So in an attempt to suggest that yes, the resolution of the sensor can have something to do with hyperfocal performance... here's part 1...
Part 2 is currently residing in my KX, and will be posted when I finish the roll, probably Tuesday or so (I hope)...
So, Pentax SMC-A 28mm f2.8 at f8 shot at the hyperfocal distance on a K1 this morning... (photo sized by Apple ahead of posting)... with a hood off a Takumar 28mm f3.5 and no filters
And a crop of the flower... it's at 3m, the grass in the neighbor's yard is about 8m, the rubbish bins are about 25m, and the basketball goal is about 41m
Now set at infinity focus...
Just from these, you can tell that the markings on the lens are not sufficient to cover the K1s resolution (and that's even with SOOC JPEGs at ISO 400, so not its best)
f11 may have worked better, but I didn't do that one... and I'm not sure if I may have had other softness/diffraction issues with the smaller aperture...
Interestingly, when the lens is at infinity, the flower is almost there, but the grass (and certainly the bins) look vastly better. I wasn't expecting the grass (at ~8m) to be so sensitive.
And the lens markings put the f8 depth-of-field boundary at the same orange 10ft/3m mark when the lens is at infinity, so in theory the flower should be about in focus...
Now, yes, I have absolutely and quite intentionally pixel-peeped these. If printed at 10*15cm, I doubt you could really tell the difference at an appropriate viewing distance.
But I think I have shown that at least for my sample of the lens, the hyperfocal markings are not sufficient on a high-resolution body
if you pixel-peep or print large...
And, of course, the solution is simple... either use a smaller aperture (and I'm guessing one stop is probably enough here) and the same DoF range or use the same aperture and a smaller DoF range.
I usually use the latter, assuming, for example the f5.6 lines will work for f8 and focusing accordingly. That seems to work OK, but I don't do it often...
For reference, the SMC-A 28mm f2.8 lines put that at about 2.5m and out with the infinity mark on f5.6 as opposed to 1.4m and out with the f8 marks.
The second part of my theory, which I can't prove until my film is done, is that this is really partially resolution-dependent... and that the lower resolution of the film will 'blur the lines' of the hyperfocal limits...
For that, we'll see what Fuji and Noritsu have to contribute in a few days...
And in the world of weird, the only 35mm Pentax with film in it this morning was the KX, with the 28mm already mounted... as if it knew ahead of time...
-Eric