

This is a subjective method for determining hyperfocal distance because where you focus will vary based on when you think the foreground elements are sharp enough. Using this method, your hyperfocal distance will vary with your aperture setting. Some people will tell you the best way to figure out hyperfocal distance is to set your desired aperture, then focus up until infinity is “perfectly sharp,” and then zoom (using your lens with a zoom lens or your feet with a prime lens) to get your foreground in focus, adjusting as you go to make sure the background stays sharp. One way to go is to embrace this subjectivity. Even though you can mathematically define how sharp or fuzzy an image is, everyone has a different preference of how sharp something needs to be for it to be considered sharp “enough”. Unfortunately, I don’t, and this is the heart of what makes calculating hyperfocal distance so difficult. I bet that you thought that I was going to have an answer to that question. So how can we calculate the hyperfocal distance to get a shot “in focus” when there’s no way to nail down what “in focus” really means? Maybe I want to see every eyelash on that person’s face, but you are OK with a little artistic blur. The problem is, there isn’t a universal definition of “sharp enough”. In our example, our goal was getting the background clouds and foreground person to be sharp enough. Here is where we run into our big problem: what counts as “in focus” is a subjective judgment. If you’re curious, the formula looks like this:į is your focal length, N is your aperture, and c is your maximum circle of confusion, which is a way of measuring acceptable sharpness. In the field, you’re going to have to wing it. With that definition in mind, there is a complicated mathematical formula that will let you calculate the hyperfocal distance of any given lens… but it’s going to be completely useless to you in the field. By “infinity”, we mean objects on the visible horizon like clouds or stars or distant mountains. Let’s say that hyperfocal distance is the minimum focusing distance necessary, with a given lens, to get objects at infinity in focus. There is, as long as we set some ground rules. Surely there must be a better way to calculate hyperfocal distance other than just guessing and checking for every element in every shot? If the person isn’t exactly the same distance away the next time, you can’t use 55’ as your hyperfocal distance. Simple, right? Except that that’s only the hyperfocal distance for that field, with that person and that tree and those clouds. Just write down your lens settings in your photography notebook - 85mm, f/16, 55’ - and now you know what your hyperfocal distance is! That “sweet spot” is your hyperfocal distance. But let’s say you fiddle around a bit with your focus and find a “sweet spot” at 55 feet away, with your 85mm lens set to f/16, that puts all the important elements of the shot in focus. If you focus on the tree - well, maybe that could work, or maybe the tree will be nice and sharp but the person and the clouds will both be out of focus. If you focus on the clouds, the person is blurry. If you focus on the person, the tree is out of focus. Here’s your problem: What lens do you use, at what aperture, set to what focal point, so that all three major elements - the person, the tree, and the clouds - are in focus and sharp enough? Let’s consider a pretty common scenario: You are taking a landscape photograph of a field on a sunny day, and you have a person in the foreground, a tree in the middle ground, and then some awesome swirly clouds in the deep background. If any of those terms are new to you, you may want to check out some of our other articles on those topics and then circle back to this one when you’re ready. Let’s dive into the mechanics of hyperfocal distance and see if we can’t bring some clarity to what can be a murky and confusing topic.įor the purposes of this article, we’re going to assume that you are familiar with the basics of technical photography, so you know about things like aperture, focal length, depth of field, and prime vs.
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Things start to get complicated when you try to narrow down that definition, and even more difficult when you start to get into the specifics of how to calculate the hyperfocal distance for various different lenses and shooting situations. At first glance, the basic definition of hyperfocal distance seems pretty straightforward: It’s the distance at which you focus your camera lens to get as much of your shot in focus as possible, from the foreground to the horizon. One of the more complex technical topics in photography is something called hyperfocal distance.
