Front to back
Ideal for architectural and landscape
photography, setting a lens to the
hyperfocal distance retains sharpness
in the closest possible objects without
sacrificing sharpness in the distant horizon.
When set, the depth of field extends from
half the hyperfocal distance all the way to
infinity. So if the hyperfocal distance is 10m,
the depth of field would be 5m to infinity.
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HYPERFOCAL DISTANCE
Quick Tip
There are relatively few
distance markings on
most autofocus lenses,
and some lenses don’t
have a distance scale at
all. This can make
it impossible to set the
hyperfocal distance
using the lens itself. A
workable alternative is to
buy a laser measure, like
this Tacklife HD40m
Laser Distance Meter,
which costs
around
£22/$28. After
calculating the
hyperfocal
distance, you
can measure
out the distance
to a physical
object, and then
manually focus
on it.Focal length
Hyperfocal distance decreases at shorter
focal lengths. For example, if you use a
DX camera with an 18mm zoom setting
and an aperture of f/11, the hyperfocal
distance is just 1.5m. Everything in a scene
would therefore be rendered sharply from
75cm to infinity.
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Aperture priority
It’s important to keep control over the
aperture setting when using hyperfocal
distance. You’ll therefore need to shoot in
Aperture Priority or Manual mode. Shutter
speeds can become slow when using
narrow apertures to decrease the
hyperfocal distance, for greater depth of
field. A handy way of avoiding this is to
select your camera’s Auto ISO option.
Adjust the focus
Autofocus lenses have a short
amount of rotational travel in
their focus ring, this makes it
hard to set the hyperfocal
distance exactly. Manual focus
lenses, like this Zeiss Milvus,
tend to have longer focus travel.
If you align the infinity symbol
with the left aperture line to set
the hyperfocal distance, the
closest sharp distance is
shown by the corresponding
right aperture line.The distance
There are a variety of charts,
apps and web-based tools for
calculating depth of field and
hyperfocal distance. Here’s one
that we created for a number of
popular focal lengths and
aperture settings, for both DX
and FX format cameras. We’ve
used 50mm as the maximum
focal length, as setting the
hyperfocal distance is less
practical with telephoto lenses.The ‘third’ option
You’ll find that you don’t need to retain
sharpness all the way to infinity, especially
when shooting indoors. Even outside, a
frame may not have a distant background.
Depth of field extends further behind the
point of focus than in front of it, so a good
rule of thumb is to focus on a point that’s
about a third of the way into the scene.
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