Entire frame in focus

[pixy]

Google, " On-line Depth of Field Table " it will give you depth of field of all lenses,and cameras, as the circle of confusion is different for most camera models you wont be able to use a rule of thumb to get accurate focus where you want it.

The rule of thumb is to get focus at 2/3 into scene, that will give you 1/3 of the scene focused in front of focus point and 2/3 behind.

Jack.

PS it is getting late hope you can understand this.

[Wynny]

Good question and one that, also being new to photography, I wish that I had asked. I tend not to do things by halves and so wanting a greater depth of field on my most recent photo shoot I ran around taking photos of everything at f22. The results were not as clear as I expected so I did some more reading and discovered information about diffraction which is probably the reason for my disappointing results.


Next time I will follow the suggestions that the more experienced and wiser heads have provided in this thread and try around f11 and check the results. I have also now got an app on my phone to help me with figuring out the hyperfocal distance but over time I want to learn to figure this out and set my camera appropriately without this aid.

Thanks again for asking the question.

[ameerat42]

...I ran around taking photos of everything at f22. The results were not as clear as I expected so I did some more reading and discovered information about diffraction which is probably the reason for my disappointing results...

The other 1/2 to this is that the amount of diffraction you get (at f/22 say) depends on the focal length of the lens. A shorter focal length will have a smaller aperture, and hence greater diffraction effect, than a longer focal length at the same focal ratio (f-stop).

[arnica]

I read an article in from a magazine recently and it talked about "Hyperfocal focusing". It said an easy solution is to use manual focus, compose the shot and focus on hyperfocal distance by eye.

Can someone explain what that means to me? I've included a photo of a table on hyperfocal distances.

[arnica]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I refer to the above table. /
If I am shooting at f/11 @ 28mm, does it mean in order for me to have he entire frame in focus, I will have to focus on an object 7.8ft in front of me?

[rodw]

It really annoys me that modern lenses have dropped the DOF scale. With my old film camera I would focus on the foreground I wanted and then manually Move the focus ring to put this point at the front (or back) of the DOF range indicated on the lens. In a landscape I would try to get the DOF to reach back to infinity. There are some apps for Android (and I assume iPhone) that calculate the DOF range for you at a given aperture that tells you where to focus at.

Here is a link to explain the old school gibberish I speak of
http://www.fineart-photography.com/dofScale.html

[ricktas]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I refer to the above table. /
If I am shooting at f/11 @ 28mm, does it mean in order for me to have he entire frame in focus, I will have to focus on an object 7.8ft in front of me?

Yes! Note how the distance changes depending on the lens length and aperture. It is all inter-linked just like Aperture/ISO/Shutter Speed.

[arnica]

And now we've all finished guessing why, post a picture to illustrate what you originally meant.

I finally got around to finding a picture to illustrate what I meant in OP.

[rodw]

That's going to be pretty tough to get from 0 to infinity! I wonder if there was a different angle that would move the log further back into the scene?

Maybe the focus point could just bring the log in focus and let the trees blur a bit?

Sometimes you hit limits that means your idea does not work out but often there are alternatives.