Depth of Field

The depth of field of a camera lens is the range of sharpness in front of and behind the subject when the subject is in focus. On the lens mount (next to the camera body) is the depth-of-field scale for the camera's normal 50mm lens.

See the ilustration at the left. This scale shows the range of sharpness for any distance setting when the lens is set to any opening. For example, the illustration shows a lens focus setting of about 16 feet. If the electric eye sets the lens opening to 8 (f/8), then the scale shows the depth of field for that picture to be from about 12 feet (the distance above 8 at the left of the scale) to about 30 feet (the distance above 8 on the right). If the lens opening is set to 16 (f/16), then the depth of field would be from about 9 feet to infinity.