Please help..Hyperfocal distance..is this picture sharp?

wildviper

Hi All,

I am in Alaska right now for few days and have been taking a lot of pictures at hyperfocal distance. However, I am thinking these pictures may not be sharp and I am making a mistake somewhere.

Here is what I have: Nikon D70S with Tokina 12-24 /4 lens with a polarizer(Kenko Brand) and a Gitzo tripod.

I have set my camera to manual and use f/11 all the time and adjust speed accordingly. Some shots are hand held, while others are tripod mounted. Shots that are slow speed are always on tripod. But, most of them are not slow speed due to available light.

I then set the lens to manual focus and put the distance scale just past 3 feet. Then I go and shoot. I make sure things are at least 3 feet away that I would want in focus. Is this the way to do it?

Please tell me if you think this picture is in focus for you or not. Should I be doing things differently?

Thanx

pyry

wildviper wrote:

Hi All,

I am in Alaska right now for few days and have been taking a lot of pictures at hyperfocal distance. However, I am thinking these pictures may not be sharp and I am making a mistake somewhere.

Here is what I have: Nikon D70S with Tokina 12-24 /4 lens with a polarizer(Kenko Brand) and a Gitzo tripod.

I have set my camera to manual and use f/11 all the time and adjust speed accordingly. Some shots are hand held, while others are tripod mounted. Shots that are slow speed are always on tripod. But, most of them are not slow speed due to available light.

I then set the lens to manual focus and put the distance scale just past 3 feet. Then I go and shoot. I make sure things are at least 3 feet away that I would want in focus. Is this the way to do it?

Please tell me if you think this picture is in focus for you or not. Should I be doing things differently?

Thanx

The picture is too small to see if the detail is really there. If you can host a max quality large jpg and link to it, that would help.

I think you are over-doing it though. Have a look at Photozone's measurements, and you see that f/11 is bit much; most lenses peak at f/8, this one does f/5.6. At f/8 your hyperfocal distance is 3 feet and at f/5.6 about 4.5 feet.

If you have little foreground to worry about just throw the focus out there. You can do this even if you do have foreground subjects - it depends on where you would like to have critical focus (and if you can see the difference). Focus to infinity and your DOF will begin from the hyperfocal distance - which is usually close enough with these lenses. Always check to make sure the focus hasn't moved while you did.

So try giving it a shot at f/8 and f/5.6 and try focusing near and far is what I say

Scott_Quier

OK, you want the distance to be in focus.

Using the DOF calculator at DOFMaster, setting the camera selection correctly, and using 24mm at f/11, if you set your focal distance at 8.45', you will get a hyperfocal range from 4.22' through infinity.