Confused about landscape F-Stops

shiato storm said:
camera shake and blur? you forget 'proper' landscape photographers use a tripod and MLU...
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And they shoot in windy condition too where even the better tripods move - hence camera shake

Blur is when those same windy conditions move the trees when you don't want them to

An what's MLU ???

:shrug::shrug::shrug:

DD
 
Some of the top landscape photographers use medium and large format gear, and the larger the piece of film the less the depth of field. Also the trend these days is (for some reason) to take pics at the coast in near darkness, which adds two more reasons why they need to use small apertures.

Unless you really need f22, I personally can't see the reason for using it either. You do run the risk of adding camera shake to your pics and there's the image quality issue as well.

I agree that f8 is usually enough ..;)
 
mirror lock up. first shutter press mirror goes up, second and the shutter opens - cuts out vibrations. at least thats the way on canons, could be timed release on others but I don't know for certain.
 
One the mags say one thing then say another

I can see a difference in quality in the brick pictures, very little but it is there (not worth bothering about)

Ive never had infinity sharp (in fact very soft) when using hyperfocal focussing as its only 'acceptable focus'

I find focussing 2/3 into the picture best for me

It might be my equipment who knows?

Dave
 
2/3 is a generally good rule of thumb when in doubt in the field and you haven't got the DoF hyperfocal distances memorised...!
 
Les McLean said:
The only image (in Adam Burton's article) that particularly needed a slow shutter speed was of a waterfall, and that was 16sec @ f22, so in theory he could have shot at f11 or f8 and still had a slow enough shutter speed to smooth the water out.

All the images (except one) were taken in the 20-28mm range.

The reality of it is (regardless of the discussion), shooting at f16-f22 is generally the norm rather than the exception for recognised landscape photographers. Saying that, they are generally shooting with FF cameras and the lenses are usually top glass.
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I think this is a really important factor as a) Full Frame/Medium Format/Large Format has less inherent DOF and therefore requires smaller apertures and b) these formats are less prone to diffraction at f22 anyway.

It remains true that in general terms you can get the same DOF at a larger aperture on APS-C sized sensors and at a larger aperture still on Four Thirds sensors. Thus, f11 on a 14mm lens on my Olympus E3 gives roughly the same DOF as f22 on a 50mm lens on my Bronica ETRSi. The advantage the E3 has is that if more DOF is required the lens can be stopped down to f22, albeit at the risk of some diffraction induced softness, whereas at f22 the Bronica is already stopped down to its limit. This is not so much an issue with large format film cameras which offer much greater controll over DOF by virtue of their facility to move the back plate and lens panel in relation to each other.
 
shiato storm said:
2/3 is a generally good rule of thumb when in doubt in the field and you haven't got the DoF hyperfocal distances memorised...!
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I think that if we're talking landscape style photography then focusing 2/3 into a scene (did you mean 1/3?) is really pushing the focus way further away than it needs to be, and risking sacrificing focus on nearer objects, with no visible benefit to those on the horizon or beyond.

Suppose we have a scene where the horizon is 3,000m away. Shooting with a crop body camera (which I imagine is what most people use) at 22mm (within the grasp of all kit lenses and specialist ultra-wide angles) and at f/8 (let's just see how useable f/8 really is on a crop body with a wide angle lens), here are the DOF figures when focusing at 2,000m, 1,000m, 100m, 10m and 3.21m (the hyperfocal distance).

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So even at quite modest landscape settings, which do little to maximise DOF, (22mm, f/8 rather than 10mm, f/22) there really is truckloads of DOF available by focusing at 10m, never mind 100m, 1,000m or 2,000m. So, my question is, why would you focus anywhere near 1/3 or 2/3 into the scene when focusing at 10m or perhaps less will buy you more DOF in any case, and make your foreground sharper.

I agree that focusing at 10m doesn't gain you a lot, even over focusing at 2,000m, but nonetheless, is it not both easier and more beneficial to focus at 10m, or even 5m than at some point in the far distance, where atmospheric effects could limit judgement of sharpness and details are so damn small you'd struggle to tell whether they were truly sharp or not?

3.21m would be even better, and as that would hold everything acceptably sharp, so long as you were at 22mm and wider or f/8 and narrower it is hard for me to see why you would actually need to remember any hyperfocal distances beyond 3.21m, or whatever figure you need, for your equipment and your shooting style.
 
:agree:

On either my D2Xs or D300 with my 12-24 at just f4 (i.e. wide open) focussing just 6ft away would have everything in focus from just 3ft away to infinity

f22 would only stretch the near focus to 9"

On super-wides the f-stop is more about controlling shutter speed than anything, and as my 12-24 (Nikon's) sharpest f-stop is f8 that's where it's used most of the time

These lenses almost don't need f-stops, if they just made then a fixed f8 that'd do nicely!!!

DD
 
DiddyDave said:
I don't get what you're saying Les???

If the foreground fencepost is perfectly in focus, as is the far line of hills, and all at f8 (i.e. most lenses highest IQ), are you saying you'd still stop down to f22???

If so, why?

'Proper' landscapers must have a reason for it, but if it's not DoF it has to be shutter speed and if not that - where's the point as you're introducing more chance of diffraction and risking camera shake/subject blur

Of course I accept that 28mm on a FF may well mean f22 is needed to get the DoF required, but if f11, f8 or even f5.6 did the same DoF job using anything 'slower' is pointless - isn't it ??? :thinking:

DD
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I'll ask Charlie, he usually pops in the Red Lion on a Thursday afternoon after he's collected his Giro :)

Seriously, it's the suggestion of an 'aperture straightjacket' implicit in the thread, a similar argument (and more important IMO) is the fall off in quality you can get at the other end of the aperture scale, for example on my 24-105 F4L, it vignettes slightly at f4 at 24mm, and ever so slightly at f5.6, so following this argument, I have a £500 lens which I should only be shooting at a couple of workable apertures, which is nonsense, I may as well get a point and shoot with these kind of restrictions.

Out in the field, most photographers don't carry a theodolite, or a DOF calculator, some lenses don't have distance scales, and estimating distance is not quite an exact science, therefore to cover bases, in a lot of situations landscape photographers will shoot at f16/22 to make sure they have the scene in focus.

After light, one of the most creative tools photographers have at their fingertips is depth of field, you just need look at the work of recognised portrait/fashion/wildlife/landscape photographers to realise just how important this is. By restricting this to a couple of stops around F5.6 damages such an important creative element of photography

It's unlikely you would see a thread suggesting portrait photographers shouldn't shoot at f2.8 or F4 because the sweet spot of a lens is say F8, they would laugh at the suggestion.

The only lens I use that I don't need to worry about DOF is my sigma 12-24mm, knowing (on a FF body) that f11 covers most bases, but as I don't tend to use this lens for landscapes much (it's just too wide), all the other lenses, I regularly shoot at F16 or f22.

This is an interesting discussion, and I hope in particular, for folk new to photography, they will explore the creative possibilities across all apertures.
 
Unnecessary sarcasm aside...:D

Quote "I hope in particular, for folk new to photography, they will explore the creative possibilities across all apertures"

As do we all Les, but as I think you've still missed the point a bit - I think it's time to stop it here

Cheers :wave:

DD
 
jerry12953 said:
Some of the top landscape photographers use medium and large format gear, and the larger the piece of film the less the depth of field.
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Absolutely true. However if one is using LF, then it's likely that movements will be used such as front or rear tilt/swing to move the plane of focus. By doing this, it's possible to reduce the need to use a really small aperture.

The effects of diffraction are likely to be less apparent too as the enlargement factor is much, much lower to get a given print size.

My take on this aperture malarkey is to use the optimum aperture to get 'acceptable' sharpness.
People's definition of 'acceptable' will vary. Don't forget that depth of field scales are calculated based on a 'normal' viewing distance, which isn't 100% or more on a monitor, but from say 10-12 inches for a 10x8 or A4 print.
There is only one plane of focus. anything either side of that plane is either acceptably sharp or unsharp.
 
Les

Sorry to say mate but you need glasses :thumbsdown::shake:;)

Dave
 
Site is playing up and i cant edit my posting sorry

DODD... ive focused at 3m @ f8, nevermind soft infinity is rubbish

Plus there is an article ive read somewhere that your eye allows for a soft foreground but not infinity when viewed.

Dave
 
Sorry Les i replied on just seeing page one where you three pictures are

Dave
 
Ted said:
I reckon you guys should start writing articles for digital Photo! Learnt way more about F stops for landscape photography in this thread than I did shelling out £4 for their mag! :D
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Couldnt agree more :thumbs::clap:
 
Time this thread got a bump. I've just become aware of a table of data, in a review of the Canon 50D, which lists the Diffraction Limited Aperture for a wide range of camera bodies (sensor sizes and pixel densities). The high pixel density of the 50D means that diffraction softening begins to appear evident at apertures from f/7.6 and smaller. That softening will start to be apparent when viewing at 100% magnification, but should be no different in the final print from any other APS-C camera, unless you take advantage of the huge number of megapixels to crop away, thus making the image effectively smaller than APS-C and therefore requiring greater magnification to reach a given print size.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-50D-Digital-SLR-Camera-Review.aspx
 
Another advocate for shooting at F22-Scott Kelby- 'The Digital Photography Book: The Step-By-Step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos Look Like the Pros'

Chapter 11, The Recipe for Getting This Type of Shot (of a Loch with mountains in ther BG) he advises ' 6: Use aperture priority mode and choose an f-stop like f/22 to give you good sharpness throughout the entire photo, from the rocks to the mountains.'

Although in Chapter 1 he does advise if possible shoot at the lens sharpest aperture (in a chapter not specifically about landscape shooting) which he suggests for most lenses, is about two full stops smaller than wide open .
 
Les McLean said:
Another advocate for shooting at F22-Scott Kelby- 'The Digital Photography Book: The Step-By-Step Secrets for How to Make Your Photos Look Like the Pros'

Chapter 11, The Recipe for Getting This Type of Shot (of a Loch with mountains in ther BG) he advises ' 6: Use aperture priority mode and choose an f-stop like f/22 to give you good sharpness throughout the entire photo, from the rocks to the mountains.'

.
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But if you can do that anyway at a bigger aperture, which you often can, why not use your lens at its sharpest, and a longer shutter speed. Sorry, it just doesn't make sense to me.

And I do wonder if Scott Kelby is actually a PHOTOGRAPHER;)
 
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