Depth of Field Calculator
See your exact near and far sharp limits and hyperfocal distance for any focal length, aperture, and sensor size.
Focus at the hyperfocal distance and everything from half that distance to infinity will read as sharp, useful for landscapes where you want front-to-back focus.
How it works
Depth of field is the zone in front of and behind your focus point that still looks acceptably sharp. Three things control how deep that zone is: aperture, focal length, and how far you are from your subject. A wider aperture (a smaller f-number like f/1.8) blurs the background more; a smaller aperture (a bigger f-number like f/11) keeps more of the scene in focus. Longer lenses compress depth of field, so a 200mm lens at f/4 looks much blurrier behind the subject than a 24mm lens at the same aperture. Getting closer to your subject also shrinks the sharp zone, which is why macro shots have razor-thin focus even at f/8 or f/11.
The calculator uses the standard optical formulas, working out a hyperfocal distance from your focal length, aperture, and sensor's circle of confusion, then using that to find how far in front of and behind your subject stays sharp. Worked example: a 50mm lens at f/8 on a full-frame camera, focused on a subject 3 meters away, gives a hyperfocal distance of about 10.47 meters and a sharp zone running from roughly 2.34 m to 4.19 m, just under 2 meters of usable depth. Move to a 35mm lens at f/2.8 on an APS-C body at 2 meters and the sharp zone tightens to about 1.84 m to 2.2 m, a difference the wider aperture and shorter focal length both push toward.
FAQ
Why does my phone keep everything in focus but my camera doesn't?
Phone camera sensors are tiny and their lenses have very short focal lengths, both of which push depth of field toward "everything sharp" territory even at wide apertures. A full-frame or APS-C camera with a longer lens and a wider aperture opening will always show more background blur at the same framing.
What happens if my subject distance is past the hyperfocal distance?
Once your subject sits at or beyond the hyperfocal distance, everything from about half that distance out to infinity reads as sharp, so the far limit is effectively infinity. The calculator shows this as "infinity" instead of a number.
Does circle of confusion actually matter for my results?
Yes, it's tied to sensor size. A smaller sensor (like Micro Four Thirds) has a tighter circle of confusion, which changes the math slightly even at the same focal length and aperture. That's why the calculator asks for your sensor type before anything else.
Should I always use the smallest aperture to maximize sharpness?
Not quite. Very small apertures like f/16 or f/22 introduce diffraction, a softening effect that works against the depth of field gain. Most lenses look sharpest a few stops down from wide open, often f/8 to f/11, which is why that range shows up so often in landscape work.
For more on how these controls interact, see our guide to aperture and f-stops, landscape photography basics, and how to create depth using foreground and background.