Holiday photos with Ansell Adams?

Do you use hyperfocal distance focussing?

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tikkathreebarrel

tikkathreebarrel

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One of the joys for me of the summer holiday is time to chill, time to spend with family and time to bury my nose in a book at more than two pages at a time.
So I've brought with me part 1 of the Ansell Adams trilogy - The Camera.

Today - and hopefully tomorrow and the day after - I shall be practising what I've learned about a technique I have never knowingly used before - hyperfocal distance.

So who does? Who doesn't?
 
Nope, never. People get too hung up on sharpness IMO.
 
Yep use it sometimes. Probably not as often as I could through laziness :)
 
Some of the time, mainly for street style photography.

George.
 
I consider depth of field as a factor for most shots
However it is just one of the factors in making a shot
not something to get too hung up about.

working out the exact hyperfocal distance is well over the top and quite unnecessary for almost any shot.
 
When you see Ansel Adams shots they are not that technically brilliant. For all the stuff he wrote, much of it is heavily over printed and reworked in the darkroom.

Like all great photographers he was also a fantastic publicist.
But he did a geat deal to promote landscape photography.
 
I sometimes do, but only a guestimate based on experience. Since lenses these days don't have hyperfocal markings, and decent DOF scales, I just can't be arsed. Fortunately, years of working with decent manual lenses has kind of made it intuitive. I feel sorry for this generation that need to start arsing about with calculators or apps on their phones.
 
Jayst84 said:
Kind of, sometimes. As others have said, there's no need to be too fussy over how exact it is. And also, I can't be arsed.

Never actually calculate anything, if you've used a camera for a few days you should instinctively know to get close enough without really thinking about distances and apertures.
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^This.... I can just look at a scene now and think "f16... focus at 4ft" and usually get it right, even in extreme circumstances.

View attachment 41090

It doesn't take long to become practised. However... you have to learn it to start with, which is where Apps and calculators don't really help you visualise it. The above shot was an occasion where i focused hyperfocally. These days though... live view is more useful, but here I had to shoot fast before the guy moved, so hyperfocal focusing is still a needed skill.


I would LOVE lenses to have the old school hyperfocal scales on them again.

images.jpg

f22.... set infinity to the f22 mark and read off the minimum distance... in the above case, 6ft.

Even the modern lenses that do have them now, they're near useless due to the small amounts of rotation required to focus... so the scale is so small it's no more accurate than guessing.
 
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Proper depth of field (not quite the same as hyperfocal*) scales on lenses are great and very easy to use. Probably more accurate than trying to use auto focus in a lot of cases.

(* hyperfocal is where the long end of the scale is at infinity).


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
(* hyperfocal is where the long end of the scale is at infinity).


Steve.
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like the image I posted above... yes. In all fairness... I edited that post as you were typing most likely.
 
Pookeyhead said:
like the image I posted above... yes. In all fairness... I edited that post as you were typing most likely.
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I'm sure you know the difference!

There was another thread recently where someone was confusing hyperfocal with depth of field and there is some confusion here such as one post suggesting hyperfocal for street photography.

For those who don't know, the hyperfocal distance is the distance you focus your lens to where the extents of acceptable sharpness are half that distance up to infinity. This is a function of focal length, aperture and film or sensor size.

Set the lens so that one end of the DOF scale is at infinity and that now shows the hyperfocal settings.


Steve.
 
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Steve Smith said:
I'm sure you know the difference!.
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Indeed, but in practice, the old school dof scales worked beautifully and you don't need to calculate anything.
 
Steve Smith said:
I'm sure you know the difference!

There was another thread recently where someone was confusing hyperfocal with depth of field and there is some confusion here such as one post suggesting hyperfocal for street photography.

For those who don't know, the hyperfocal distance is the distance you focus your lens to where the extents of acceptable sharpness are half that distance up to infinity. This is a function of focal length, aperture and film or sensor size.

Set the lens so that one end of the DOF scale is at infinity and that now shows the hyperfocal settings.


Steve.
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14mm lens, manual focus, f8 with focus set at 4ft gives me a near limit of about 2ft to a far of 85ft. Perfect for street :)
 
Steve Smith said:
there is some confusion here such as one post suggesting hyperfocal for street photography.
Click to expand...


I'm fully aware of the difference between "Hyperfocal" and "DOF" Steve, and I'm not in the slightest bit confused between the two.

ie when I'm using my 28mm Nikkor manual focus lens lets say at F11, I set the infinity mark on the lens to the F11-(Yellow) mark on the lens barrel and I then have a Hyperfocal Distance from Infinity down to 4.5 ft.

Maybe I should have added to my post, depending what lens I'm using I sometimes use "Hyperfocal Distance" for street style photography.

George.
 
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It's on my radar for next year! My other half doesn't know it yet...
 
Thinking depth of field is far more useful than thinking hyperfocal.
it fits the depth of field to the required area of actual interest.
in this, the old lens scales were effective, quick and easy.

most of us old photographers have this inbuilt to a large extent,
However auto exposure and zoom lenses have spoilt such skills.
and there is no effectice and convenient substitute.

As the full exif information can be used to calculate depth of field from focus distance, focal length and aperture.
it is not beyond the wit of man, to display it in the viewfinder or screen, Using firmware.

The camera is already aware of this, but neither records nor shows it.
 
odd jim said:
It's on my radar for next year! My other half doesn't know it yet...
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We're doing two weeks, start in San Francisco for three days, drive to yosemite for a fees days, then sequoia, stop over in Bakersfield (desert aircraft graveyard nearby) onto Death Valley, finishing in Vegas, where we'll do Grand Canyon etc.
 
Byker28i said:
We're doing two weeks, start in San Francisco for three days, drive to yosemite for a fees days, then sequoia, stop over in Bakersfield (desert aircraft graveyard nearby) onto Death Valley, finishing in Vegas, where we'll do Grand Canyon etc.
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Sounds good. I did Vegas and the Grand Canyon in 2013, it was amazing!
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
As the full exif information can be used to calculate depth of field from focus distance, focal length and aperture.
it is not beyond the wit of man, to display it in the viewfinder or screen, Using firmware.
Click to expand...

I have always wondered why digital cameras do not have a hyperfocal mode. If it knows the focal length and aperture, it should be able to set the focus in the right place.


Steve.
 
Steve Smith said:
I have always wondered why digital cameras do not have a hyperfocal mode. If it knows the focal length and aperture, it should be able to set the focus in the right place.


Steve.
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That would be a useful mode to have. Better than the instagram and other picture styles that are installed as improvements.
 
Far better (IMO) to have a DoF (well, depth of acceptable sharpness) display, just like the X-30 has (can't remember if the earlier incarnations have the same feature.)

I rarely use hyperfocal distance. There's almost always a point of focus (or a plane of interest) and I use that as the actual focus point then adjust the aperture to get the DoF I feel appropriate for the scene without straying too far into diffraction territory. f/8 or so is usually enough, although sometimes I'll sacrifice ultimate sharpness for more DoF.
 
Steve Smith said:
I have always wondered why digital cameras do not have a hyperfocal mode. If it knows the focal length and aperture, it should be able to set the focus in the right place.


Steve.
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Erm, rangefinder cameras, do I remember correctly that the camera simply focusses on the subject it has been "aimed" at so the introduction of depth of field and hyperfocality would be down to operator input?
 
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