This thread has spun off into the weeds with discussion of 'focus at Hyperfocal' vs. 'focus at Infinity' debate. Really, one has to ask yourself "What is the PRIMARY point of the photograph?" And shoot to achieve that goal
- Photograph whose primary subject (your wife) is photographed in 'a setting' which you want to be equally important as your subject
- Photograph whose primary subject IS the background, but you also want to capture the foreground well enough
But I thought I would take advantage of the 'backgroud blur' graphs to see what it does with an object at Infinity, to determine how each approach affects the outcome (as described above).
Let's first look at the facts of the alternatives. Assuming I was photographing with a 100mm lens at f/11, so that the background item was not too diminished (as would happen with WA lens) but the 'compression' effect of a telephoto helps 'bring forward' the background so it is more prominent in the photo. If my wife was standing 100' away, she would take up 20% of the frame height, and the background item, a 2400' tall peak with an observatory on top 2 miles away, would virtually fill the frame height and I would see a 2400x3600' area at 10000' away.
(Note: all the following calculations assume 20/20 vision of the viewer)
- Hyperfocal is 550' away, when focused at 550' yields DOF zone of 140' to Infinity
- If my subject (wife) is standing 100' away, DOF zone is from 85' - 122' when focused at 100'.
- When I focus at Infinity, my DOF zone is 279' to Infinity
Focus at 100'
Next, with Focus at 550'
Finally, with Focus at Infinity
So of the three approaches
#1 is the only solution if I need my wife to be sharp, yet the mountain and observatory are sharp enough to be very well discerned.
#2 fails to capture my wife sharp enough although the mountain and observatory are acceptably sharp (theoretically)
#3 gets only the background in fine focus, in theory. But here is a photo, focused at Infinity and the house across the street from me is about 100' to its front door...
This test appears to show that even with a subject at 100', focus at Infinity is not necessarily a bad thing! If my wife is recognizable, and the observatory and mountain are of significance, it seems the focus at Infinity works well enough that my wife is still recognizable in the photo, even if not 'acceptably' sharp to a viewer with 20/20 vision. After all, the 'manufacturer standard' DOF zone says 114' to Infinity is 'in focus'!
Now, back to the OP topic...unless you intend to make really HUGE enlargements with 100 Megapixel cameras, just maybe the 'better lenses than we have today' are money wasting engineering efforts to design and build, that you and I cannot afford to buy! After all, the most recent lenses from Canon seem to be $3000+ (except for the inexpensive line of STM)
