Focusing in Landscapes

[SunderlandPhotography]

I'm wanting to use manual focus on my landscapes but I'm curious on what people focus on?

[StephenBatey]

I don't intend to be facetious, but in my case (I don't use any autofocus cameras) I focus on what I want to be sharp, and stop down to ensure that the depth of field is adequate for my needs.

[GeoffWessex]

Quite right, Stephen...... I'd only add that, if the focus is sharp on an object about two-thirds into the scene, the depth of field will bring the maximum sharpness to the whole scene.

Put it this way..... if you're photographing a mountain ten miles away and you focus on the mountain, a lot of the foreground will be outside of the sharp zone - a bit blurry. With a sensibly small aperture like f/11 or smaller (don't forget, higher number = smaller aperture) focus about 2/3rds in and you'll have everything sharp.

That's not to say that more sharpness is always required in a landscape - you could focus on, for instance, a tree in the foreground. Open up the aperture - f/5.6 and below - and your mountain in the background could become more blurry - and more abstract, yet just as identifiable as being 'mountainous scenery'.

[greenwing]

There's a rather good article in this month's Outdoor Photography on focus and depth of field & all that. I won't try to summarise it all, but one point it makes is that if you have foreground interest at 2m, you could focus on it & get DOF of 1m to 10m. You could also focus at 3m, and get DOF from 1.5m to infinity.

The article's worth a read. There's also a section on learning, which the OP might find useful.

Chris

[greenwing]

Originally Posted by GeoffWessex

Quite right, Stephen...... I'd only add that, if the focus is sharp on an object about two-thirds into the scene, the depth of field will bring the maximum sharpness to the whole scene.

Put it this way..... if you're photographing a mountain ten miles away and you focus on the mountain, a lot of the foreground will be outside of the sharp zone - a bit blurry. With a sensibly small aperture like f/11 or smaller (don't forget, higher number = smaller aperture) focus about 2/3rds in and you'll have everything sharp.

Geoff, isn't it 'focus one third into the scene'? My problems with that approach are first that there might mot be anything to focus on 1/3 into the scene, and second... how do I decide what 'the scene' is, and therefore how far away 1/3 is?

Chris

[wavemachine]

Originally Posted by greenwing

Geoff, isn't it 'focus one third into the scene'? My problems with that approach are first that there might mot be anything to focus on 1/3 into the scene, and second... how do I decide what 'the scene' is, and therefore how far away 1/3 is?

Chris

Does your camera have a rule of thirds grid option as that can help or through the view finder take an approximate position up from the bottom, with regards to nothing to focus on there is usually something even if it is fairly small and insignificant such as a stone or a bit of ground surface is usually good enough.

Ultimately what we are talking about here is keeping front to back sharp for the purposes of landscape which (without wanting to confuse) is known an hyperfocal distance there is a website here which explains it in a lot of detail together with free charts, there are also apps availabe for the Iphone and I believe android devices.

[GeoffWessex]

Ooooops! Fair enough - it's neither 1/3rd nor 2/3rds.... That very technical website that Dave gives the link to, above, may be just a tad tricky..... have a look here for another description, with 'rule of thumb' guidelines and calculator. It depends on aperture, focal length, how big you want to print at, lens crop factor!

[StephenBatey]

I've looked at the Cambridge site but haven't read the article in Outdoor Photography. I assume that it's pointing out that if the hyperfocal distance is H, then if you focus on a distance (H/n) away (where n is any integer) then the depth of field extends from (H/(n+1)) to (H/(n-1)).

Depth of field depends on the degree of enlargement, and also on the amount of sharpening you apply to the image. Excruciating detail on application.

When the lens is focused one focal length away, depth of field is symmetrical about the plane of focus.

[AndrewMaz]

The article in Outdoor Photography is excellent - very clear and helpful. The Cambridge in Colour website is also very good.

This is an issue that is getting to me as I would like to achieve perfect sharpness throughout some of my images, notwithstanding what has been said about handholding in response to the post I wrote recently, and it seems to me that when handholding f/8 achieves the best results for my outdoor/mountain lens (17-40mm f/4L USM), but with a tripod (and mirror lockup/remote shutter release), I think that f/13 or f/16 may well give me more depth of field and sharpness throughout notwithstanding the potential minimal diffraction.

[StephenBatey]

I assume that that's a reflection on how steady you can handhold a camera?

If you want absolutely everything in focus, then you'll always have a problem depending on how close the nearest object is and how far away the most distant is. Even if you focus on the hyperfocal distance (which gives the maximum depth of field) you'll still lose sharpness in objects closer than half this distance away.

Is it possible to trade depth of field with image sharpness for your type of photography?

If you don't mind the inherent distortion and strange perspective, to maximise depth of field use the shortest focal length lens you can get your hands on, and approach as close as it needs to be. One good rule of thumb to remember is that every time you halve the focal length, you gain the equivalent of three stops of stopping down (25mm at f/2.8 gives about the same DOF as 50mm at f/8)