another, it is impossible to use.
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This is probably slightly off-topic, but one of the reasons to use manual focus lenses for landscape is that they tend to have a proper focusing ring, a longer "turning range" of said ring, leading to proper DOF scale markings.
AF lenses, at the least from Canon, have really ridiculous DOF scale, the aperture markings are so close to one another, it is impossible to use.
I don't DOF scales are useful anyway. With modern cameras they are all redundant. As I have mentioned several times earlier on, the best way to judge DOF is using live view.
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I don't DOF scales are useful anyway. With modern cameras they are all redundant. As I have mentioned several times earlier on, the best way to judge DOF is using live view.
Bearing in mind that "depth of field" actually means "range in which image quality is not unacceptably degraded," since everything except the actual point of focus is out of focus to some degree, shooting film back when I found that the depth of field scales engraved on the lenses were not sufficiently conservative for me. I imagine it is even worse with digital files. Rather than rely on DOF calculators, I would do some testing to establish the parameters that work for one's own needs. (And it see how what one sees in live view matches up to the printed output.)
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Bearing in mind that "depth of field" actually means "range in which image quality is not unacceptably degraded," since everything except the actual point of focus is out of focus to some degree, shooting film back when I found that the depth of field scales engraved on the lenses were not sufficiently conservative for me. I imagine it is even worse with digital files. Rather than rely on DOF calculators, I would do some testing to establish the parameters that work for one's own needs. (And it see how what one sees in live view matches up to the printed output.)
I speak from experience, not theory :) Live view is a good way to judge DOF, but as I have mentioned earlier on. I often do take some extra shots at different apertures and then judge in Lightroom which one looks the best. Sometimes I prefer a shot where the main subject is in sharp focus and the background slightly blurred. I'm not suggesting DOF calculators as the main tool at all, I think DOF calculators are great for getting a good feel for DOF at different focal lengths and apertures and in a given situation it is useful, however I would always in a challenging situation use live view and aperture bracket my shots.
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... shooting film back when I found that the depth of field scales engraved on the lenses were not sufficiently conservative for me...
That's why I used to use the next markings on the lens, i.e., if shooting at say f/16 (relax you diffraction freaks, that was medium format I am talking about ;)) I would use the markings for f/11.
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I speak from experience, not theory :) Live view is a good way to judge DOF, but as I have mentioned earlier on. I often do take some extra shots at different apertures and then judge in Lightroom which one looks the best. Sometimes I prefer a shot where the main subject is in sharp focus and the background slightly blurred. I'm not suggesting DOF calculators as the main tool at all, I think DOF calculators are great for getting a good feel for DOF at different focal lengths and apertures and in a given situation it is useful, however I would always in a challenging situation use live view and aperture bracket my shots.
A lot of useful thought have been expressed, so forgive a little redundancy and read on. When I acquired my Canon 5Dii, I thought that live view was there to satisfy the point and shoot crowd, only to find how valuable it was for focusing landscape images. If you want to make large prints and have the scene believable, the foreground has to be in really sharp focus. As others have said, it is not crucial that focus be maintained to infinity. Some print viewers feel that sharp focus at infinity is unnatural. I feel that hyperfocal distance techniques are, for the most part, obsolete and less than adequate. Using live view, 5x or 10x viewing, and DOF preview, you can often get adequate depth of focus at f8 (full frame). However, the best results are obtained with focus stacking because you can control exactly what will be in focus and use an optimal aperture setting, like 5.6 or 8, to keep diffraction in check. Did I mention a tripod?
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I don't DOF scales are useful anyway. With modern cameras they are all redundant. As I have mentioned several times earlier on, the best way to judge DOF is using live view.
Very instructing thread, and my take is that we are blessed today with technology that is really helpful. I only mentioned DOF scales on the lens, because I think they are still helpful, in tandem with LV and DOF preview. I am always using DOF scale on the lens and DOF preview, not so much LV. Why? Because I have checked and trust the scale on my lens, to give me the necessary DOF for a landscape shot.
All the best.