Caculatingl Hyperfocal distance without focus screen
- Thread starter Sgdevilzz
- Start date
i think its a gauge that he is talking abt. the one that tells u how many metres/feet
There are lots of smartphone apps and online calculators that can calculate hyperfocal distance. You could jot down a few distances for commonly used apertures and focal lengths to use as a cheat sheet if you don't have a phone handy, or bring a calculator and manually calculate out in the field 
xenith0 said:There are lots of smartphone apps and online calculators that can calculate hyperfocal distance. You could jot down a few distances for commonly used apertures and focal lengths to use as a cheat sheet if you don't have a phone handy, or bring a calculator and manually calculate out in the field
How about after calculating? For example:
Focal length of 22 and an aperture of 11, gives 1.94m(3.28 ft) how am I suppose to focus without the dof scale gauge?
Ah I see what you mean... Either estimate the distance or you can always make your own distance scale for your lens if you really want to. Like in your example, if the hyperfocal distance is 1.94m, just round up to a convenient distance eg 2m. But if you really want precise distance measurement I guess the only way would be to use a laser range finder?
There is a couple of ways around it.
I wrote about it here: http://darthbertz.blogspot.com/2010/07/getting-everything-into-focus.html
What if I do not have a distance scale on my lens, and/or I do not know whether I can focus at the exact spot?
Do not worry. Hyperfocal distance will work further away. So if you are not sure, just focus on a spot further away than the calculated hyperfocal distance, and everything from at least half of the distance of that spot to infinity will be in focus.
Example:
Using the same settings from the 1st example.
focal length=18 mm
aperture = F8
Camera = Nikon D5000 (CoC = 0.02)
Hyperfocal = 2.04m
Using the same settings I can still focus at 5m instead of 2.04m. Now everything from at least 2.5m (5m divide by 2) to infinity will be in focus.
I can also focus at 10m instead of 5m or 2.04m. If I do that, everything from at least 5m to infinity will be in focus.
However, if I focus at 1.5m (which is less than the hyperfocal distance), it will not work... So focused distance has to be greater than the hyperfocal distance for this to work.
Sorry cos I really don't understand, is this hyperfocal dist use when using mf?
If using af do we still need to do cal the hyperfocal dist?
Sorry don't don't understand.
If using af do we still need to do cal the hyperfocal dist?
Sorry don't don't understand.
Hyperfocus and normal focusing (mf/af) requires different frames of thought.
Normal focus = I want x, y and z to be in focus (x, y, and z are objects you wanna capture)
Hyperfocus = I want everything from x to infinity to be in focus (x is some distance, like 10m in front of me)
So as you can see, there's no point in doing AF for hyperfocus, since there's no specific point you wanna focus on. It's a focal setting independent of the scene.
Last edited:
Sgdevilzz said:
What we typically do is to shine a torch light at something we estimate to be hyperfocal dist or slightly further out to be safe, focus on that spot on AF or MF(using AF confirm) then turn off AF. And leave it there.
Have also may be useless right? The scale in the picture is "0.5 - 1 - infinity". Suppose hyperfocal distance calculated is 2.78m - so how to dial focus to that distance?
I have given up on hyperfocal hype... just trust the eye.
If the most foreground subject is beyond 3m, wouldn't focusing at infinity will just do the trick? My tokina 11-16's distance scale has only up to 2m before inifinity. I always wonder how to focus at 5m in the above example given by DD123.
Not much issue usually for UWA lens. At 16mm, only at aperture wider than f/6.3 then hyperfocal length is above 2m. At 11mm, only at its widest f/2.8 then it's slightly above 2m. How often does one shoot landscape with UWA lens at such wide aperture? Most, if not all, hyperfocal length is less than 2m.
Last edited:
Just a thought: instead of fiddling with the hyperfocal distance, instead of hunting for that sweet spot, would taking a few shots at different focus points and performing an image stacking be better? I suppose it should work for landscapes just like it should work for macro shots right?
Most of my shots, my hyperfocal distance is seldom beyond 2m.
If you want to light up a cityscape or landscape faraway to focus, you are not using hyperfocal distance anyway, so why start this thread? Please at least read what hyperfocal distance is and understand it first, before making senseless comments like this.
Last edited:
Similar threads
