Re: Lens with Depth of Field indicator. (For full frame [36x24mm] digital camera.)
Robert Spanjaard
> Before I launch myself into the wonderful world of search engines, which
> I understand little of, I thought I would be better advised first of
> all, to start by asking those who may know more about digital cameras
> and lenses it than I do. Some of you may have used such lenses,
> assuming they exist!
>
> Thank you for your time.
There are lots of prime lenses with DOF indicators. AFAIK there are no
zooms, because the DOF changes as you zoom in or out.
If you know what a DOF indicator looks like, you can spot the lenses
easily on sites like <http://www.slrgear.com>
.
--
Regards, Robert http://www.arumes.com
Me
> Before I launch myself into the wonderful world
> of search engines, which I understand little of, I
> thought I would be better advised first of all, to
> start by asking those who may know more about
> digital cameras and lenses it than I do. Some of
> you may have used such lenses, assuming
> they exist!
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
Perhaps someone can comment if there's some standard parameter (intended
print size, viewing distance, "acceptable" sharpness etc) applied
between manufacturers when putting DOF scale on lenses.
Michael Benveniste
<spam...@arumes.com> wrote:
>There are lots of prime lenses with DOF indicators. AFAIK there are no
>zooms, because the DOF changes as you zoom in or out.
One-ring or "push-pull" zooms often have DOF scales, but such designs
have fallen out of favor in the autofocus era. Here's a shot of one
such lens, a 1980's era Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5E:
http://wemightneedthat.biz/Images/dofscale.jpg
(I took this snap with a 35-105mm f/3.5~4.5, which _also_ has such
a DOF scale for 24x36mm.)
--
Mike Benveniste -- m...@murkyether.com (Clarification Required)
Don't succumb to the false authority of a tool or model. There
is no substitute for thinking.
OldBoy
news:kad9i5h9sljqg9t9p...@4ax.com...
> Before I launch myself into the wonderful world
> of search engines, which I understand little of, I
> thought I would be better advised first of all, to
> start by asking those who may know more about
> digital cameras and lenses it than I do. Some of
> you may have used such lenses, assuming
> they exist!
>
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Lens-Product-Images.aspx?Lens=403
C J Campbell
> Before I launch myself into the wonderful world
> of search engines, which I understand little of, I
> thought I would be better advised first of all, to
> start by asking those who may know more about
> digital cameras and lenses it than I do. Some of
> you may have used such lenses, assuming
> they exist!
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
> Henry.
DOF indicators are going out of style, much to the frustration of many
photographers. Nearly all the lenses that have them are older models
that are likely to be discontinued.
Grab 'em while you can. Otherwise you are left with the DOF preview button.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor
Michael Benveniste
>Perhaps someone can comment if there's some standard parameter (intended
>print size, viewing distance, "acceptable" sharpness etc) applied
>between manufacturers when putting DOF scale on lenses.
The standard parameter is delightfully named the "circle of
confusion," often abbreviated CoC. Basically it describes the
smallest image element that retains identifiable details.
While the _parameter_ is standard, an accepted _value_ for the
parameter, alas, is not. For a 24x36mm frame, Zeiss and Leica use a
value of 0.025mm. Another commonly used value is 0.030mm, and I've
seen other values used ranging up to 0.033mm.
The "right" value depends on some somewhat subjective judgments of the
acuity of the Mark I human eyeball. It also assumes no cropping. For
a crop, I suggest using the Zeiss formula of d/1730, where d is the
diagonal measure of the sensor area used to make the crop.
Robert Spanjaard
>>There are lots of prime lenses with DOF indicators. AFAIK there are no
>>zooms, because the DOF changes as you zoom in or out.
>
> One-ring or "push-pull" zooms often have DOF scales, but such designs
> have fallen out of favor in the autofocus era. Here's a shot of one
> such lens, a 1980's era Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5E:
>
> http://wemightneedthat.biz/Images/dofscale.jpg
>
> (I took this snap with a 35-105mm f/3.5~4.5, which _also_ has such a DOF
> scale for 24x36mm.)
Ah, yes, I've seen those before. Thanks for the reminder. :-)
Robert Spanjaard
> DOF indicators are going out of style, much to the frustration of many
> photographers. Nearly all the lenses that have them are older models
> that are likely to be discontinued.
>
> Grab 'em while you can. Otherwise you are left with the DOF preview
> button.
If you have one. It's missing on some entry-level DSLRs.
Alan Browne
The "usual" reference is an 8x10 print.
This webpage summarizes it quite well.
http://www.nikonlinks.com/unklbil/dof.htm#method
Many new lenses have very poor DOF scales that are near useless to for
the purpose of deliberate DOF setting. Better to have a calculator such
as f/Calc loaded onto a Palm (not a user friendly app) or similar.
There are many such Apps for iPhone and probably many for anything
running android or MS based PDA's.
Alan Browne
I find DOF preview to be more notional than "correct". When working
with the old Hasselblad lenses, it's great. My newer Minolta/Sony
lenses do not have very useful DOF scales.
Bruce
<spam...@arumes.com> wrote:
>There are lots of prime lenses with DOF indicators. AFAIK there are no
>zooms, because the DOF changes as you zoom in or out.
There are plenty of older zooms with DOF indicators, however the zoom
action must be of the push-pull type.
The spacing of the DOF markings varies according to the focal length
chosen, so the DOF lines are rather gracefully curved.
David Ruether
"Alan Browne" <alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote in message news:JbednWTIvbTCv7jW...@giganews.com...
> On 09-12-13 10:40 , C J Campbell wrote:
>> On 2009-12-13 01:36:03 -0800, Henry <thee...@not.co.uk> said:
>>> Before I launch myself into the wonderful world
>>> of search engines, which I understand little of, I
>>> thought I would be better advised first of all, to
>>> start by asking those who may know more about
>>> digital cameras and lenses it than I do. Some of
>>> you may have used such lenses, assuming
>>> they exist!
>>> Henry.
>> DOF indicators are going out of style, much to the frustration of many
>> photographers. Nearly all the lenses that have them are older models
>> that are likely to be discontinued.
>>
>> Grab 'em while you can. Otherwise you are left with the DOF preview button.
> I find DOF preview to be more notional than "correct". When working with the old Hasselblad lenses, it's great. My newer
> Minolta/Sony lenses do not have very useful DOF scales.
I've been an "unbeliever" when it comes to DOF scales...
Notice that when they exist on lenses (or in charts), they
symmetrically place on either side of the "correct" focus
point at a given aperture both the nearer and farther focus
points within which a selected range of "misfocus" supposedly
is permissible before the image becomes visibly soft - or the
distance range around the correct focus within which all is
supposed to be "hunkey-dorey". Baloney!;-) OK, here's why.
Imagine (or shoot) a landscape with a tree with leaves at a
great distance. Include the same type of tree much closer to
the camera. Now, using DOF scales and aperture, select the
distance setting on the lens that the DOF scale says will just
produce both good sharpness for both trees and also equal
sharpness for both trees. Print the image. You may notice that
the more distant tree that was photographed doesn't look as
sharp as the nearer one. In fact, it may look down-right fuzzy
in comparison! This is easy to explain. The "blob" size used as
a standard for "sharp point rendition" is the same in both cases,
but for the distant tree, the "blob" size represents a much
larger proportion of its size, making it appear softer. Beware
of this effect when including near-infinity landscape features.
"Almost-sharp" horizons and distant features generally don't
look very good, and you may need to "fudge" the focus a bit
toward infinity-focus and also use a smaller stop to really have
good DOF coverage. BTW, I always considered that DOF
indications cheated by about a stop..;-)
--DR
Alan Browne
I always gave myself "gutter" on each side including for infinity focus
using the scales. Never had an issue with that (which is also the case
where I used the scale the most.) Resulted in an out of focus infinity
in the VF but sharp on the slides back towards the camera, most of the
way...
Paul J Gans
I'd agree. DOF indication is not only good for DOF, but for setting
the lens to its hyperfocal distance -- and that's useful.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
Jeremy Nixon
> I've been an "unbeliever" when it comes to DOF scales...
> Notice that when they exist on lenses (or in charts), they
> symmetrically place on either side of the "correct" focus
> point at a given aperture both the nearer and farther focus
> points within which a selected range of "misfocus" supposedly
> is permissible before the image becomes visibly soft - or the
> distance range around the correct focus within which all is
> supposed to be "hunkey-dorey". Baloney!;-) OK, here's why.
> Imagine (or shoot) a landscape with a tree with leaves at a
> great distance. Include the same type of tree much closer to
> the camera. Now, using DOF scales and aperture, select the
> distance setting on the lens that the DOF scale says will just
> produce both good sharpness for both trees and also equal
> sharpness for both trees. Print the image. You may notice that
> the more distant tree that was photographed doesn't look as
> sharp as the nearer one. In fact, it may look down-right fuzzy
> in comparison!
I also don't use the DOF scales much. They seem to be a little
"optimistic" compared to what I want to see.
For landscapes, I never use hyperfocal; I focus on the most important
part of the scene, then stop down as far as I can without losing to
diffraction (f/11 for APS-C, f/16 for 35mm, in my experience). Then
I just let the rest of the scene sort itself out. If there's nothing
too close to the camera, f/8 works fine. In "weird" situations I
rely more on experience (and possibly bracketing, if possible) than
on scales.
For medium or large format, working with a DOF scale would probably
be more beneficial. (But I don't have the experience there to really
say.)
--
Jeremy Nixon | http://www.defocus.net
Email address in header is valid
C J Campbell
It is not symmetrical at all. You may have noticed that you have to
turn the focus ring less as distance increases? Thus background depth
of field is properly shown as greater than foreground depth of field.
David Ruether
"C J Campbell" <christophercam...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2009121505223916807-christophercampbellremovethis@hotmailcom...
Yes, of course, but you missed the point. The DOF marks on the
lens ARE symmetrically placed either side of the focus indicator
on the lens, and since the focus distance intervals are progressively
smaller moving toward infinity on the focus ring, what you said is
true (plus more, when choosing DOF hyperfocal settings), but what
I was saying is that following this (or using DOF tables) results in
visually incorrect results in the photo (nearer-infinity image parts
look less sharp than closer-to-camera image parts). The reason for
this is simple. The "acceptable" blur for rendering a point out of focus
is judged by these methods to be equal for near and far subject parts,
and therefore, supposedly using this method results in an equal sense
of sharpness near to far in the image - but it doesn't perfectly in
practice for the reason I gave (and "illustrated") --
"Imagine (or shoot) a landscape with a tree with leaves at a
great distance. Include the same type of tree much closer to
the camera. Now, using DOF scales and aperture, select the
distance setting on the lens that the DOF scale says will just
produce both good sharpness for both trees and also equal
sharpness for both trees. Print the image. You may notice that
the more distant tree that was photographed doesn't look as
sharp as the nearer one. In fact, it may look down-right fuzzy
in comparison! This is easy to explain. The "blob" size used as
a standard for "sharp point rendition" is the same in both cases,
but for the distant tree, the "blob" size represents a much
larger proportion of its size, making it appear softer. Beware
of this effect when including near-infinity landscape features.
"Almost-sharp" horizons and distant features generally don't
look very good, and you may need to "fudge" the focus a bit
toward infinity-focus and also use a smaller stop to really have
good DOF coverage. BTW, I always considered that DOF
[lens or tables] indications cheated by about a stop..;-)"
--DR
Wilba
blur - http://www.kinzel.org/02_foto/08_software/02_cBlur/indexe.html.
I've yet to see a calculator that includes Object Field Theory.
Wilba
>
> For landscapes, I never use hyperfocal; I focus on the most important
> part of the scene, then stop down as far as I can without losing to
> diffraction (f/11 for APS-C, f/16 for 35mm, in my experience). Then
> I just let the rest of the scene sort itself out. If there's nothing
> too close to the camera, f/8 works fine.
That's a good description of the Object Field Method. I'm interested to know
whether you learnt about that from someone else or worked it out for
yourself.
Alan Browne
> Here's an interesting app., which plots the sum of focus and diffraction
> blur - http://www.kinzel.org/02_foto/08_software/02_cBlur/indexe.html.
Very nice app, esp. as you can compare two cameras settings in the same
graph. Be nice if it had a "snap to center of DOF and fit" button as
playing with the scales and distance is a bit clumsy after you've made a
major input change.
I "get" Zc as used to delineate where acceptable sharpness lies on the
graph intersections of black line with the green or blue line and the
shaded area. But how would one even attempt to interpret its meaning
outside the shaded area other than "softer and softer".
The lens quality input is interesting, however one would need to know
the MTF curve over a variety of f-stops and focal lengths... not to
mention that such data is typically at infinity focus.
The ability to set CoC by sensor size or view distance is nice; also by
pixel size which seems odd to me. I can't see, other than s/n or
perhaps de-mosaicing artifacts as a result of the pixel size.
Would also be nice if it had a "print size" input to set the CoC
(instead of a ratio).
Would be nice if there was a mac v. (I ran it on the mac under Fusion,
but if the rumoured iTablet (by any name) ever appears ...).
I have a similar app called "Barnack", though it is much less elegant
and complete compared to cBlur in presentation and only covers 1 data
set at a time.
Wilba
> Wilba wrote:
>>
>> Here's an interesting app., which plots the sum of focus and diffraction
>> blur - http://www.kinzel.org/02_foto/08_software/02_cBlur/indexe.html.
>
> Very nice app, esp. as you can compare two cameras settings in the same
> graph. Be nice if it had a "snap to center of DOF and fit" button as
> playing with the scales and distance is a bit clumsy after you've made a
> major input change.
>
> I "get" Zc as used to delineate where acceptable sharpness lies on the
> graph intersections of black line with the green or blue line and the
> shaded area. But how would one even attempt to interpret its meaning
> outside the shaded area other than "softer and softer".
>
> The lens quality input is interesting, however one would need to know the
> MTF curve over a variety of f-stops and focal lengths... not to mention
> that such data is typically at infinity focus.
>
> The ability to set CoC by sensor size or view distance is nice; also by
> pixel size which seems odd to me. I can't see, other than s/n or perhaps
> de-mosaicing artifacts as a result of the pixel size.
I had some discussion with the author about some of that stuff, and it kinda
made sense at the time but I couldn't explain it now.
> Would also be nice if it had a "print size" input to set the CoC (instead
> of a ratio).
>
> Would be nice if there was a mac v. (I ran it on the mac under Fusion,
> but if the rumoured iTablet (by any name) ever appears ...).
>
> I have a similar app called "Barnack", though it is much less elegant and
> complete compared to cBlur in presentation and only covers 1 data set at a
> time.
I haven't really played with Barnack. I encouraged the cBlur guy to include
object field theory, but he didn't get it.
Alan Browne
> Alan Browne wrote:
>> I have a similar app called "Barnack", though it is much less elegant and
>> complete compared to cBlur in presentation and only covers 1 data set at a
>> time.
>
> I haven't really played with Barnack. I encouraged the cBlur guy to include
> object field theory, but he didn't get it.
Do you have a reference to object field theory? I can't find anything
on the web via the usual vector. If you mean related to quantum field
theory, then I'd ask why you're looking to use underlaying physics where
classic optics seem to do the job just fine?
What would be the advantage?
Wilba
> Wilba wrote:
>> Alan Browne wrote:
>>>
>>> I have a similar app called "Barnack", though it is much less elegant
>>> and
>>> complete compared to cBlur in presentation and only covers 1 data set
>>> at a time.
>>
>> I haven't really played with Barnack. I encouraged the cBlur guy to
>> include
>> object field theory, but he didn't get it.
>
> Do you have a reference to object field theory? I can't find anything on
> the web via the usual vector.
I'd start with Depth of Field Revisited
(http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/DOFR.html), and The INs and OUTs of FOCUS
(http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/download.html). The Shutterbug articles
(http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/HMArtls.html) are good reading too.
> What would be the advantage?
Merklinger explores how resolution of distant detail affects sharpness in
the image (e.g. http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/Resintro.htm). He explains
why hyperfocal shooting fails to deliver sharply resolved distant detail.
I've played around with his stuff and come to the conclusion that distant
detail appears at the sensor effectively blurred to twice the size of the
circle of confusion, so to make hyperfocal deliver on it's promise you need
to halve your COC (or just focus at double the standard hyperfocal
distance).
If you are focussing that far out, you may as well just auto-focus on the
furthest thing you want to be sharp (with a small enough aperture to resolve
foreground detail), and not bother with all that tedious mucking about in
hyperfocal space.
Alan Browne
> Alan Browne wrote:
>> Wilba wrote:
>>> Alan Browne wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I have a similar app called "Barnack", though it is much less elegant
>>>> and
>>>> complete compared to cBlur in presentation and only covers 1 data set
>>>> at a time.
>>>
>>> I haven't really played with Barnack. I encouraged the cBlur guy to
>>> include
>>> object field theory, but he didn't get it.
>>
>> Do you have a reference to object field theory? I can't find anything on
>> the web via the usual vector.
>
> I'd start with Depth of Field Revisited
> (http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/DOFR.html), and The INs and OUTs of FOCUS
I'll have to re-read that with fresh eyes/brain on the weekend.
> (http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/download.html). The Shutterbug articles
> (http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/HMArtls.html) are good reading too.
>
>> What would be the advantage?
>
> Merklinger explores how resolution of distant detail affects sharpness in
> the image (e.g. http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/Resintro.htm). He explains
> why hyperfocal shooting fails to deliver sharply resolved distant detail.
>
> I've played around with his stuff and come to the conclusion that distant
> detail appears at the sensor effectively blurred to twice the size of the
> circle of confusion, so to make hyperfocal deliver on it's promise you need
> to halve your COC (or just focus at double the standard hyperfocal
> distance).
Heresy! (Must try it however). This also leads to why cBlur has that
mysterious "pixel" size input, perhaps.
>
> If you are focussing that far out, you may as well just auto-focus on the
> furthest thing you want to be sharp (with a small enough aperture to resolve
> foreground detail), and not bother with all that tedious mucking about in
> hyperfocal space.
But, but ... that's what my Hassy lenses beg me to do..
Wilba
No, I don't recall the details, but I do know that that's about resolution
at the sensor, not resolution in the object field.
>> If you are focussing that far out, you may as well just auto-focus on the
>> furthest thing you want to be sharp (with a small enough aperture to
>> resolve
>> foreground detail), and not bother with all that tedious mucking about in
>> hyperfocal space.
>
> But, but ... that's what my Hassy lenses beg me to do..
I'm sure they don't really mind.
David Ruether
"Wilba" <use...@CUTTHISimago.com.au> wrote in message
news:00b98e9d$0$15657$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
> Merklinger explores how resolution of distant detail affects sharpness in the image (e.g.
> http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/Resintro.htm). He explains why hyperfocal shooting fails to deliver sharply resolved distant
> detail.
>
> I've played around with his stuff and come to the conclusion that distant detail appears at the sensor effectively blurred to
> twice the size of the circle of confusion, so to make hyperfocal deliver on it's promise you need to halve your COC (or just focus
> at double the standard hyperfocal distance).
See my post, above (12/15/09).
> If you are focussing that far out, you may as well just auto-focus on the furthest thing you want to be sharp (with a small enough
> aperture to resolve foreground detail), and not bother with all that tedious mucking about in hyperfocal space.
Maybe better yet, "fudge" the use of the DOF scale, maybe placing the
farthest point of interest at the next-widest-aperture DOF scale mark
on the lens for the selected stop, and checking to see if this also covers
the nearest point (or, use the DOF scale markers for a stop one wider
than you intend to use, and then fudging the focus a bit more toward
infinity focus). And, "for good measure", you may want to stop down
the aperture even one more stop (diffraction is the great "leveler"...;-).
--DR
MikeWhy
news:hgqooc$gaq$1...@ruby.cit.cornell.edu...
>
> "Wilba" <use...@CUTTHISimago.com.au> wrote in message
> news:00b98e9d$0$15657$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
>
>> Merklinger explores how resolution of distant detail affects sharpness in
>> the image (e.g. http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/Resintro.htm). He explains
>> why hyperfocal shooting fails to deliver sharply resolved distant detail.
>>
>> I've played around with his stuff and come to the conclusion that distant
>> detail appears at the sensor effectively blurred to twice the size of the
>> circle of confusion, so to make hyperfocal deliver on it's promise you
>> need to halve your COC (or just focus at double the standard hyperfocal
>> distance).
>
> See my post, above (12/15/09).
>
>> If you are focussing that far out, you may as well just auto-focus on the
>> furthest thing you want to be sharp (with a small enough aperture to
>> resolve foreground detail), and not bother with all that tedious mucking
>> about in hyperfocal space.
>
> Maybe better yet, "fudge" the use of the DOF scale, maybe placing the
> farthest point of interest at the next-widest-aperture DOF scale mark
> on the lens for the selected stop, and checking to see if this also covers
> the nearest point (or, use the DOF scale markers for a stop one wider
That's not at all better in any sense. That's just the same irrational
system you've found to almost work enough of the time. It might give the
same answer some of the time, in which case you would then still be
satisfied, no matter how you arrived at the answer.
Alan Browne
One records the other.
Wilba
> Wilba wrote:
>>
>> Merklinger explores how resolution of distant detail affects sharpness
>> in the image (e.g. http://www.trenholm.org/hmmerk/Resintro.htm).
>> He explains why hyperfocal shooting fails to deliver sharply resolved
>> distant detail.
>>
>> I've played around with his stuff and come to the conclusion that distant
>> detail appears at the sensor effectively blurred to twice the size of the
>> circle of confusion, so to make hyperfocal deliver on it's promise you
>> need to halve your COC (or just focus at double the standard
>> hyperfocal distance).
>
> See my post, above (12/15/09).
I don't object to your common sense explanation, but this is something
different. It comes from turning around the usual ray trace diagram (showing
how a point in the object field forms a circle on the sensor), to show how
each point on the sensor is illuminated by a disk in the object field. The
disk in the object field appears on the sensor as a circle twice the size of
the COC. I'm not certain that that analysis is valid, but it's a logical
extension of Merklinger's work and fits with observation.
>> If you are focussing that far out, you may as well just auto-focus
>> on the furthest thing you want to be sharp (with a small enough aperture
>> to resolve foreground detail), and not bother with all that
>> tedious mucking about in hyperfocal space.
>
> Maybe better yet, "fudge" the use of the DOF scale, maybe placing the
> farthest point of interest at the next-widest-aperture DOF scale mark
> on the lens for the selected stop, and checking to see if this also covers
> the nearest point (or, use the DOF scale markers for a stop one wider
> than you intend to use, and then fudging the focus a bit more toward
> infinity focus). And, "for good measure", you may want to stop down
> the aperture even one more stop (diffraction is the great "leveler"...;-).
That's basically using a more stringent standard for determining the
hyperfocal distance. It will help, but it's still "tedious mucking about in
hyperfocal space". :- )
Wilba
That is true, but the pixel size thing in cBlur is only about the sensor,
it's not about the object field. The author of cBlur doesn't believe that
object field theory describes a real phenomenon.
Alan Browne
I'm just trying to couple the idea that Merklinger appears to have
regarding subject detail and actual aperture dimension with the cBlur
notion of pixel size. a) I haven't totally looked into Merklinger's
assertion, nor b) have I reconciled this with cBlur. Remains to be
explored - may be no connection at all.
Next time I'm in Dartmouth, I'll definitely hunt down Merklinger.
Wilba
I understand what you're doing, that's how come I can keep giving you the
same definitive answer. :- )
Here's what the cBlur author, Heiko Kinzel, said in answer to the question,
"why 2 pixels for the COC?" -
"If you want to calculate a RGB value, you need at least one red, one green
and one blue pixel. If you use 2*pixel length as CoC diameter, the area of
your CoC is nearly the same as the sum of area of the three pixel. The
aa-filter prevents higher resolutions." Nothing in that or anything else he
said acknowledges Merklinger's disk of confusion as a physical effect.
Bob Larter
Just using f8 works well for most things.
--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------
MikeWhy
news:4b3307f8$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au...
> On 20/12/2009 12:18 PM, Wilba wrote:
>> Jeremy Nixon wrote:
>>>
>>> For landscapes, I never use hyperfocal; I focus on the most important
>>> part of the scene, then stop down as far as I can without losing to
>>> diffraction (f/11 for APS-C, f/16 for 35mm, in my experience). Then
>>> I just let the rest of the scene sort itself out. If there's nothing
>>> too close to the camera, f/8 works fine.
>>
>> That's a good description of the Object Field Method. I'm interested to
>> know
>> whether you learnt about that from someone else or worked it out for
>> yourself.
>
> Just using f8 works well for most things.
If only I could get myself to commit to that. It sure would save a lot of
expense, room in the gear bag, and weight in glass I wouldn't have to carry.
f/8 at what focal length did you have in mind, Bob?
NameHere
wrote:
At any focal-length I bet. F/8 is something he read somewhere posted by
other pretend-photographer trolls that would bode well as a catch-all
solution to his point and shoot snapshooter's talent level.
Alan Browne
That makes sense. Oddly enough.
Jeremy Nixon
I'd never even heard of the Object Field Method until I just looked it up.
I worked it out for myself after noticing that if you use hyperfocal, the
distant objects in the scene aren't as sharp as one would prefer. That
led me to learn more about depth-of-field, and to conclude that it would
be best in most cases to actually focus on whatever is the most important
part of the scene.
If that actually is the foreground, then that's where I focus, but in a
typical landscape, with both near and far objects, and the far ones being
rather important, you get better results focusing on the far ones because
the near ones being a little unsharp is much less objectionable.
That actually is what I just read of this Object Field Method, so yeah,
that's a perfect description.
If I actually *can't* stop down as far as possible (because I'm not using
a tripod, or the shutter speed is too slow for moving objects) then I have
to compromise, but one does so knowing it's a compromise. But then,
depth-of-field is a compromise inherently anyway.
[sorry for the late reply, my DSL has been out since the snowstorm.]
Wilba
No worries, thanks. It seems that many people have independently come to the
same conclusion and worked out what to do about it. Merklinger (and others)
worked out the physics to formally describe it.