hyperfocal settings

In article ,
peternew wrote:

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

Hum. inf/3=inf. So how does that work again?

On 6/21/2013 2:00 PM, BobA wrote:
In article ,
peternew wrote:

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

Hum. inf/3=inf. So how does that work again?


Figure it out.

--
PeterN

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.

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.

--
PeterN

In article , peternew
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.

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.

-Wolfgang

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? 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?

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

I can see that the price and availablilty of large prints 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. These numbers relate mainly to the
behaviour of the casual P&S and phone shooter who neither know nor care
about CoC. 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.

Thanks for you input.

David

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

Why?

D

"nospam" wrote in message ...

In article , peternew
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?

Take Care,
Dudley

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

In article , David Hare-Scott
wrote:

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?

very common.

a lot of people buy fx lenses thinking one day they will upgrade to a
full frame camera. or, they have old lenses from film days. plus, a
full frame lens on a dx sensor is using the sweet spot and will produce
better results than a dx lens, all other things being equal.

dx lenses on fx is not that common, but it's still done on occasion.
some dx lenses do cover the full frame at some lengths, or the camera
can be set to dx mode.

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?

the main reason it's not there is because there's no aperture ring
anymore.

the fact that there are multiple sensor sizes is secondary.

it's also a low demand feature and can be done electronically anyway.