How to use the hyperfocal method

Can anyone give me some practical hints, how to use the hyperfocal method?

Background:

The last weekend was the first time that I tried to use the hyperfocal method, as I wanted to shoot fast moving objects. I've set up a custom mode (C1) as follows:
Av mode with 6.3 aperture
28.8 mm focal length
Manual focus, focus set to 3 steps back from infinity.(According to the table found on an other thread this should give a focus distance of 19.59m; the calculated hyperfocal distance with these settings is 21.3m.)

I didn't change (and didn't check) any of these settings (except focal length) during the day. After going home and having the photos downloaded to my PC I found most of the images were more or less misfocused.
I cheked the subject distances stored in EXIF and I was nearly shocked: On the first images the focus was set to 14m (instead of the expected 19.59m), and during the day it dropped step by step down to 4.95m! Why? The camera was set to MF and I didn't cahnge the preset distance!?!

Does anyone have any idea?

>> cheked the subject distances stored in EXIF

How do you get this information?

You can see it in BreezeBrowser (and perhaps in some other viewers, too). It's strange, but I don't find this info in Canon's ZoomBrowser.

saba, I could made a mistake, but I'd swear the listing I post was right.

You must take into account a couple factors:

* if you move the zoom lever, the distance steps change. I think even if you return to full tele, the manual focus distance could be lost. Those I posted were for 28mm, i.e. full tele. You'd better storing everything in a user preset.

* if you delete an image in review mode (while that time the pic is shown just after you shot) the manual focus is disabled.

there are other conditions where the focus distance could be lost, e.g. if you close the LCD, etc. So it's better to have everything in a preset and just go to other mode/change to the user preset just in case.