Hyperfocal distance

Darryl Roberts · May 12, 2020

Re: http://www.cabbagetownphoto.com/DOFfeet.html

This site says after plugging in my focal length and aperture to set focus. I know infinity focus equals the bellows draw. My subject will be a wall approximately 20 feet away and a tower behind it.

Set focus? Shouldn't it all be in focus since it's set to infinity?

ic-racer · May 12, 2020

https://www.largeformatphotography.info/fstop.html

thuggins · May 12, 2020

It would help to know the focal length of the lens, as that affects the hyperfocal distances. As a general rule, I set the focus at 30' for any composition with a foreground and this works well for 105mm lenses and even the 127mm on my Graphic. As I don't do portraits or people in general, there is no need for a closer setting. Zeiss used red dots at 30 feet and about f9 for hyperfocal settings. If you closest object is 20 feet away and your aperture smaller than f8 (especially f11 or f16), you should be fine with setting the focus to infinity.

Interestingly enough, I was recently reading an instruction book on how to use your Ikoflex. All of the focusing discussion was hyperfocal, except for portraits at the very close focus limit of the lens. This shows that the notion of focusing on some "specific thing" is a really modern idea that came about with autofocusing cameras.

John Koehrer · May 12, 2020

Nope, hyperfocal includes about 30% increase of sharpness towards the camera & 70% behind the camera.
this is true of any focus point 1/3 in front 2/3 behind.

Dan Fromm · May 12, 2020

John Koehrer said:
Nope, hyperfocal includes about 30% increase of sharpness towards the camera & 70% behind the camera.
this is true of any focus point 1/3 in front 2/3 behind.

This doesn't work at near distances, where half of the more-or-less tolerably in focus zone is in front of the plane of best focus and half is behind it.

wiltw · May 12, 2020

If you used a 5" x 4" camera with a 150mm lens set to f/11, looking at an 8" x 10" print viewed from 25cm and assuming 20/20 visual acuity (what your optometrist seeks when correcting your vision...and NOT using the 'manufacturer standard' which assumes poorer visual acuity!!!) using the DOF Calculator of Cambridge Color found at https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/DOF-calculator.htm

focused at 20' distance, your DOF zone is 17.9' - 22.6'...and the hyperfocal distance is at 167'

IOW, 45% of your DOF zone in in Front of plane of focus, and 55% of your DOF zone is Behind the plane of focus.

Forget the 1/3 - 2/3 distribution of DOF...it is mostly a LIE, and applies only at ONE SPECIFIC focus distance, depending upon FL and aperture.
At the hyperfocal distance of 167', using the same 150mm at f/11 lens, the 20/20 vision DOF zone extends 84' - 53616',
which is 0.16% in Front and 99.84% Behind the plane of focus at 167'.
As a matter of fact, the 150mm lens at f/11 on 4x5 camera has the 1/3 - 2/3 DOF distribution when focused at 55', the DOF zone extends from 42' - 82', which is 33% 67% distribution of the DOF field in front and behind the 55' focus.

That answers your question, but something tells me it is not what you really need to know?!

DREW WILEY · May 12, 2020

You need to get a good view camera handbook or tutorial and study the basics first. I never personally use hyperfocal theory with a view camera, although it might work OK with especially short focal length lenses with greater depth of field. Rather, you want to get comfortable viewing key portions of the ground glass image with a magnifying loupe, and how your view camera movements and lens aperture changes affect depth of field. Learning how to do all this visually and intuitively is far more efficient than fiddling around with any kind of formula or calculator, although those kinds of things can be helpful at times. But until you learn the basics of what a view camera can do that ordinary cameras can't, all you have is a bigger ordinary camera!

Darryl Roberts · May 12, 2020

DREW WILEY said:
You need to get a good view camera handbook or tutorial and study the basics first. I never personally use hyperfocal theory with a view camera, although it might work OK with especially short focal length lenses with greater depth of field. Rather, you want to get comfortable viewing key portions of the ground glass image with a magnifying loupe, and how your view camera movements and lens aperture changes affect depth of field. Learning how to do all this visually and intuitively is far more efficient than fiddling around with any kind of formula or calculator, although those kinds of things can be helpful at times. But until you learn the basics of what a view camera can do that ordinary cameras can't, all you have is a bigger ordinary camera!

I have a wonderful Norma and have taken successful photos with it. This shot requires more movements, I got great feedback through an IM that helped. Thank you

Deleted member 88956 · May 13, 2020

wiltw said:
If you used a 5" x 4" camera with a 150mm lens set to f/11, looking at an 8" x 10" print viewed from 25cm and assuming 20/20 visual acuity (what your optometrist seeks when correcting your vision...and NOT using the 'manufacturer standard' which assumes poorer visual acuity!!!) using the DOF Calculator of Cambridge Color found at https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/DOF-calculator.htm

focused at 20' distance, your DOF zone is 17.9' - 22.6'...and the hyperfocal distance is at 167'

IOW, 45% of your DOF zone in in Front of plane of focus, and 55% of your DOF zone is Behind the plane of focus.

Forget the 1/3 - 2/3 distribution of DOF...it is mostly a LIE, and applies only at ONE SPECIFIC focus distance, depending upon FL and aperture.
At the hyperfocal distance of 167', using the same 150mm at f/11 lens, the 20/20 vision DOF zone extends 84' - 53616',
which is 0.16% in Front and 99.84% Behind the plane of focus at 167'.
As a matter of fact, the 150mm lens at f/11 on 4x5 camera has the 1/3 - 2/3 DOF distribution when focused at 55', the DOF zone extends from 42' - 82', which is 33% 67% distribution of the DOF field in front and behind the 55' focus.

That answers your question, but something tells me it is not what you really need to know?!

This whole thing sounds like digitally made up, but I guess if that site said it it just must be godsend truth, after all it did answer your queation, did it not? Once you have your DOF precalculated to within a foot, everything falls into place. Would help to bring a high accuracy distance finder along, so you can take full advantage of the accuracy too, otherwise you might miss out having that tree at 53616' in proper focus..

outwest · May 13, 2020

And remember (leaving movements out of it for the moment) that the only part of your subject that is really sharp is the part you are focused on. Everything else fore and aft of the focus point becomes increasing more out of focus as it moves away from the focus point. The DOF calculator is just telling you those close and near points that have reached the undesirable limit of out of focus that you are willing to tolerate.

Darryl Roberts · May 13, 2020

outwest said:
And remember (leaving movements out of it for the moment) that the only part of your subject that is really sharp is the part you are focused on. Everything else fore and aft of the focus point becomes increasing more out of focus as it moves away from the focus point. The DOF calculator is just telling you those close and near points that have reached the undesirable limit of out of focus that you are willing to tolerate.

Thank you

wiltw · May 13, 2020

Witold said:
This whole thing sounds like digitally made up, but I guess if that site said it it just must be godsend truth, after all it did answer your queation, did it not? Once you have your DOF precalculated to within a foot, everything falls into place. Would help to bring a high accuracy distance finder along, so you can take full advantage of the accuracy too, otherwise you might miss out having that tree at 53616' in proper focus..

Well, not 'digitally made up'...the equation of DOF is analog and works in the film world too!
Personally I feel the DOF calculation and Hyperfocal are rather limited value tools because of the fact that distance scales (on formats whose lenses even have them) are so very useless...

the longest scaled distance on one of my Olympu OM lenses is 50'...where is 75' and how do I know that is where my subject is standing, and my calculated DOF says 65' - 95'?! A useless computation in the field.
If I wish to set my lens to 160' where the Hyperfocal is, where out there is that distance so I can focus on it?! A useless point in space which I cannot find, even with a laser rangefinder in the bright sun.

The point of my posting calculated values was

to prove the Hyperfocal concept does not come close to getting something 20' away to appear to be 'in focus'
to prove the Urban Legend nature of DOF being 1/3 in front and 2/3 in back is mostly wrong and seldom right

I backed up the points with hard data of DOF zones, with assumptions about a lens and aperture.

My large format monorail has a scale on the rail, and it has a rotary dial on the knob controlling the position of the standard, and these tools can be used to find a 'near focus' and a 'far focus' point and calculate where to actually set the standard so that both are in focus for a particular aperture, but that does no good for the OP.

Sometimes if the near point and the far point are too separated in distance, there is NO aperture or standard position which will get both in focus. We can try to use tilts to get both to be in the plane of focus (or within the DOF zone) and examine the ground glass for results, but even then there are times when that does not suffice...like the base of a tree is in focus, but the top of the tree is out of the DOF!

DREW WILEY · May 13, 2020

What is "tolerably or intolerably" either in or out of focus is entirely relative; and therefore no fixed mathematical formula can possibly apply to anything more than a very rigid unrealistic definition of how the image is to be viewed. There are first of all, a myriad of esthetic variables. Then to what degree is the film going to be enlarged? How will it be viewed? Yeah, I know there are all kinds of equally nonsensical terms to go with it, like "circle of confusion" and "normal viewing distance", as if one were reading a magazine. But focus itself can be part of the esthetic process. What really needs to be acute focus, and what doesn't? Focus on what really counts first, check it with a loupe, stop down halfway to your final setting, see how the out of focus areas look, and see how much you can refocus without losing tight focus on your critical spots, then stop down to your final shooting aperture and take the shot.

Hyperfocal distance

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