What aperture do you use for landscape?

Xplosion

Xplosion

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Being getting slighty confused......the greater the aperture, the greater the DOF so you get more of it in focus? but what happens if you focus to infinity?

I.e. At F22, the lens is not at its sharpest and its not ideal but presumably for landscapes, this will give more focus through the frame then shooting at f11 to f16?

:bang:
 
Hi Xplosion,
If you can get your hands on a copy of "Understanding Exposure" it deals with this in great depth.

I just got the book and am part way into it. It is well worth the investment (£15 for my copy I think).
 
If focusing at infinity your zone of sharp focus extends beyond infinity - strange as it might seem. So part of your depth of field is "wasted"

It is/was a lot easier to do with a prime lens which had a depth of field scale on the barrel.

You set your aperture, say f8, and make sure that infinity is within the f8 mark on the depth of field scale at the outer end.

You can then look at the other end of the scale and see how near the zone of close focus extends. Is all your subject matter within it? Yes, fine. No? close down to f11 and reset.

On my 28mm prime I was able to get about 2 meters to infinity sharp at f5.6!

I doubt if this is possible with a zoom lens without a DoF scale. But you can use the same principle and a bit of guesswork.

Its actually a very good reason for using prime lenses.
 
Slvrbck said:
Hi Xplosion,
If you can get your hands on a copy of "Understanding Exposure" it deals with this in great depth.

I just got the book and am part way into it. It is well worth the investment (£15 for my copy I think).
Click to expand...

Hey,

I have, but keep reading different things, where the books reccomend stopping up to F22 but experiened togs say that this induces diffraction in the lens hence causing a lack of sharpness...so
 
I follow some general rules to "protect" myself.

1. Never use the extreme ends of a lens .... be it focal length and / or apperture, as this is where the lens - generally - is weakest.

2. Always braket! This is dead-easy if your camera has a braketting button, otherwise just note down the initial "auto" reading and then set it to manual and braket your shot with steps (appreture) in either direction.
 
Xplosion said:
Hey,

I have, but keep reading different things, where the books reccomend stopping up to F22 but experiened togs say that this induces diffraction in the lens hence causing a lack of sharpness...so
Click to expand...

Yes it does, all lenses have a sweet spot around f8ish, and fall off towards either end of the aperture range.

It's less noticeable in good glass (for example L lenses), I regularly shoot at f22 with negligible deterioration , but you probably would notice if say shooting with a kit lens.

That's why good glass ain't cheap :)
 
There is much talk about not using any lens stopped right down but it's mostly a load of twaddle. Back in 1932, there was a group of 10 US landscape photographers that started a trend of shooting with their lenses stopped way down. They called themselves Group f/64 (well large format lenses stop way down you know). There were several fairly well know snappers, two whose names ended with Weston and one whos name stared with Ansel. The standards they set are still the current benchmarks for image quality and I see no reason not to stop down to f22 (or beyond) if it gets me the DoF I want.
:D
 
Have a look here it will give you the DOF for different focal lengths / apertures and the hyperfocal distance, if you focus on a object at the hyperfocal distance for the focal length / aperture selected you will get the biggest DOF.
 
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