Jens Bladt wrote:
Kieth (and others). I know that HFD is (by definition) the distance to the closest sharp point, when the lens is "focused" to infinity (meaning NOT focused). I practice this distance (HFD) is the distance you can focus at, when you still want "infinity" to be sharp - that is maximum DOF. Often I find myself foucussing at infinity, when shooting landscape. But this way I will NOT get maximum DOF!!!
Yes, that's true, and I recognize that.
For landscape photography, my point is to focus as close as possible, to
still get the most distant objects to appear sharp in the photograph. Very
often a SHARP FOREGROUND is crutial.
Again, true.
Professional landscape photographers
use 4x5" cameras with tiltable lens and film plane (according to e.i.
Outdoor Photography) to get maximum DOF. I can't do that - for economical
reasons. So I have to make the best of an ordenary camera (35mm, 6x6).
You are of course right, that it doesn't make sence to talk about the
distance to infinity, since that is the point, where parallel lines meet,
which fo course doesn't exist. That is also not what I'm talking about. I'm
conserned about where to focus when shooting scenery. I know I can read the
DOF scale.
Maybe I've read it before, but just recently I read someone's message that said to put the furthest f/stop mark on infinity and then choose the more open (smaller number) aperture, for the best compromise.
In other words, if you were using f/8.0 as the index f/stop, change it to 5.6 and reset the infinity point.
I think that's a reasonable approach.
Better focus on mid range items.
keith
