[PuxaVida]

Any of you have tried to apply the hyperfocal distance method in wide-angle landscape shots?... And how are the results compared to normal closed aperture UW shots in terms of DoF?



Kind regards,



Serkan

[Rainer]

Frankly, I prefer "Merklinger" over hyperfocal focussing.



More here ...

http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/DOFR.html



and even more here ...

http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/HMArtls.html

(especially the "adjusting DOF part 1 - 4" pdf.s)



Just my 2cts...Rainer

[wim]

The simple method: check out what the important part is of your composition, focus 1/3 into that. Example: a barn in a field is the main object in your landscape composition. Select an appropriate aperture (I rarely use a smaller aperture than F/8 personally), focus on a point 1/3 into the barn, e.g., a point of the roofline such that 1/3 is in front of the focussing point, and 2/3 behind the focussing point.



That will work well to depict the main point of interest, that which the eye is attracted to, the sharpest. This will also give the illusion of a very sharp picture.



Do note that there is a difference in DoF between film (analog) and digital. Film has a DoF advantage and a sharpness disadvantage. This makes it even more important with digital to focus properly.



HTH, kind regards, Wim

[PuxaVida]

[quote name='Rainer' timestamp='1291840448' post='4877']

Frankly, I prefer "Merklinger" over hyperfocal focussing.



More here ...

[url="http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/DOFR.html"]http://www.trenholm....mmerk/DOFR.html[/url]



and even more here ...

[url="http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/HMArtls.html"]http://www.trenholm....rk/HMArtls.html[/url]

(especially the "adjusting DOF part 1 - 4" pdf.s)



Just my 2cts...Rainer

[/quote]



Ugh... al lot to read... But I will read it because I don't find hyperfocal focussing so much "user friendly". Thanks a lot Rainer...



Serkan

[PuxaVida]

[quote name='wim' timestamp='1291844996' post='4879']

The simple method: check out what the important part is of your composition, focus 1/3 into that. Example: a barn in a field is the main object in your landscape composition. Select an appropriate aperture (I rarely use a smaller aperture than F/8 personally), focus on a point 1/3 into the barn, e.g., a point of the roofline such that 1/3 is in front of the focussing point, and 2/3 behind the focussing point.



That will work well to depict the main point of interest, that which the eye is attracted to, the sharpest. This will also give the illusion of a very sharp picture.



Do note that there is a difference in DoF between film (analog) and digital. Film has a DoF advantage and a sharpness disadvantage. This makes it even more important with digital to focus properly.



HTH, kind regards, Wim

[/quote]



I sounds quite simple... Can I apply this for all focal lengths (@F/8 with FF for example)?



Actually I find hyperfocal focusing very unusable, but I couln't test if it works well in field (and I won't struggle on doing it). But I can see that in some of my landscape shots, the area between infinity and me is "sharper" than usual. And I see that they were not shot with apertures smaller than F/10 (I mean not neccessarily)... So I'm looking for a practical way to produce this effect... And I'm going to try yours Wim...



Thanks & regards,



Serkan

[wim]

Hi Serkan,

[quote name='PuxaVida' timestamp='1291887008' post='4898']

I sounds quite simple... Can I apply this for all focal lengths (@F/8 with FF for example)?



Actually I find hyperfocal focusing very unusable, but I couln't test if it works well in field (and I won't struggle on doing it). But I can see that in some of my landscape shots, the area between infinity and me is "sharper" than usual. And I see that they were not shot with apertures smaller than F/10 (I mean not neccessarily)... So I'm looking for a practical way to produce this effect... And I'm going to try yours Wim...



Thanks & regards,



Serkan

[/quote]

Well, you could I guess, just that you have to be careful with longer FLs, as the DoF gets rather thin very quickly. In the case of longer FLs i normally focus on the main subject, or that part of the main subject that I want to be sharpest.



The thing with DoF is that the further you get awat from the actual plane of focus, the less sharp the details get. I'd say that for anthing from approximately 50 mm and down on FF this works well, for me at least, although I also used this method successfully at slightly longer FLs, certainly up to 135 mm. Of course, landscape subject matter gets a little different in those cases.



With (U)WAs this really helps when shooting very wide subjects from very close. It often, IME, is the only way to get satisfactory results.



BTW, one of th eresaons this works well is because detail gets lost in the far background anyway. With digital there obviously aren't enough and small enough pixels to provide details of e.g. leaves on a tree several 100s of metres away, and with film there aren't enough halide grains.



The TSE-17L picture in the Pentax 645D thread was taken this way. I know it is a 17 mm FL picture, but if I had used hyperfocal distance in that case, I would have lost detail of the castle tower in the background. Essentially it is about knowing where to focus to get the optimal effect, but the 1/3 - 2/3 rule works very well as a starting point. And with the steep sharpness curve in digital it really makes a difference IME.



HTH, kind regards, Wim

[PuxaVida]

[quote name='wim' timestamp='1291929874' post='4911']

Hi Serkan,



Well, you could I guess, just that you have to be careful with longer FLs, as the DoF gets rather thin very quickly. In the case of longer FLs i normally focus on the main subject, or that part of the main subject that I want to be sharpest.



The thing with DoF is that the further you get awat from the actual plane of focus, the less sharp the details get. I'd say that for anthing from approximately 50 mm and down on FF this works well, for me at least, although I also used this method successfully at slightly longer FLs, certainly up to 135 mm. Of course, landscape subject matter gets a little different in those cases.



With (U)WAs this really helps when shooting very wide subjects from very close. It often, IME, is the only way to get satisfactory results.





BTW, one of th eresaons this works well is because detail gets lost in the far background anyway. With digital there obviously aren't enough and small enough pixels to provide details of e.g. leaves on a tree several 100s of metres away, and with film there aren't enough halide grains.



The TSE-17L picture in the Pentax 645D thread was taken this way. I know it is a 17 mm FL picture, but if I had used hyperfocal distance in that case, I would have lost detail of the castle tower in the background. Essentially it is about knowing where to focus to get the optimal effect, but the 1/3 - 2/3 rule works very well as a starting point. And with the steep sharpness curve in digital it really makes a difference IME.



HTH, kind regards, Wim

[/quote]



That picture with TSE-17mm is really something... I opened it in KUSO exif viewer and with F/6.3 that much DoF is the magic of T&S technology I suppose. KUSO shows crazy exif data like; the HyperfocalDist. as 8,42m and CoC as 0,005 (??), FoV 21,7degrees (??). And since it's a JPEG I could not see the focussed distance, but I suppose it's just behind the entry gate (and I know one must be careful when using "just" when it comes to T&S wide angle lenses).



In the documents Rainer suggested, Merklinger tells to focus at infinity and play with the aperture (by relating the diameter of entrance pupil to the main subjects in the frame). Anyway, both yours and this one sounds practical than the Hyperfocal Distance setting. I'll try them as soon as I find myself in the field...



Regards,



Serkan

[wim]

Hi Serkan,[quote name='PuxaVida' timestamp='1291968286' post='4919']

That picture with TSE-17mm is really something... I opened it in KUSO exif viewer and with F/6.3 that much DoF is the magic of T&S technology I suppose.[/quote] I only used some shift, no tilt, in order to correct the worst of the converging lines. I left a little convergence to make it look more natural. So, no seemingly extra DoF caused by tilt <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.

KUSO shows crazy exif data like; the HyperfocalDist. as 8,42m and CoC as 0,005 (??), FoV 21,7degrees (??).

That is weird indeed. The TS_E 17 has a diagonal AoV of 104 degrees.

And since it's a JPEG I could not see the focussed distance, but I suppose it's just behind the entry gate (and I know one must be careful when using "just" when it comes to T&S wide angle lenses).

Focusing distance was about 2.5 metres: I didn't care about infinity here at all; I just wanted enough sharpness that the bricks in the castle tower were still visible (and would still have some detail), and that I would have enough sharpness in the gateway. I didn't expect the plants in front of the gaterway to be sharp still, but I knew the grass on top would be <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.

In the documents Rainer suggested, Merklinger tells to focus at infinity and play with the aperture (by relating the diameter of entrance pupil to the main subjects in the frame). Anyway, both yours and this one sounds practical than the Hyperfocal Distance setting. I'll try them as soon as I find myself in the field...



Regards,



Serkan

Focusing at ininity is fine if you have important parts of the composition in the far distance, like a mountain range. I tis remarkable how soft they look if you get the focussing distance wrong, even with (U)WA lenses <img src='http://forum.photozone.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />.



I've actually used the 1/3 - 2/3 principle in this particular photograph:





Here I focused on the first full visible wall attachments of the railing, basically because I wanted the tiles at the top (foreground) and the top of the entrance to be all sharp in focus. With the camera pointing down this was 1/3 of the way away from me between the tiles and the vaulted roof of the entrance. This was shot at F/5.6, 1/30s, 1600 iso and if I am not completely mistaken, the 50L - I'd have to check that, as it could have been the 24L, although I doubt that very much considering the perspective. Anyway, the idea to get the designated area sharp in DoF was that further away there was no detail, and no detail small enough that it that mattered.



How important the focus distance selection is, is also shown by this particular picture:





This was shot with the 50L, at F/3.2, focusing distance is the closest tree on the left hand side of the photograph, just next to the road embedded in the hedging. I forgot to stop down actually, and I did use some edge sharpening, but the result is quite interesting from a DoF POV. The focusing distance again was chosen deliberately, as I wanted the trees on the left next to the road to be sharp enough with not enough foregorund OOF to be distracting. I knew I would have enough detail in the background at F/5.6 - F/8 for this to happen, but the unexpected end result at F/3.2 was, even for me, beyond expectation, DoF-wise, or apparent DoF-wise.



Kind regards, Wim

[PuxaVida]

Wim, thanks for the examples. The last one with F/3.2 is really odd (unless you've made a crop). The near foreground seems to be less sharp than the trees in background (which are far more meters away from the focus point). I mean magnification has an effect also but even the trees on the right hand side seem to be sharper.



Thanks and regards,



Serkan

[genotypewriter]

[quote name='PuxaVida' timestamp='1291812404' post='4866']

Any of you have tried to apply the hyperfocal distance method in wide-angle landscape shots?... And how are the results compared to normal closed aperture UW shots in terms of DoF?

[/quote]

HFD, just like DOF, is highly dependent on the viewing magnification. So unless you know the maximum size you're going to print/publish the shot at, it's not going to be good enough to use for focus.



A better approach would be [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-focus"]scale-focusing[/url] but with digital and auto exposure, there really is no need for need for anything other than one good eye and some patience to get a good shot and learn what works the best. Live view makes this process even easier and I highly recommend it.



GTW