danedit28 Posted June 16, 2012 Share #1  Posted June 16, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Forgive me as I think I saw this briefly discussed in another thread but I can't seem to find it...  What is the best focusing practice for large sweeping landscapes? I'm typically either shooting landscapes with the 21mm SE or the 35mm cron and my general rule is to start with f/8-f/11 and focus at infinity. Is it better to set focus closer? Other thoughts?  Thanks in advance for your feedback! -dan  --my flickr-- Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted June 16, 2012 Posted June 16, 2012 Hi danedit28, Take a look here Focusing for landscapes?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
likalar Posted June 16, 2012 Share #2 Â Posted June 16, 2012 I'm not very experienced in landscapes, but I would just focus on the part of the landscape that is likely to draw the viewer's attention most. It might be a tree, a rock, a stream.....How are the results with your present method? I would imagine at f:8-11, your getting good results for far-away landscapes. Most lenses have better sharpness at certain f-stops. I have one lens that is great at 5.6, but lousy at 11. How is yours at f:11? Larry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted June 16, 2012 Share #3 Â Posted June 16, 2012 Most all my landscapes are really fotos of some object in a natural setting. Perhaps a bridge, tree, flower, barn, or some other object of interest is the main point. Â Focus on that object and use debth of field to bring in the near and far points. Â Absent a item of interest, you will need to pick an area and focus there. More than likely this will be a foto of little interest and just a record shot for your memory. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
algrove Posted June 16, 2012 Share #4 Â Posted June 16, 2012 IMHO, every image even of the same scene and from the same vantage point can be very different based on what all the above have mentioned mostly based on f stop and your distance setting. Â Another option is hyper focal distance where one puts infinity on or just less than the f stop on the right side of the depth of field scale relating to the f stop you will be using. For the wide shots you describe, the other side of the depth of field scale, looking at that same f stop, will relate to the distance where your image should have near objects in focus. Â Thus you should have the scene in focus from infinity to the near distance displayed opposite your f stop on the lower (left side) end of the depth of field scale. That said, there is but one plane where you will be at optimal focus-the distance at your lens' "index for focusing" as Leica lens manuals like to call it, i.e., right down the center of your depth of field scale. Â I also study each lens' manual to understand what Leica feels is the maximum f stop necessary to obtain the best resolution of an image for a particular lens. Â Forgive me if you knew all this, but from your question I thought this might help. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted June 16, 2012 Share #5  Posted June 16, 2012 There are lots of silly shibboleths waved about in photography – most of them taken over from nineteenth century 'salon' painting just when real painters were abandoning them. Like "everything in a landscape picture must be sharp" or "everything in the foreground must be sharp" or "there must be one or two foreground cows" or "a road must seem to lead into the picture". But there are no 'musts'.  Still, is seems to me that the focusing technique you use is the least apt of all. Infinity is usually the least interesting part of a picture. Also, you squander most of the depth of field because it falls beyond infinity. Learn to see and understand what interests you most in a landscape – what gives it character. Like the subject's nose in a portrait … or the eyes. A landscape picture is really a portrait of a piece of planet Earth.  I too own the 21mm Super-Elmar. I mostly use it wide open, or nearly so. It's that good. This means that while the focus lets me point to a feature of the subject – "this is what I find most interesting" – the rest is still there, in good detail, because of the great d.o.f., providing the context. In the picture below, where would you have focused?  Still, while 21mm is very useful for a cityscape, I do actually prefer 50mm for a landscape, or sometimes 35.  The old man from the Kodachrome Age Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/181857-focusing-for-landscapes/?do=findComment&comment=2041200'>More sharing options...
rramesh Posted June 16, 2012 Share #6 Â Posted June 16, 2012 Focusing should be the least of your challenges, I think. Composition, light and choice of lens would be key. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikenic Posted June 16, 2012 Share #7 Â Posted June 16, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) When you use a 12mm lens or thereabouts, you have to be really trying NOT to have everything in focus. Â M8 + 12mm CV Â The Pinnacles by bundybro, on Flickr Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted June 16, 2012 Share #8 Â Posted June 16, 2012 Focusing should be the least of your challenges, I think. Composition, light and choice of lens would be key. Â Focus and de-focus ARE part of the composition. Sometimes the most vital parts of it. Â The old man from the Kodachrome Age Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
01af Posted June 16, 2012 Share #9 Â Posted June 16, 2012 Essential reading: Â Download The INs and OUTs of FOCUS Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted June 16, 2012 Share #10  Posted June 16, 2012 Focusing should be the least of your challenges, I think. Composition, light and choice of lens would be key.  Exactly... if you ar taking a LANDSCAPE with 21 or 35, not wide open, focus is not really the issue, the factors quoted above are the key : "close to infinity" is always good unless you have something really next to you.  Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! (this was taken with Elmarit 21 asph - M8 - not wide open but surely not focused at infinity) Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! (this was taken with Elmarit 21 asph - M8 - not wide open but surely not focused at infinity) ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/181857-focusing-for-landscapes/?do=findComment&comment=2041473'>More sharing options...
danedit28 Posted June 17, 2012 Author Share #11 Â Posted June 17, 2012 Infinity is usually the least interesting part of a picture. Also, you squander most of the depth of field because it falls beyond infinity. Â Thank you, Lars. This is what I was curious about.... are you really tossing away half your focal window by setting the lens to infinity or at a great distance does is it irrelevant? Â Thanks all for the responses... -dan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted June 17, 2012 Share #12  Posted June 17, 2012 Infinity can certainly be the most ineresting part of he picture – if you are an astronomer, or doing long distance reconnassance photography. But usually, the interesting part is something closer … and of course its relationship to the rest.  Depth of field, needless to say, is not a measure of all that is sharp, but a measure of all that is, by convention, not enough unsharp to matter. Maximum sharpness is where you focus. It is simply that the difference between 'max sharpness' and 'near-max 'sharpness' can be so small that, given that the enlargement of the image is not too great, the eye cannot discern it. But however we define it, depth of field exists both on your side and beyond the plane of best focus. And because optically, nothing is further away than infinity, you use only the hither half of the available d.o.f. if you focus at infinity.  But to tell the truth, I don't give a s…t about d.o.f. when I take a landscape picture. "Sharpness is the fetish of boring photographers" (Mahatma Duffel's Collected Wisdom).  The old man from the Kodachrome Age Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
farnz Posted June 17, 2012 Share #13  Posted June 17, 2012 There are lots of silly shibboleths waved about in photography – most of them taken over from nineteenth century 'salon' painting just when real painters were abandoning them. Like "everything in a landscape picture must be sharp" or "everything in the foreground must be sharp" or "there must be one or two foreground cows" or "a road must seem to lead into the picture". But there are no 'musts'.... Lars,  I have to poke a little gentle fun and note that in the excellent example of landscape photography you have kindly posted everything (to my eye) is sharp, the foreground feature - the figure by the drum - is sharp, and there are lead-in lines provided by the concrete steps on the left, the cracks in the ice on the right, and the angles of the boats on either side.  These things, as you point out, aren't crucial but often contribute to producing a pleasant scene as yours shows. Perhaps with your vast photographic experience these features have become second nature to you. I imagine that if the foreground feature was not there that the picture would lose much of its appeal.  Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyoung Posted June 17, 2012 Share #14 Â Posted June 17, 2012 We most often judge a lens by its performance at or near full aperture, but often the smallest apertures are needed for dof. The Super Angulons I used on 5x4 spent most of their time on f/22 or 32 more or less but they were f5.6 to start with. I wonder which wides for M perform best at f/16, presumably the 21 Super Elmar or the Voigtlander might do best? Â Gerry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted June 17, 2012 Share #15  Posted June 17, 2012 We most often judge a lens by its performance at or near full aperture, but often the smallest apertures are needed for dof. The Super Angulons I used on 5x4 spent most of their time on f/22 or 32 more or less but they were f5.6 to start with. I wonder which wides for M perform best at f/16, presumably the 21 Super Elmar or the Voigtlander might do best? Gerry  You can stop a large format lens down to f/32 or 45 because it is not much bothered by diffraction at those stops. Diffraction increases with a diminishing diameter of the light opening in absolute terms (millimeters) and not in relative ones (f-stops). The more you stop down, the more diffraction you have. Compare the diaphragm opening diameter of a 4x5" lens at f/32 with that of a 35mm lens at f/8.  With a modern Leica lens that is highly corrected for the common lens aberrations (which mostly diminish with stopping down) definition in the plane of focus begins to be adversely affected by diffraction already at f/8, in some cases even earlier. So unless you have a need for extreme d.o.f., it is generally not a good idea to stop down further than f/8. At f/16 you will usually see a visibly lower contrast and sharpness of fine detail, more so with the short lenses than with the longer, because the f/16 aperture of a 21mm lens is physically smaller than that of a 135mm optic.  And as diffraction depends solely on the physical (quantum) nature of light and the actual diameter of the diaphragm opening, no brand or model of lens will be more or less affected by it.  The old man from the Kodachrome Age Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lars_bergquist Posted June 17, 2012 Share #16  Posted June 17, 2012 Lars, I have to poke a little gentle fun and note that in the excellent example of landscape photography you have kindly posted everything (to my eye) is sharp, the foreground feature - the figure by the drum - is sharp, and there are lead-in lines provided by the concrete steps on the left, the cracks in the ice on the right, and the angles of the boats on either side.  Pete, I put this picture in for light relief. The fact is that I couldn't stop the Super-Elmar down further than that (5.6 I seem to remember). And as you may remember, I have written at other times about alternatives to the 'Renaissance' central composition, especially when using superwide lenses. Believe me, a 1930's to 1940's exhibition jury would have thrown a collective fit at the sight of that picture. "Unnatural perspective!" they would have howled. "The eyes do not see that way!" Indeed.  The Aged and Kodachromed man Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyoung Posted June 17, 2012 Share #17 Â Posted June 17, 2012 Thanks Lars, I generally don't use less than f/8, occasionally 11 Â Gerry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
farnz Posted June 17, 2012 Share #18 Â Posted June 17, 2012 ... Believe me, a 1930's to 1940's exhibition jury would have thrown a collective fit at the sight of that picture. "Unnatural perspective!" they would have howled. "The eyes do not see that way!" Indeed. A fat, juicy raspberry to the 1930's to 1940's exhibition jury, I say! Â Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
01af Posted June 17, 2012 Share #19  Posted June 17, 2012 So unless you have a need for extreme depth-of-field, it is generally not a good idea to stop down further than f/8. That's right.   At f/16 you will usually see a visibly lower contrast and sharpness of fine detail ... Yes.   ... more so with the short lenses than with the longer, because the f/16 aperture of a 21 mm lens is physically smaller than that of a 135 mm optic. No.   And as diffraction depends solely on [...] and the actual diameter of the diaphragm opening ... Not so fast.  While diffraction as such indeed depends on the absolute aperture, the loss of resolution caused by diffraction (a.k.a. diffraction blur) does not. Instead, for a given film or sensor format at or near infinity focus, the latter depends on relative aperture. So for a 35-mm-format Leica M camera, for example, the diffraction blur at f/16 will always be the same for all lenses, no matter if it's f/16 on a 21 mm or f/16 on a 135 mm lens. Diffraction blur also depends on format, so for a 4 × 5 inch view camera, diffraction blur at f/64 will be comparable to diffraction blur at f/16 on a 35-mm-format camera—no matter whether you're using a 47 mm super-wide, 150 mm standard, or 350 mm portrait telephoto lens. So please do not confuse diffraction and diffraction blur!  Regarding the original question—always focus on the main object of interest, then stop down as far as needed (but no further). If sharpness at infinity is important for your composition then by all means focus at infinity; do not rely on hyperfocal focusing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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