Landscape on Telephoto Hyperfocal distance setting

[allumpfa]

I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me how when using a 70-200mm telephoto for a landscape photo what the best technique is for setting the focus distance. As an example, at 70mm and F16 my DOF calculator says 33.7 feet and at 200mm and F16 it comes out as 274.1 feet, what I cannot figure out is how are you supposed to set the lens to these distances? I can see that with a wide angle lens this is much more practical as HD would probably be in the 3 foot range.
Thanks

[Bobobird]

You may want to read this
A good reason for not using hyperfocal distance ???????????

[Polar01]

Peter like you I am also a techy person, a number of members here also have a tech back ground, and produce outstanding images. That said there is no magic formulas no a(camera)+b(lens)+c(good scene)= outstanding picture, there are at least 2 elements left out k(knowledge), p(practice), and m(composition). It is k+p+m are the main items that go into creating a great image, reading a manual is not knowledge it is just information, k is that information + practice and lots of it. The example with the hyperfocal length is interesting here is my take on it: using a 70mm-200mm zoom lens set at f/16, distance to object is approx.: 290.ft. what is the DOF of the lens set at 70mm and 200mm.
70mm DOF is approx.: 30ft to infinity, 200mm DOF is approx.: 141 ft. to infinity
This is assuming a FF camera in my case a Nikon, you use a Canon EOS 550D (Redel T2i) which is a cropped sensor so the distances will differ some.
This is where knowledge and practice come in, I know my lens, what they can and can not do. Now how to set the lens to these distances is easy focus on something that is 290ft away, however it is much easier to simply focus on the element that is of interest in the scene knowing that 1/3rd of the distance from the focus point, in front of it will be in focus and the other 2/3's behind will also be in focus. If you need more DOF one way is to increase the f-stop, or maybe ask yourself what is the closest distance that I can focus on at this f-stop that that will give me a greatly increased DOF, or infinity, or a combination of both.
This is where the knowledge part really comes in and that comes by way of practice and more practice.

Cheers: Allan

[Manfred M]

In the old days of film, prime lenses, DoF markings on the lens barrel and a long focus throw of a good 300° or so, I used hyperfocal distance a lot in landscape photography. I'd focus on the furthest point in the image and conservatively use the DoF marking to bring my focal point forward. Unfortunately, this is one area where modern zoom lenses make life more difficult. As Allan points out, one you work with your gear and experiment with it, you will know how it performs quite intuitively.

Now with a digital camera and tens of thousands of shots on my FF camera (and even more on the crop frame), I tend to do most of my landscape shots with a mid-zoom (f/2.8 24-70mm and lately with the f/3.5 24mm PC-E; I generally do not use my f/2.8 70-200mm lens for landscape work, but I do use it when the shot requires a longer focal length ) and use a combination of knowledge and bracketing to ensure I get the shot I am after. I rarely shoot at anything wider than f/11 (usually f/16) and virtually always shoot with a heavy-duty tripod.

One "cheat" I will use is to lock focus at some distance (experience counts here!) in front of the objects at infinity, recompose and then take the shot. I will use the back-button focus technique and disable the camera from focusing when the shutter release is pressed to do this.

So, I agree with what Allan has written, once you are comfortable with your gear, this becomes automatic. You can enlarge the image on your camera's screen to check out the focus as well, but frankly I rarely do this

[ajohnw]

You may want to read this
A good reason for not using hyperfocal distance ???????????

It's an interesting approach and it even explains why it's better than the hyperfocal distance where maximum detail is needed in the far distance.

I was curious about the maths used. It turns out that hyperfocal distance and depth of field calculators use the same approach based on thin lens magnification approximations. When applied to real lenses they are approximations.

It seems that the author was something of a plate camera man. Some had tilt so dof takes on an entirely different aspect.

John
-

[dje]

Hi Peter

In addition to what others have said, there is another aspect to hyperfocal distance worth mentioning.

There is of course only one distance for which ideal focus can be achieved and as the distance in front or behind that point is increased, the amount of out-of-focus blur starts to gradually increase. The DOF range is defined by the near and far points where this blur is the maximum considered acceptable.

Focusing at the hyperfocal distance maximizes this range by bringing the near end point as close as possible (half the hyperfocal distance) and the far end point just being reached at infinity. However for many situations, it is simply not necessary to have the near end point as close as the hyperfocal distance yields. In this situation, IMO you are better to focus further into the scene and thus shift the DOF range further back. This means that at infinity, the amount of blur is less than the maximum acceptable limit. Personally I prefer to focus this way to get as much sharpness as possible where I want it the most.

Dave

[allumpfa]

Thanks everyone for your help and support, just need to get out more and give it a go!