Hyperfocal Landscape Photography: Maximize Your Depth of Field!

To get a photo sharp from way close to infinity, just focus on the hyperfocal point for your camera, f stop, and degree of zoom (focal length). You can see from the charts here that at f/22 with an ultra-wide lens, you can reasonably expect to have a photo sharp from least 2 feet to infinity! Here’s an Excel spreadsheet you can print showing DOF range for a given camera with various settings (or search the Internet for charts relevant to your newer camera).

You can fake it by simply pointing your camera at something in the foreground with autofocus on, then after it focuses, switch off the autofocus. Then re-frame on what you want to shoot, and let the camera re-acquire a reasonable exposure for that image you want to capture (but it shouldn’t destroy the focus you just set).

This isn’t a technique limited to expensive cameras with full frame sensors. I’ve been doing this for years starting with DSLRs like Canon XT, XTi, and 40D. After I re-frame the shot, I often hold a graduated neutral density filter in front of the lens and have the camera set on self timer to take 3 exposures (Auto Exposure Bracketing), so I can combine them to get greater dynamic range than one exposure can cover. I simply have to avoid bumping the lens manual focus ring.

With a point and shoot camera that doesn’t have manual focus, you might have to hold shutter button halfway while you re-frame so it holds the close focus point, and you may need to exposure compensate to darken the photo a stop or two so it doesn’t emphasize the foreground and overexpose the sky (or just do it on a tripod and take 3 bracketed exposures, which can be averaged in the free trial version of Photomatix).

It’s a lot easier than it probably sounds… just focus close, re-frame, shoot!

The effect is most dramatic when you use your lens at its widest focal length, since you can clearly see what’s at your feet and all the way out to the distant horizon. It’s even better if you put the camera low to the ground (tripod on its lowest setting) since that emphasizes what’s right there at your feet, while including as much as possible out on the horizon and in the distant sky.

If you use a compact point-and-shoot camera, it probably doesn’t have an aperture setting as small as f/22. Don’t worry… just use your camera’s smallest lens aperture setting, even if it’s f/8 or larger. It turns out that due to physics and geometry, smaller cameras with smaller sensors have much more depth of field for a given aperture setting, so you’re probably getting the equivalent of f/22 on a 35mm camera from your compact camera’s setting of f/8. Check the hyperfocal distance charts for similar compact cameras, or just set your camera to its smallest aperture and try a few shots out to see how much DOF it can deliver.

The knowledge that smaller sensors deliver greater depth of field can also enable you to be a little more aggressive with smartphone photos as well.

What if you’re off by a bit, won’t there be some part of your image out of focus? As Ansel Adams advised us, “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” Minute degrees of sharpness are one of the least important factors affecting how people will perceive your work. This isn’t an argument that you should ignore focus, just don’t get hung up on it. Having an understanding of where to focus with your most common wide landscape lens for a hyperfocal image can take that uncertainty away, while enabling you to devote attention to higher impact aspects of your image: subject, composition and so on.

One last note: since small apertures let in less light, you may want to have your camera on a tripod in case it uses a long exposure to compensate for the small aperture (especially at sunset or sunrise when light is lower anyway). I often bump up my ISO setting to at least ISO 200 to keep exposure time reasonable.

Try it out. You may be pleasantly surprised at the enlargement quality results that your camera can produce with just a little attention paid to where in the scene you allow it to focus.

Update Spring 2013: There’s a free smart phone application SimpleDOF you can download which can help you determine focal length for uncommon lens and aperture combinations, such as when you’re using a 16mm lens at f/2.8 at night!