In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field (DOF), also called focus range or effective focus range, is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image. Although a lens can precisely focus at only one distance at a time, the decrease in sharpness is gradual on each side of the focused distance, so that within the DOF, the unsharpness is imperceptible under normal viewing conditions.

The zone of acceptable sharpness within a photo that will appear in focus will vary from photo to photo. Some images may have very small zones of focus which is called shallow depth of field. Others may have a very large zone of focus which is called deep depth of field. Three main factors that will affect how you control the depth of field of your images are: aperture (f-stop), distance from the subject to the camera, and focal length of the lens on your camera.

The hyperfocal distance is the nearest focus distance at which the Depth of field extends to infinity; focusing the camera at the hyperfocal distance results in the largest possible depth of field for a given f-number.The hyperfocal distance (H) is related to the lens focal length (f), the lens f-number (N) and the circle of confusion (c ) for a given image format.













For a given symmetrical lens, like the one in the sketch, the far depth of field (DF), is the distance from the camera up to the farest limit of the depth of field and is depended to the object distance (s) , the lens focal length (f) and the f-number (N).
(The f-number of an optical system is the ratio of the lens’s focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil).

As always, you can try using fxSolver, with the hyperfocal distance equation in our database.
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