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Main Board => The lenses => Topic started by: Andy Johnson-Laird on June 02, 2011, 12:50:30 PM

Title: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: Andy Johnson-Laird on June 02, 2011, 12:50:30 PM
I'm shooting some panos with a H4D and was curious to find out what the hyperfocal distances were for each of the HC lenses. I don't see any data about hyperfocal distances in the "lens manual" that comes with each HC lens.

Anyone got any data, please?

Oh, and see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance in case you have no clue what I'm blathering on about. :)

Mrs. Google suggests that there might be an answer on page 307 of The Hasselblad Manual by Wildi, but I can't see what it says online and I don't have the book.

Regards
Andy

Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: NickT on June 02, 2011, 01:16:13 PM
Andy is this any use?

http://www.dofmaster.com/charts.html

Nick-T
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: Andy Johnson-Laird on June 02, 2011, 01:24:05 PM
Quote from: NickT on June 02, 2011, 01:16:13 PM
Andy is this any use?

http://www.dofmaster.com/charts.html

Nick-T

Kia ora, Nick.
Sadly, it's for 35mm format lenses -- and my tiny brain says that therefore the data won't apply for HC (Huge Chunks of glass) lenses. :)
What's your take?

Regards
Andy


Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: NickT on June 02, 2011, 01:32:20 PM
I had no idea that HC stood for Huge Chunk.. I like it!

As to your question, my brain although extremely large is mostly empty..

I am sure I have come across this question before but a search of 25 130 emails failed to turn up the answer, I shall write to a clever Swede and let you know what he says.
Cheers
Nick-T
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses? / Then stuff about panoramas
Post by: Andy Johnson-Laird on June 02, 2011, 04:04:49 PM
Quote from: NickT on June 02, 2011, 01:32:20 PM
I had no idea that HC stood for Huge Chunk.. I like it!

Glad to have brought a smile to your day. Mind you, I'm the guy who thought my Mamiya RB67 was so called because it was a Real Boat-anchor.

Quote from: NickT on June 02, 2011, 01:32:20 PM
As to your question, my brain although extremely large is mostly empty..

I sympathize with the condition. I share the condition save that mine seems to be chock full of useless information.

Quote from: NickT on June 02, 2011, 01:32:20 PM
I am sure I have come across this question before but a search of 25 130 emails failed to turn up the answer, I shall write to a clever Swede and let you know what he says.
Cheers
Nick-T

That's much appreciated. More frequently than ever, I get the impression that I'm the first person to try certain things with a Hassie. This could either be (a) yes, I really am, or (b) I'm the only person dumb enough to even think about putting a Hassie on a Gigapan Epic Pro.

I think the good folks at Gigapan Epic Pro think the latter. "Hey, it says, max. weight of 10 pounds, so he's trying to see what funny noises it will make as he approaches that limit...."

Actually, give the Gigapan Epic Pro its due -- it's worked flawlessly (and really without groaning motors!) -- and great support from their tech. support guys.

The jury is still out on whether it makes sense to shoot HDR bracketed images of a panorama -- the H4D with about 12EV dynamic range at 50 ISO so handles typical landscapes pretty well. Similarly, I don't know whether it makes sense to stitch the EV0, EV-2, and EV+2 images first and then run the stitched images into Photomatix. We'll see. Any reports of a bright flash in the NW USA is probably my MacPro subliming.

Regards
Andy

Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: jeff.grant@pobox.com on June 02, 2011, 08:52:58 PM
Andy, I would be interested in hearing how you go with the Gigapan, and also getting a look at the output.
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: perjorgen on June 02, 2011, 10:01:38 PM
Try this one

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html (http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html)

There is a Pentax 645D in the list but you can just select a CoC that correspond to your pixel size
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: CESnider on June 03, 2011, 01:23:49 AM
Using the common calculation where Circle of Confusion = d/1500 (d is the diagonal size of your sensor).

H3DII-39 Sensor size is 36.8mmx49.1mm I believe so the diagonal size of the sensor is 61.36mm

61.36/1500 = .0409

CoC = .0409mm

This is based on what I can see from the formulas to get CoC. YMMV

Cheers,
Carl
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: Andy Johnson-Laird on June 03, 2011, 04:48:37 AM
I think I've answered my own question re: Hyperfocal distances.

See http://www.dofmaster.com/hyperfocal.html -- as David Grover points out, you can calculate it based on the DOF ring on the lens barrels -- although it's a broad brush calculation as the DoF scales are like a man in a bathroom. Pretty "approximate." ;)

Or, given the CoC, focal length, f-stop you can precalculate it. The web page at http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html that Per pointed out is an on-line calculator, but (as he points out, Hassies are not listed so you have to use the CoC size).

Thanks to Carl for the worked example of CoC calculation.

There is an iPad app for apparently calculatng Hyperfocal distances too. I'll download it and try it and then see if I can figure out, for example, where 17 feet is shown on the barrel of the Huge Chunk 35-90mm. :)

Which raises the question -- I see fairly precise focusing distances in the EXIF data for images from the H4D-50. Any way to display that? Need to RTFM to see if there is a way -- just don't recall off-hand. (Oh....RTFM? Read the errr...."fine" manual").

Thanks to all who responded.
Regards
Andy
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: Andy Johnson-Laird on June 03, 2011, 05:00:53 AM
Quote from: Jeff on June 02, 2011, 08:52:58 PM
Andy, I would be interested in hearing how you go with the Gigapan, and also getting a look at the output.

Sure Jeff. Be happy to share my experiences with you and the group. I should probably start a separate thread in a different part of the forum otherwise Nick will emerge DPOd from under the volcano and move the thread hisself. (DPO = Decidedly pissed off).

I've just spent the past week solving some of the fundamental problems and experimenting with different techniques and stitching software. I'll be off on Vancouver Island for three weeks so I wanted to get some general idea of the issues of shooting HDR panoramas and get a workflow established. I'm not a great fan of HDR but that could be because a lot of it seems "overdone" to me, but I reasoned that capturing the panos with bracketing is easy -- and the decision whether to use the bracket images is something that can be decided back in the studio.

Also, I have to say that H4D-50 with an dynamic range of 12EV does such a great job on landscapes that I'm pondering the merits of bracketing -- but, as I say, that's something that's easy to do in the field (the Gigapan Epic Pro automates it, taking N exposures at each position), that I might as well do it. I mean, how else can I fill up hard disks?


Regards
Andy
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: Andy Johnson-Laird on June 03, 2011, 05:09:26 AM
Forget about the iPad app "VisualDof." While it's only $4.99, the one 1-star review for it reads:

Only 3 inputs: medium
[which seems to be CoC size, AJL] focal distance, and focal length. Fixed f-stops. No metric system.
Can I have my money back.


Oh, well...
Andy.
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: CESnider on June 03, 2011, 06:03:01 AM
Andy,

DOFmaster is also available for the iPhone, check the app store and you should be good to go.

Carl
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: NickT on June 03, 2011, 07:58:28 AM
Hi Guys
I think I'll leave this thread here for now as it seems pretty relevant. I heard back from the Swedes and they are putting together a document for us, it will be written by the guy who designs the lenses . His brain (I have looked) is entirely full of very clever stuff so it should be useful info.
Cheers
Nick-T
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: Andy Johnson-Laird on June 03, 2011, 09:10:19 AM
That's impressive Nick.

Du är den mannen.  (Swedish for the American: "You da man." English: "Oh, I say, that's jolly good of you, old chap.")

Thanks
Andy
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: KeithL on June 03, 2011, 09:38:41 AM
One thing I miss when using the HC lenses are the long throw barrels of the manual focus V series lenses. Am I right in thinking these long throw barrels and the resulting DOF scales were more accurate when used to approximate the hyperfocal distance?

While on this subject, the first thing I ever noticed about the Leica S lenses was the absence of a DOF scale. Am I alone in thinking this a retrograde step?

Perhaps a user button reassigned to auto-set the lens to the hyperfocal distance?

Apologies, questions, questions, no answers.
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: NickT on June 03, 2011, 09:44:04 AM
That's a great idea for a custom function for Landscapers Keith.. Nice one!
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: Henry on June 04, 2011, 01:54:33 AM
Excellent idea, Keith - I'd like that too! I wonder if we'll get a change to the firmware for this as we did for the extended shutter time, but it will take more work given the sensors, lens, apertures etc....

Henry
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: landscapefreak on June 04, 2011, 01:02:34 PM
The DOFMaster app on my iPhone and a Disto 5 have become trusted tools in my camera backpack.  If controlling DOF in the field is critical, you might want to look at this or a similar combination.
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: meshuggener on November 22, 2012, 05:41:20 AM
just a bump for this thread with this tool "BARNACK"
http://www.stegmann.dk/mikkel/barnack/
you can download it for free and there is the exact circle of confusion for H3D-39, 22, 31 and H4D-60.

:)
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: Hassilistic on May 19, 2015, 02:43:16 AM
Hi, I know this is an old topic, but in the interest of sharing, I have a couple of cheat sheets I pre-prepared for myself for this particular sensor size and lenses.  This shows the distance at every f-Stop usable or otherwise, with h/2 being the closest distance still in focus.

hope someone finds it as useful as I did.
Cheers,
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: jerome_m on May 19, 2015, 09:11:10 AM
The classical formulas for hyperfocal distance and depth of field are based on the assumption of a relatively small "standard print" (or, what is equivalent, bigger prints observed from further away). In practice, digital MF cameras are often used to make much bigger prints which are not observed from far away and the formulas do not work very well.
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: Hassilistic on May 20, 2015, 04:15:09 AM
Hi Jerome,  I use these for a Max print dimension of 40 inch at a viewing distance of 1m.  I personally prefer though 2A0 at 5m away, but it all comes down to the client.

What sought of print size did you have in mind?
Title: Re: Hyperfocal distances for HC Lenses?
Post by: jerome_m on May 20, 2015, 08:56:24 AM
40" viewed at 1m is indeed the "much bigger" print size I was thinking about.

I did not mean to comment on your formulas, but to point out that the classical, commonly found formulas assume a relatively small print size. I corrected my post accordingly.