infinity focus sign

M

mrpink89

been blowing this fourm latley. One thing i have always wondered about my camera and the lens is the infinit sign when I am focusing on a subject. What does it do? I know the smart thing to do is to check the footage, trial and error.

But the problem is my computer is extremely out of date. Hell, it lacks and HDMI slot up to my HD T.V. I am able to watch what i have shot but it's not exactly in "HD" and does not do the footage justice. What I am getting at is

What i am getting at is does the infinite sign make everything in focus? I mean ther are times when i am doing Depth of feild shots and it is out of focus. But I am talking about just a standard wide shot of, lets say two subjects talking or whatever. Does it mean infinite focus. and yes, have tried looking things upmy self but have gotten nothing.
 
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Let me Google that for you!

Basically, "focusing to infinity" is making everything in the image stay in focus. It's like in the movies, when the camera is flying away from a scene, everything stays in focus despite it being hundreds of feet in the air. Hence, the term "infinity".

If you want to read more about, click the link.
 
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Just re-read your first post. How in the world did you not find the articles I found after Googling? :P

But yes, you are correct in that it keeps everything in focus, hence the term infinity! :)
 
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No, it doesn't make 'everything' in focus.

It perhaps requires a very technical explanation, so to keep it simple - it's basically the point at which things are so far away, that the lens can't differentiate between the rays of light, so everything from that point is in focus.

So, no - not everything will be in focus. But everything from a far away point onwards certainly will be.
 
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To elaborate on what jax_rox said, the infinity symbol on your lens indicates the focal point beyond which the lens cannot tell the difference in how far away objects are. This distance is different for each lens. Up to the infinity point, you can select how far out you want the lens to focus. Beyond the infinity point, anything before that point is blurry and everything beyond it is in focus.
 
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So if i have two subjects talking at lets say. 2 feet away in front of the camera and my camera is set to infinite focus. then that means everything behind and around them (up to a certain point) will be in focus also?
 
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mrpink89 said:
So if i have two subjects talking at lets say. 2 feet away in front of the camera and my camera is set to infinite focus. then that means everything behind and around them (up to a certain point) will be in focus also?
Click to expand...

Forget about the infinity symbol. No lens has infinite focus. What it really indicates is that the lens is focused as far away as it can be. The only things that will be in focus will be very far away. The subjects 2 feet away will definitely not be in focus, nor will anything near the camera.

One thing that you might be thinking of is the hyperfocal distance. There are two definitions of this, one that deals with lenses focused at infinity.
 
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Thanks, yeah two feet was a bit much of an exaggeration. Nothing looked out of focus when looking at it on the screen while I was filming. Just worried that the times I did use the infinity sign of focusing on some subjects that it's going to be out of focus on the big screen.

Side note: You think a keyboard would have that Symbol on it. hmmm. weird.
 
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