AvaitorGM was watching my Tack Sharp photos series and highlighted something I neglected to talk about in those videos, which is the importance of the Hyperlocal distance!

So AviatorGM’s though AviatorGM’s question wasn’t explicitly about Hyperlocal Distance, it is exactly what he was looking for. Here’s the question:

“How do you figure the distance between you and your subject? Assume I want to make a wide angle landscape photo. I want the mountains in the background to be sharp. I also want an elk in the foreground to be sharp. I’m guessing the elk is 100-200 feet away. I’m bad at guessing distance. It’s kinda dark so I want to use the widest aperture that I can get away with, without losing sharpness. What would a pro do? Guesstimate? Rely on experience? Or do technical types exist that would use a laser range finding scope as is used in golf, hunting, etc.? In short, you have to know distances between you and the subject(s) to use these calculators..”

Bottom line is you need to do some guesstimation for figuring out the distance of your subjects, unless you’re going to bring some sort of measuring tool, however with the Hyperlocal distance, you can insure that EVERYTHING from a certain point and beyond is in focus VERY easily.

You need to do a bit of calculating, and the easiest way to do it is by using an app or the online depth of field calculator, and I’ve got all the details in the video, and links to the apps and website below.

Online DOF Calculator
DOF Calculator iOS App
DOF Calculator Android App