Hyperfocal Distance

This is a way of ensuring everything in frame is clear and in focus without trying to 'sure' everything through the viewfinder - using the acceptable parameters of depth on the field on the lens.

By using the notches printed on the barrel of a lens, you can select your desired aperture (for example f22) and but the greatest distance (ie infinity) to one end of the f22 parameter, and the lens will notify you of the nearest point. Everything within that range will be sharp and crisp.

It's not very easy to explain - so this article may help, and the following pictures help me understand too.

(Taken from www.revellphotography.com)

May062008

Do you know what Hyperfocal Distance is?Posted by jeff in Landscapes

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If you are shooting landscapes you probably should.  Have you ever wondered where to focus on a landscape to render the greatest area of focus from near to infinity?  If you know how to figure out your Hyperfocal Distance (HFD), you will know exactly where to focus your lens.

So what is HFD?  It is the point of focus that will give you the greatest acceptable sharpness from a point near your camera on out to infinity.  The near point is half the distance to your HFD.  The wider your lens and the greater the aperture, the larger the area of acceptable sharpness.

Every lens has a distance that can be calculated depending on the length of the lens and the aperture you are using.  You might have noticed this effect when using a very wide lens where almost everything looks sharp as opposed to a telephoto lens which has a much farther HFD.  This is because your HFD on a wide angle lens is very close to you when shooting at high f-stops so you will have more area in focus.  It sounds pretty complicated but it’s really not.  For example, you walk into a nice mountain range with a field of wild flowers in the foreground and you would like to get everything in focus.  If you set your lens to f/22 and just focus on the closest flowers, the chances are that you won’t be sharp to infinity, which is where your mountains are.  This is because you depth of field is determined by your HFD.  Let’s say that you know that with your 24mm lens, your HFD is 3 feet at f/22.  By focusing at a subject that is 3 feet away, you will be sharp from 1.5 feet to infinity.

Older lenses used to have this calculation right on top of the lens.  All you had to do was line up the infinity mark with the f-stop you wanted to use and then look at the corresponding f-stop mark on the right side of the scale to see how close your acceptable sharpness would be to you.  The mark in the middle would then show you where to focus to achieve that range, i.e, your HFD.  Unfortunately new lens designs don’t incorporate this feature into the lens barrel (see below).

Maybe it’s because of the way the lenses are constructed or perhaps they just don’t think this kind of information is useful to today’s shooter.  Whatever the reason, it’s a shame it is gone.

So what do you do if you don’t have a 15 year old lens?  Well, there are a couple of options that you can turn to.  For those of you that are big into slide rules (I know, I’m showing my age again), you can use a formula to figure out your HFD for all of your lenses.

So the hyperfocal distance for a 50 mm lens at f / 16 using a circle of confusion of 0.03 mm (which is a value typically used in 35 mm photography would be calculated like this:

All of that, just to figure out that you should focus at 5.2 meters.  I know you are just itching to give that a try, especially when you are perched at the edge of the Rockies or some other great shooting location. No?  Well then you can also try one of these methods -

The first is the “That looks about right” method of focusing about 1/3 of the way into your scene.

You can also use your camera’s Depth of Field Preview button to check your area of focus.  This will give you some indication of where you should be focusing your lens. The problem with these methods is that if you focus past your HFD then you are cheating yourself out of some depth of field.  If you focus in front of the HFD, you run the risk of not having your depth of field extend out to infinity.

So what’s the easiest way without going out to buy a bunch of older manual focus lenses or a calculator?  Try downloading a chart which has done all of the calculations for you.  The good folks over at Vivid Light Photography have gone to the trouble of creating a really handy chart that you can use for 35mm, 4×5, 6×6, and even DX format digital cameras.

You can get your downloadable PDF by clicking here.  After you have downloaded the file, head on over to Vivid Light and read some of their great articles (including the one about Hyperfocal Distance).  And the next time you are out in the field, try doing a little Hyperfocal Distance experimentation and see if you don’t get better results in your landscapes. But by all means, use a tripod.

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Getting on in 'the business'

Really interesting article about the success of some photographers from Light Stalking (website)

Why Some Photographers Get All the Breaks

By Light Stalking on 25 Sep 2011 in Business

A topic we have been wrestling with covering here on Light Stalking is that some photographers just seem to do better than other photographers in terms of recognition even when there is no great difference in technical skill or talent. Some photographers just seem to get all the breaks.

A lot of the reason for that, it seems on the surface, is that those photographers seem to have an innate ability to be at the right place at the right time or know the right people. As Chase Jarvis succinctly put it in a recent piece on his site, Socially Connected Creatives Make More Money, Have More Success. Now, obviously in this context success is defined as professional success – financial rewards, accolades, peer and public recognition etc, so the reasons for that success are worth exploring if you are wondering how to do a little better in that area.

Chase’s post stemmed from an article written by well-know author Richard Florida (PhD, Columbia and Senior Editor at The Atlantic) who wrote “Rise of the Creative Class” and whose general view on success among creatives such as photographers can be partially summed up in this quote:

“Highly developed social skills … including persuasion, social perceptiveness, the capacity to bring the right people together on a project, the ability to help develop other people, and a keen sense of empathy…are quintessential leadership skills needed to innovate, mobilize resources, build effective organizations, and launch new firms. They are highly complementary to analytic skills [read: your technical abilities as a photographer]…and indeed, the very highest-paying jobs usually require exceptional skill in both realms.” – Richard Florida (in brackets by Chase Jarvis).

The Socially Connected Photographer

In the context of photography, successful photographers have good skills in two areas:

• photographic technique
• social and organisational skills

Now the technique part of it is pretty straight forward. That basically comes down to knowing and continuing to learn photographic theory and then going out and shooting (practicing) a lot.

But how many photographers work on the social element? What does it even mean?

For Richard Florida (or Chase Jarvis for that matter) it would seem to mean that successful photographers often have that personal element that allows them to organise larger photographic projects, reach out to relevant people online and off, persuade others of their ability as well as helping other people. All of this helps them to also get in front of a larger audience too.

And when you think of well known photographers, it’s easy to see that the vast majority are very good at all of that.

The Example of Famous Photographer, Minor White

Let’s look at the example of one of America’s most famous photographers of the 20th century – Minor White.

Clearly his technical photographic skill was second-to-none. But what of his ability to excel in the areas Richard Florida says create more success among creatives?

We know that his early friends included other amazing photographers such as Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston and Alfred Steiglitz. We know that Adams invited him to be part of America’s first Fine Art Photography Department at the California School of Fine Arts. We know that he came up with the idea for Aperture Magazine (one of the most influential photography magazines of the 20th century) and that he collaborated on that project with fellow photographers Dorothea Lange, Ansell Adams and Barbara Morgan as well as photography critic Nancy Newhall and curator, Beaumont Newhall. We know that he collaborated on many other publishing projects with other photographers. And we also know that these projects all served to get his photography and expertise in front of large audiences. And concurrently to all of this, his reputation as one of America’s greatest photographers was established.

In effect, it is very clear that Minor White had the “quintessential leadership skills needed to innovate, mobilize resources, build effective organizations, and launch new firms.” (On a side note, it’s also clear that the other photographers around him such as Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange had a similar set of skills).

What Does That Mean for the Modern Photographer?

Photographers today face a lot of challenges that didn’t exist in White’s day. On the other hand we also have vastly more opportunities. White would have been in paradise had he had the reach for his magazine that is afforded to everyone by the internet. It is easier than ever to make contact with a massive array of talented photographers. Organising projects (even across vast distances) is simpler than it ever was. Helping others is also made that much easier by the faster communications enabled by 21st century technology.

It’s also not too difficult to see that some modern photographers are taking advantage of this. Names such as Scott Kelby, Chase Jarvis, David Duchemin and Mitchell Kanashkavich spring to mind as photographers who are taking advantage of modern technology and opportunities to become “socially connected” photographers and are getting great accolades in the meantime. Opportunities that Minor White would have dreamed of.

These opportunities are there for the taking for those photographers who will reach out and grab them.

What are you doing to develop your social side that will get you the recognition you deserve as a photographer? 

Here we go again, and I'll be all the better for it.

I'm pleased to say that I passed the first year of study and I am now starting out on my 2nd year at university.
So a new year calls for a brand new blog; a fresh start and a blank canvas you might say.

If you'd like to see what I did last year please redirect your gaze towards this link.