Hey today we're talking about Hyperfocal Distance,
what the heck is it, and
why would you use it.
I'll tell you after the brand-new intro,
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Today's question is from Mark G. and
He asks what's up with Hyperfocal
distance, and how do I achieve it>
Hyperfocal distances, wow,
what the heck is that?
So first I have to explain how focus
works, before we get into how focus works,
whether you're manually focusing your
camera, or autofocus, or however you do it
focus works by focusing on a plane
that's perpendicular to where the camera
is, so right now the camera is focused on
me, but as I move forward and the
autofocus picks me up here, it's gonna
stay right in focus.
Now you can see the background has
gone really out of focus, the closer I get,
the more out of focus
that goes, like for example if I was
focusing on this coffee cup for example,
you can see how that pops into focus, and
everything in the background goes way
out of focus.
You like my little Canon, Canon coffee mug?
Anyway, so so that's how
focus works.
Now you can change your
depth of field with your aperture, and
make the background stay a little bit
more in focus, or less in focus.
I'm shooting this with the 28-70mm f/2
lens on the EOS R mirrorless, and so I think
I'm at about f/2.8 right now, so that is a
really narrow depth of field, but what if
you were doing a landscape picture, and
you wanted everything to be in focus, or
in focus as possible.
Well you might say okay,
I'll just focus at f/22, I'll set my
aperture, excuse me at f/22, or you know
as narrow as small an aperture I can
get, which gives me the most depth of field.
Well that's great, except if you
watch my video a few weeks ago about
the sweet spot, every lens has a sweet spot
sort of in the middle, and as you close
down too much, you start to get what's
called 'diffraction', which is an overall
sort of softening of the picture, and at
really small apertures, and so you're
gonna lose some quality.
So landscape photographers don't want
that, so generally you want to shoot kind
of in the middle range f/11, f/8
something like that.
What Hyperfocal distance is -
...the foreground and the back
or both are what they call acceptable sharp.
Now of course that's a subjective term,
'acceptable sharp' - but for the most part
it means that when you're shooting a
scene like... where we are today in Central
Park, you want to have the both the
foreground, the middle ground, and the
background, all the way to infinity as in
focus as possible.
So finding that focus point where you
want to focus your lens,
that's called your Hyperfocal distance,
now how do you figure out where exactly
that Hyperfocal distance is, well in the
old days when you had lenses like this,
they had actual focus markings printed
right here on the lens itself, and you
could look based on the aperture that
you're shooting at, it showed you what
your just, what your range was, so it
might say like 3 meters to infinity at
f/11 right, or you know and as you dialled
in your focus, you could see if you were
within that range, that's really old
school, and most lenses don't have that
on anymore, and that was also kind of
based on film, which is a little bit different.
Look you could go down a
rabbit hole with this Hyperfocus thing,
and start reading about circles and
confusion, and all that kind of stuff,
which is basically how out-of-focus
something is, and it's different in film
than it is on digital, because of the
higher resolution sensors we have now,
but for the most part now, these sort of
markings are not super accurate, so you
generally don't want to use those.
Now other ways to find what your Hyperfocal
distance is, there are websites and there
are apps, there are great apps for the
phone, and basically you can just plug in
the numbers.
You plug in the lens you're
using, and then your distances, and what
aperture you're at, and it'll tell you
exactly where to focus, so it'll say
maybe at 10 feet, if you focus at 10 feet,
you're gonna have from 5 feet to
infinity in focus based on the aperture
you're shooting at and the lens, because
that, your focal length will change that
also, so the apps are a great way to do it.
However there is another way that's a
lot easier, and let's look at this
example here today.
So we're out here by the way,
let me tell you, put my coffee
cup down, but let me tell you what I'm
shooting with.
This is the EOS cannon 1DX Mk III,
the brand-new camera that I'm
lucky enough to have one of these
in my possession.
There goes my coffee cup, but
anyway I'll pick that up later, so I'm
shooting with that, I'm on live view so I
can see the screen.
Unfortunately you won't be able to see it,
but I'll show the pictures as I shoot,
so and then I'm looking out at this scene,
now I have...
there's a path that leads away from me,
and then there's trees and then
buildings in the background, that's Fifth
Avenue over there, and I want to make
everything in focus.
I want this path, most of this path,
to be sharp, and I want the buildings to be
sharp, obviously if I was shooting at a
very narrow depth of field,
a wide aperture, and I focused on
the front here, that background is gonna
be way out of focus.
So first thing I'm gonna do is...
go to my sweet spot, which is
f/8, f/11 I think on this lens, I'm at
right now I'm at f/11, so the way
Hyperfocal works... that the mathematical
equation is that wherever you focus, that
point, if that's your Hyperfocal
distance, what's gonna be in focus is
half that distance back to you to
infinity.
So if I was focused at let's
say 20 feet, then anything from 10 feet
to infinity is going to be relatively in
focus "acceptably sharp"... remember we're
talking "acceptable sharpe", if I know
that equation then what I can do is, I
can work backwards from that, and figure
out, so in this case I've already sort of
measured this out, and this path has
these slats on the side, and I know that
this couple of slots up here, when we
take a picture, that slat right there is
13 feet away from the camera I measured it
out, I walked it out,
you could use the tape measure if you
want, you also might get better at at
judging distances.
If you do this a lot,
and so I know that one's 13 feet away,
that's the first thing that I want to be
in focus, so all I have to do is double
that distance, so 26 feet away from the
camera, if I focus at that point in this
case, it's actually right where the bend
starts, right?
Where the curve starts on
this pathway.
If I focus there, then 13 feet, that first slat
that I want in
focus, all the way to infinity is going
to be "acceptable sharp".
So that is sort of the easy way
to figure out your Hyper, Hyperfocal
distance, you sort of work backwards, it
really is when you're out in the field,
kind of a much easier way, you can walk
it off...
Hyperfocal distance was more I think, it
was more important to understand the
math, and really calculate it properly in
the film days, because you couldn't see
the picture.
We have advantages now
shooting digital, and that obviously you
can see it, look with a mirrorless or
with live view on the 1DX Mk III, I
can see the picture before I take it, so
I can actually, and it's got depth of
field preview, and I'm gonna, I'm seeing
the picture exactly how it's gonna look
before I shoot it.
So I can magnify the picture,
I can look at it on the screen,
check where the focus is, you could also,
if you don't have live view or you're
not shooting mirrorless, just take the
picture, and look at it right?
So that's another way to certainly check it out.
What else would you Hyperfocal distance for?
Well it's not just for landscapes, it
also can be used for let's say, you're
doing a group shot, and you have multiple
rows of people at a wedding let's say,
and you want everybody to be in focus.
Well if you calculate where... you don't
want to focus on the row in the front,
because then probably the row in the
back is not going to be sharp, but if you
calculate where in that middle area to
focus, take the front area, double that
distance, and focus there, you're more
than likely gonna get everybody
"acceptably sharp"...
it really depends on how picky
you want to be.
If you're somebody who
really wants to measure... look if you're
making a print that's going to be 10
feet wide, that you're selling in a
gallery, you need everything to be super
tack sharp.
There are other ways to do it,
you could use a tilt shift lens, or a
lens with a bellows on it, that, that
changes the way the focus plane works.
You could also do something called focus
stacking, where I've done videos on this
before, where you actually take multiple
pictures at different... focused at
different places, and then combine them
in software.
There are some cameras that
will do that in the camera, that's other
ways to get everything super sharp all
the way through, but if you want to be
you know, do it the old-school way, and
get it right in camera, which I'm a big
fan of... just calculate what you're
Hyperfocal distance is...
Shoot at that distance and everything
should be nice and sharp.
Hey listen, thanks Mark for that question,
I appreciate you guys joining me, come
back again next week.
I'll have a new question right here on
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