Any lens (other than those used exclusively for close up work) can focus on infinity, which is simply put, is the distant horizon. Whether or not you can make out the small detail is another matter.
The epicenter is the point on the earth's surface directly vertically above the hypocenter (or focus) point in the crust where a seismic rupture begins.The epicenter is only "far from the center" on very deeply centered earthquakes where the hypocenter (or focus) point in the crust is very far from the surface. Many earthquakes are shallow.The depth of the hypocenter (or focus) point can be categorized as shallow (up to 70 km or 43.5 miles below the surface), intermediate (70 to 300 km), or deep (greater than 300 km or 186 miles).
Aside from the obvious with respect to tissue versus glass, the camera lens is a compound lens made up from several lens elements each having different characteristics. Some of these elements converge light rays and some diverge them. Also, a lens element cannot precisely focus all the colors of light at the same point because they have different wave lengths. Thus lens design has to compensate for this as much as possible. Lens coatings must be employed to minimize diffraction, dispersion and glare. As for focus, the position of the elements relative to the film plane has to change with the change in distance from the subject. I am no eye expert, but I believe the eye lens is much simpler in that it is one bioconvex element. It focuses by changing shape through the affect of muscles acting upon it. Certain deficiencies such as astigmatism, are corrected with glasses or contact lenses. It also cannot precisely focus all light wavelengths. How we deal with that as humans is interesting reading, but is far too complicated and unrelated to deal with here.
A telephoto lens would bring a distant image closer.
30 meters
Optical zoom cameras are used to take a shot in which a far-away object appears both prominently and clearly. Essentially you need a decent zoom lens to obtain this ability, and a good camera with a widely-adjustable lens offers this feature.
The distance it will focus will depend upon the type of camera being used. It also depends upon which 300 mm lens you are using.
It's 300 meters...
This elasticity allows the lens to focus on both near and far objects.
They pull the lens to make it long and thin.
300 meters
About 0.19 miles.
The best way to think about the numbers is the higher the number the farther that lens can focus. So if you have a 210mm lens you can easily focus on an object that is very far away.
In a chase, not much over 300 meters
Diverging Lens are use (reading glasses) to help correct the problem of myopia helping fix the focus which causes items far away to seem fuzy and blurry.
300 miles
In the end you will have to look into it, but at the start, when everything is far out of focus there is a real danger that as you try to find the focus you will grind the lower (objective) lens into the object, possibly destroying it, and damaging the lens at the same time.
About 400 meters in semi auto mode, 300 meters in full auto.