Adrift in the Hyperfocal Sea

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Braidsta

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Good morning all,

Been ages since I've been here, I've been too busy out taking photos!

I've just bought the Tokina 11-16mm and love it, but I'm having a mad struggle trying to understand manual focussing (doesn't AF on my D3000).

I've been reading about / studying hyperfocal charts and they do seem to be what I need to work out... I plan to do a lot of street-type photography so need an f. / focal distance combo that will yield me sharp shots quickly.

This sounds like I'm asking for an autofocus motor lol! Seriously though, I have read before about a (or several) standard combo that people set their aperture / focus to for "all round" use, I just can't find it and I'm starting to feel a bit bleak :( I completely accept that this is no easy game and so far have loved the learning curves, but this is too much.

If anyone could lend a bit of advice, that'd be brilliant.

cheers

John
 
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Does your lens have distance and aperture markings?

If it does, it's fairly simple to set hyperfocal distance to ensure maximum DoF. All you need do is select an aperture you wish to shoot, and then set the infinity mark on the lens to the appropriate aperture marking.

If you check the image below, assuming shooting at f/11, by setting the infinity mark against 11 on one side of the focussing mark, you can see that we should have focus from approx. 3.5 metres.

hyper.JPG
 
hey there,

ah, unfortunately I gather that manufacturers have done away with that very useful feature in recent years, so no f. markings at all.

I think I have sussed it though - just had a walkabout on my lunch break and at f.8 and with the focus set to infinity, I appear to have some sharp, in focus images. I'm really happy as they were all off-the-cuff shots the same as I'd normally do with my AF lens. I guess I was just feeling very overwhelmed after tearing the packaging off my new Tokina only to find I'm hopeless at MF.

My nightmare was that I'd bought a lens that'd make it very hard for me to do my beloved walkabouts - I lie on my back in roads etc to get my shots so if I can figure a preset it could well save my life! ;)

'Appy snappin!

cheers

John
 
Glad you've sorted something, but that's an unusual focal length range to use for street photography, and hyperfocal distance focusing is not the technique that you'd use to shoot from the hip. It's a landscape technique when you want both near distance and infinity in focus.

Perhaps the most helpful tip for your street snaps would be the 'focus one third in' guide. It's only a rough rule of thumb but should work okay for that kind of stuff and makes use of the principle that depth of field (usually) extends one thrid in front of the focused point, and two thirds behind it. That is, focusing on something 3m away and at a given f/number it will be sharp from 2m to 5m.

Everything you want to know about depth of field here www.dofmaster.com
 
Braidsta said:
ah, unfortunately I gather that manufacturers have done away with that very useful feature in recent years, so no f. markings at all.


John
Click to expand...

its still there on every prime lens I have, not sure how it would work on a zoom though
 
Cheers for that, and yeah I've bookmarked that page and many like it over the weekend!

I've never had so much fun and been so proud of myself in learning photography (a couple of months ago, I was struggling to fit my kit-lens to my camera!), but yeah, with this manual focus lark I felt like crying lol. I'm a keen learner but honestly, this is difficult!

It's cheeky and actually quite shameful, but I was hoping for someone to say "ah, I have this 11-16mm, and in your situation I do this...", but it's gonna take some doing yet.:bang:

once again, thanks for the responses
 
Braidsta said:
I think I have sussed it though - just had a walkabout on my lunch break and at f.8 and with the focus set to infinity
Click to expand...

If you are setting your focus to infinity you haven't got hyperfocal sussed.

When you select a distance to focus on your depth of field extends infront and behind this point.

The amount it extends depends on your aperture.

If you set focus to infinity you are wasting all of your depth of field behind (beyond?) your focal distance.

X is the point at which you have chosen to focus.
< and > are the limits of acceptable sharpness - or how much of the shot is properly sharp

F/1.8 focussed near
Camera |---<-X-->----------| Infinity

F/1.8 focussed far
Camera |----------<-X-->---| Infinity

F/8 focussed near
Camera |---<--X---->-------| Infinity

F/8 focussed to infinity
Camera |--------------<--X| Infinity

F/16 at hyperfocal distance
Camera |-<-----X---------->| Infinity



To get hyperfocal distance nowardays you need to be a good judge of distance (for chosing something to focus on) and have committed the tables to memory or have them with you if you have a lens without the markings that they used to have.

As Hoppy said above Hyperfocal is not really the right tool for the job in this instance. Hyperfocal is nearly always used for landscape work
 
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Personally I'd do what you did on your walkabout. It's a UWA lens so it should be fairly easy to use with infinity focussing. Your worst case is at the long end of your lens so taking that as your starting point:

At 16mm, f/8, infinity focus, everything from 3 feet away should be in focus.

At 16mm, f/5.6, infinity focus, everything from 4 feet away should be in focus.

At 16mm, f/4, infinity focus, everything from 6 feet away should be in focus.

Distances are rounded up to the nearest foot.
 
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