Should I focus at the hyperfocal distance or at infinity for landscapes?

Focus at the hyperfocal distance, not infinity, for most landscape work — it extends the near limit of acceptable sharpness much closer to the camera while keeping infinity just as sharp as focusing directly on it would. At 24mm f/8 on full frame, focusing at infinity wastes everything closer than roughly 2.52 meters; focusing at the hyperfocal distance instead brings that sharp range down to about 1.26 meters, with infinity still fully sharp.

Why Infinity Focus Is Rarely the Right Default

Focusing exactly at infinity is the far edge case of depth of field, not the point that maximizes it — everything nearer than the hyperfocal distance's near limit falls outside the sharp range when focused at infinity, an entirely avoidable loss for a composition with any foreground element. The only situation where infinity focus is actually correct is when nothing in the frame sits closer than the hyperfocal distance anyway, at which point both approaches produce an identical result.

Why This Isn't Always the Right Call Either

Hyperfocal focusing maximizes total depth of field, but that's not automatically what a given shot needs. If your nearest important subject sits closer than the hyperfocal near limit, focusing at the hyperfocal distance still won't render it sharp — you'd need a narrower aperture, a wider focal length, or a deliberate closer focus point (accepting that infinity is no longer perfectly sharp, which often doesn't matter if there's nothing critical at true infinity in the frame).

Check your own hyperfocal distance and near limit before choosing where to focus in the DoF & Hyperfocal Calculator.