So to recap, you did use f/8, you did use a tripod, you did set a timer delay.
Your shutter speed was 1/50th sec. and whilst this should not really cause focus issues (you were using a tripod), see if you can shoot something at 1/500 sec. or faster.
Many of the comments above are very pertinent, - shoot a series from f/4 to f/16; shooting a high contrast target of some kind; If you can beg or borrow another lens to try it might confirm that your lenses are good or bad.

In answer to your question re the wind etc. Everything would be affected by gusts hitting the camera but some parts of the image more than others. If the camera moved around a pivot, then the outside pixels would travel further than the centre pixels. The outers would appear out of focus, the inners would appear to be soft.

A couple of days ago I lost sixty or so images because I had not fully tightened the locking knob on my tripod and did not notice the slow droop of the camera. Thus ended that session of time lapse. Make sure everything is locked down tightly. Tripod on solid ground, not gravel etc.

A friend of mine who has the same Sony as you - I don't know what lenses he has - told me it took a while before he got used to the camera coming from a Canon background. Several months down the line, he is now producing pin sharp images. (n.b. English pins are sharper than USA tacks )

You are all making this too difficult. If you put numbers into the DOF calculator you will find that a difference of only a foot or 2 short of the hyperfocal value results in a large difference in the DOF distance from front to back.
Example, using DOF Master: 29mm, f/8, the calculated Hyperfocal distance is 17.3 ft. The DOF extends from 8.65 ft to infinity. I used a 1.5 crop sensor camera for these values.

However, if you focus at a subject at 15 ft your DOF for Acceptable Sharpness ranges from 8.05 ft to 110.5 ft.
And, if you focus at a subject at 16 ft your DOF for Acceptable Sharpness ranges from 8.3 ft to 206 ft
And, if you focus at a subject at 17 ft your DOF for Acceptable Sharpness ranges from 8.6 ft to 862 ft.
And, if you focus at a subject at 17.32 ft your DOF for Acceptable Sharpness ranges from 8.67 ft to Infinity. Anything beyond 17.31 ft gets an Acceptably Sharp distant background for these parameters.
And, if you focus at a subject at 30 ft your DOF for Acceptable Sharpness ranges from 11 ft to Infinity

As you can see, if you are just a hair too close relative to the hyperfocal distance you lose a tremendous amount of the DOF.


It clearly is best to err on the far side and get your background but feel comfortable that you will get most of the near stuff you want also.

It looks like the image was shot at F4, wide open and the focus is only about a metre away on the fence in front. Put the 16-35mm F4 lens on the camera and look at the front of the lens as you close the aperture down. The aperture should be a lot smaller F22 than at F4. If the aperture does not move then the lens is stuck at F4. If the aperture is working properly do three more test shots focusing manually with your aperture set at F4 to focus and then close the aperture down to F11 to take the test shots. Using a tripod and the two second delay focus shot 1 on the fence post, shot 2 on the power pole and shot three on the background trees.

Hi again,

I was in aperture mode and in fact the camera was spot focused on that very fence post just to the right of the bottom center. This Depth of Field calculator ( https://www.photopills.com/calculators/dof ) tells me that with a 30mm lens at f8 a point 13 feet from the camera is the hyper focal distance. Therefore at f8 focusing on something 13 feet from the camera should render everything from about 6 feet from the camera to infinity in focus. That fence post was 14 feet in front of the camera. So unless I'm misunderstanding what the calculator is telling me ( quite possible ! ) that fence post and everything beyond it should have been in focus.

More practice is obviously needed !

I think my offer of you being a bit too close in front of the hyperfocal distance holds true. You have to think about the tolerances of the lens and the sort-of imprecise theory of the hyperfocal concept. Just a few feet in front of the HF distance will cause the DOF to change dramatically. If the HF is distance is 12.4 ft at 30mm the DOF at far end is at infinity. If the lens is actually at 31mm due to manufacturing tolerance then the HF distance is 13.24 ft and the far end in 'acceptable focus' is 194 ft at the expected HF distance of 12.4 ft. If the aperture is larger by a fraction the same effect takes place (from 8.0 to 7.1), the DOF is reduced substantially to 113.5 feet at the expected HF distance of 12.4 ft.

You need to select a focus point a bit further beyond the theoretical HF value to ensure you are not at the edge. In this case you should select something about 16 ft or greater, allowing for a f/7.1 and a focal length of 32mm (about a 7% tolerance). Per the equation, this will allow for tolerance issues and still get the DOF out to infinity with a near 'acceptable focus' distance of about 8 ft.