Focusing Distances

So you're one of those kooky people that like your images in focus? In that case we'll need to introduce you to the happy family and their pet mountain on the edge of your lens.

The Loner

The Loner

This fella is your first focusing point. He'll focus approximately 3ft (0.91m) in font of your camera. For me, that's the length of my arms plus 1ft.

The Menage a Trois

The Menage a Trois

These cheeky chaps will focus approximately 4-6ft (1.83m). That's about the size of your average 6ft person.

The Party

The Party

These septuplets focus approximately 8-10ft (2.74m) away. That's roughly the distance from floor to ceiling in the places I visit.

The Mountain

The Mountain

This one is mysterious. It's labeled as infinity, so if your object is very far away, spin your lens round to this. In reality this could be anything from 18ft upwards.

Note: One rule of thumb that many forget is that depth of field is one third in front of the focus point and two thirds behind. So when guesstimating the focus, always error in front of the subject (thanks TPO'Dell!)

Want proof?

I recently conducted a super-scientific test comprising of light meters, tape measures and marker pens. You can find my results on Flickr.