hyperfocal settings

In article , Dudley
Hanks wrote:

Clearly, the manufacturers of digital cameras
ought to have a hyperfocal button or menu
pick. It would be very easy for them to do.

You may very well be right, but they don't. The workaround is fairly
simple.

some do.

Didn't the Canon DSLR start out with a hyperfocal setting that morphed into
the ADEP feature?

yep. it was dep and later a-dep, going back to film days.

dep worked by taking a reading at the far and near points and the
camera figured out the rest.

a-dep looks at the focus points and decides what will get everything in
focus. it's more automated, which has advantages and disadvantages.

On Sat, 22 Jun 2013 08:52:19 +1000, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote:

AnthonyL wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jun 2013 10:12:59 +1000, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote:

Once upon a time lenses had guide lines on them that you could use
to set the lens so that the selected region was in focus within the
limits of the available depth of field. This feature was available
on zooms as well as fixed lenses. It is particularly useful for
landscapes where you can have the focal plane closer than infinity
but get infinity in focus thus having as much of the scene in focus
as possible for any given aperture. How do I do that with a lens
that has no such focal limit markers on it? Why do lens makers no
longer put these markers on?


1) I understand that hyperfocal for film doesn't translate so well to
digital


I've read such arguments as at

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/19003280

more than once.

Google throws up a variety of views.


--
AnthonyL

On Fri, 21 Jun 2013 11:14:55 GMT, lid (AnthonyL)
wrote:

, with a bit of exposure bracketing to give different DOF's

Is that some new type of math? How does a scene's exposure effect the
DOF?

On 22/06/2013 15:12, me wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jun 2013 11:14:55 GMT, lid (AnthonyL)
wrote:

, with a bit of exposure bracketing to give different DOF's

Is that some new type of math? How does a scene's exposure effect the
DOF?

Presumably, bracketing by change of aperture.
--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message ...

peternew wrote:
On 6/21/2013 3:16 PM, BobA wrote:
In article ,
BobA wrote:
In article ,
peternew wrote:

[ ... ] Otherwise f16 focused at about 1/3 of infinity is a
decent rule of thumb. [ ... ]

Clearly, the manufacturers of digital cameras
ought to have a hyperfocal button or menu
pick. It would be very easy for them to do.


You may very well be right, but they don't. The workaround is fairly
simple.

Carrying a chart about may be simple but to me it is by no means convenient
or efficient as I then have to find the chart and my glasses as well as stop
to read the bloody thing while the subject or the light conditions are
fleeting. I see no reason why I should acquire a hand-held device that does
these sums either as I have the same problem with vision AND I am already
carrying a device with considerable computing capacity that has access to
the required parameters to give me the guidance on want on board without
being configured.

Building this feature in seems more valuable to me than many of those that
are already common.


D

Have you checked into your cam's landscape mode? It would make sense for
the cam to utilize hyperfocal techniques in a mode where people want to
maximize DOF...

Take Care,
Dudley

In article , Dudley
Hanks wrote:

Have you checked into your cam's landscape mode? It would make sense for
the cam to utilize hyperfocal techniques in a mode where people want to
maximize DOF...

now that you mention it, i think landscape mode does set it to the
hyperfocal distance.

David Hare-Scott wrote:
Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:
Once upon a time lenses had guide lines on them that you could use
to set the lens so that the selected region was in focus within the
limits of the available depth of field. This feature was available
on zooms as well as fixed lenses. It is particularly useful for
landscapes where you can have the focal plane closer than infinity
but get infinity in focus thus having as much of the scene in focus
as possible for any given aperture. How do I do that with a lens
that has no such focal limit markers on it? Why do lens makers no
longer put these markers on?

DOF depends on not only the focal length and aperture. It also
depends on enlargement and viewing distance.

With 35mm film most people used around 4x6 inch or a little
larger (and if they went much larger, they knew what they did)
and the sensor size was known.

With digital you get variable sensor sizes (the same lens may
be used on FF, APS-crop and 4/3rds sensors, so the same print
size means different enlargements) and more and more people
using larger and larger display sizes (be it a 12x18 inch
print or 100% view).

If you had a CoC on the sensor of 0.03mm, that means on print
0.125mm (FF on 4x6 inch) or 0.75mm (4/3rds on 12x18 inch).
You'll easily see that at the same viewing distance one will
be vastly easier visible than the other.

Then comes the fact that people tend to inspect larger prints
of good photos more closely ...

So in the end, there's no marking a lens maker could reasonably
use that's valid for most circumstances: either you stop down
much more than you need or stuff will not be in focus enough.

You may be right but as you have explained it so far I don't find either of
your explanations convincing.

On the problem of using lenses intended for one sensor size with another, I
see that would have been very rare or impossible with film. With digital if
the lensmaker puts the markings on a lens intended for a given format the
marks are designed with that in mind and if you mix and match all bets are
off. I wouldn't expect a huge number of people using FX lenses on a DX body
or the reverse, can you tell me this is common?

FX lens on DX body is common.
You tell me the 70-200mm lenses are NOT used on crop cameras?
What's the alternative for these lenses?
Where's the crop 35mm, 50mm, 85mm lenses?

So obviously, this *is* common.

In fact, up to the (old) 10D there WAS no EF-S for these crop
cameras (and the 10D doesn't take EF-S lenses, only EF lenses)
so which lenses could one use except for full format EF lenses?

Would a manufacturer really
leave this feature off in the expectation of people using their lens with a
sensor that it wasn't designed for?

Lenses are designed for a maximum sensor size, not for a
sensor size.

On the matter of size of enlargement, the software and charts available to
provide this data are configured with the CoC of the sensor and take no
account of the size the image will be viewed, although of course one could
do that. If you are intending to do large prints then you might need to
configure the software differently or to be more conservative with settings,

Obviously.

or you might rely on the natural behaviour to view the prints from further
away.

If you shoot only bad photos noone wants to step nearer and
inspect some details.

A film photograper had to do the same didn't they in how they used
the lens markers? It seems to me digital is no different in this respect.

Film wasn't enlarged much, as a rule, by the usual consumer.
Those that did enlarge more and had viewers looking closer
at details couldn't use the DOF markings as is and had to
understand that.

Digital is routinely viewed at 100% and cropped.


I can see that the price and availablilty of large prints may have changed

1980: 28x28 cm: 19.90 DM (poster) (approx 20 EUR @ 2012)
2013: 30x30 cm: 3.00 EUR (poster) (Saal-Digital, a high
quality service)

Prices fall to 15% ... that's 'a tiny bit' more than "may
have changed".

the number of these produced but still the majority I see in the output bin
at the local print station are 4X6.

The majority is no longer printed, but viewed on computer
and TV screens. That's easily 15-25" diagonally --- more for
TVs, though.

These also being interactive means people will often zoom in.

These numbers relate mainly to the
behaviour of the casual P&S and phone shooter who neither know nor care
about CoC.

P&S and phones have huge DOF. Phones mostly don't have settable
apertures, many P&S cameras don't allow setting the aperture
directly, and those that can have often only 2 or 3 stops
(from f/4 to f/8 for example (which is approx f/32 or f/44 in
full frame camera)) and are often not being used by people.

Most P&S cameras don't have DOF markings on the lens (though
a few announce DOF distances on their display --- one of
mine does, but it's a 4 MPix one and also has inbuild memory,
which should tell you the age (2004)) and I know of no phone
that has any markings.

So ... these camera types are irrelevant as to DOF markings.


I would expect those who do know and care would still be
assisted by having a reference marker available even if in some situations
they had to be conservative in their use.

Those who know and care would have a good idea how far the
DOF extends for their camera, lenses and enlargement factors.
:-)

Yes, there used to be a DEP mode with Canon where you'd
auto-focus 2 distances and the camera would set the aperture
and distance to just include both according to a CoC compromise
defined by the manufacturer.


-Wolfgang

BobA wrote:
In article ,
BobA wrote:
In article ,
peternew wrote:

[ ... ] Otherwise f16 focused at about 1/3 of infinity is a
decent rule of thumb. [ ... ]

Clearly, the manufacturers of digital cameras
ought to have a hyperfocal button or menu
pick. It would be very easy for them to do.

But which standard of hyperfocal shall they implement? The
one "sharp at 100% view"? The one "sharp on a 4x6 print"?

-Wolfgang

David Hare-Scott wrote:
AnthonyL wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jun 2013 10:12:59 +1000, "David Hare-Scott"

Once upon a time lenses had guide lines on them that you could use
to set the lens so that the selected region was in focus within the
limits of the available depth of field. This feature was available
on zooms as well as fixed lenses. It is particularly useful for
landscapes where you can have the focal plane closer than infinity
but get infinity in focus thus having as much of the scene in focus
as possible for any given aperture. How do I do that with a lens
that has no such focal limit markers on it? Why do lens makers no
longer put these markers on?

1) I understand that hyperfocal for film doesn't translate so well to
digital

Enlargement varies a lot more. 100% view is routine, and
larger prints don't cost an arm and a leg any more.

-Wolfgang

"nospam" wrote in message ...

In article , Dudley
Hanks wrote:

Have you checked into your cam's landscape mode? It would make sense for
the cam to utilize hyperfocal techniques in a mode where people want to
maximize DOF...

now that you mention it, i think landscape mode does set it to the
hyperfocal distance.

The problem, of course, is that most landscape settings aren't going to
yield a RAW image.

But, a fellow could set up in landscape, focus, then switch off autofocus
and go to manual exposure mode.

A bit time-consuming, but it could give the desired results ...

Take Care,
Dudley