How can I keep both a close foreground subject and a distant landscape in focus?
Asked 6/6/2013
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I’m shooting a landscape at 16mm and a hyperfocal calculator says the hyperfocal distance is about 0.7 m at f/11. If I focus there, infinity should be acceptably sharp. But what if I also want something very close in the foreground, like a flower, to be sharp along with the distant background? Would focusing farther away help, or do I need a different approach?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
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If you calculate your hyperfocal distance to be .7M, subjects as close as .35M should be in acceptable focus. A flower at .4M for example should be in acceptable focus. A flower at .2M likely is not in acceptable focus. If your subject is closer than .35M, then you either have to modify your aperture, use a larger format sensor, use a wider focal length, other techniques such as focus stacking to get the shot.
Part of your original assumption is incorrect I believe. If you want to make sure that the background is tack sharp by focusing at 1M instead of .7M, you are also pushing out the nearest objects that are acceptably sharp. You should be fine focusing at the hyperfocal distance, while still achieving a tack sharp background at infinity. Some people do say to focus at the hyperfocal distance, then a few feet further to "be safe". I think this is OK, but I would rather just stop down a bit if I am only at f/11 to begin with. If you are already at f/20 or similar you might not want to do that, and you probably don't need to anyways.
I think this question is already covered in: What is "Hyperfocal Distance"?
Originally by user4892. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4892
13y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
If the hyperfocal distance is 0.7 m, then everything from about half that distance to infinity is in acceptable focus for the assumptions used by the calculator. So at f/11, focusing at 0.7 m should keep subjects from roughly 0.35 m to infinity acceptably sharp.
Focusing farther away, such as 1 m, does not improve background sharpness in a useful way—it moves the near limit farther away, making close foreground subjects less sharp.
If your foreground subject is closer than about half the hyperfocal distance, you need more depth of field by using one or more of these options:
- stop down to a smaller aperture
- use a wider focal length
- move back so the foreground is farther from the camera
- use focus stacking if one frame can’t cover the whole range
Also, remember hyperfocal distance depends on viewing assumptions (print size, viewing distance, and acceptable sharpness). A calculator’s result is based on “acceptable focus,” not perfect pixel-level sharpness.
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