Hyperfocal Distance

 
 
Posted: april 21, 2013
 
     
     
 

 
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My good friend Mike Margulus & his wife Liz just got back from a trip to Scotland where they worked with a professional photographer one-on-one. One of the topics they covered was the use of hyper focal distance to maximize the depth of field in photos.
 
This is the process Mike shared with me:
 
1. Set-up the camera on your tripod and obtain the rough composition you are going for,
 
2. Switch the lens to Manual Focus and adjust your camera f-stop to somewhere between f/11 to f/16,
 
3. Enter the Live View mode of your camera. You will notice the grid imposed on your display. Pick a focal point somewhere along the 1/3 from the bottom horizontal grid marking,
 
4. Set your Live View to display a 5X view of your composition and manually focus on the point you selected in 3 above,
5. Leaving the lens on Manual Focus, adjust your composition to its final state,
 
6. Take your photo.
 
Using this technique, everything in your composition from this 1/3 point to infinity should be in focus.
 
Note: items within the range of 0 to 1/3 will not be in focus so if this causes a distraction, increase your f-stop as you see fit. You may want to bracket your shots for aperture setting until you get a better feel for the process.
 
     
 
 
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