Depth of Field - Zone Focusing

Zone Focusing

When the 35 mm lens above is set to f/11 and focused at approximately 1.3 m, the DOF (a “zone” of acceptable sharpness) extends from 1 m to 2 m. Conversely, the required focus and f-number can be determined from the desired DOF limits by locating the near and far DOF limits on the lens distance scale and setting focus so that the index mark is centered between the near and far distance marks. The required f-number is determined by finding the markings on the DOF scale that are closest to the near and far distance marks (Ray 1994, 315). For the 35 mm lens above, if it were desired for the DOF to extend from 1 m to 2 m, focus would be set so that index mark was centered between the marks for those distances, and the aperture would be set to f/11.

The focus so determined would be about 1.3 m, the approximate harmonic mean of the near and far distances. See the section Focus and f-number from DOF limits for additional discussion.

If the marks for the near and far distances fall outside the marks for the largest f-number on the DOF scale, the desired DOF cannot be obtained; for example, with the 35 mm lens above, it is not possible to have the DOF extend from 0.7 m to infinity. The DOF limits can be determined visually, by focusing on the farthest object to be within the DOF and noting the distance mark on the lens distance scale, and repeating the process for the nearest object to be within the DOF.

Some distance scales have markings for only a few distances; for example, the 35 mm lens above shows only 3 ft and 5 ft on its upper scale. Using other distances for DOF limits requires visual interpolation between marked distances. Since the distance scale is nonlinear, accurate interpolation can be difficult. In most cases, English and metric distance markings are not coincident, so using both scales to note focused distances can sometimes lessen the need for interpolation. Many autofocus lenses have smaller distance and DOF scales and fewer markings than do comparable manual-focus lenses, so that determining focus and f-number from the scales on an autofocus lens may be more difficult than with a comparable manual-focus lens. In most cases, determining these settings using the lens DOF scales on an autofocus lens requires that the lens or camera body be set to manual focus.

On a view camera, the focus and f-number can be obtained by measuring the focus spread and performing simple calculations. The procedure is described in more detail in the section Focus and f-number from DOF limits. Some view cameras include DOF calculators that indicate focus and f-number without the need for any calculations by the photographer (Tillmanns 1997, 67–68; Ray 2002, 230–31).