Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: lostlandscapes on November 20, 2008, 08:19:12 pm
-
Here's a very basic question, but one I've been curious about for a while. How do you focus for your landscape shots? I always focus on a single element in the frame (on the subject, or whatever I would prefer to be in focus), using the center auto-focusing point. Is this normal/smart/wise? Does it depend on the type of shot and aperture you're using?
(I'm not really concerned with hyperfocal distance, or *where* you focus, but just your method)
THanks!
-
I use live view. Get what you have to have in focus in focus and then stop down to get whatever else you need.
-
" How do you focus for landscape shots?"
CAREFULLY
-
There is a very good article here on LL about it - can't remember the title, but it was "focusing in the digital age" or something along those lines.
-
Same as DarkPenguin. Live View is a terrific focussing tool. I have a Canon 450D - you can zoom in 5x or 10x on whatever you want to have in focus, and the great thing is, the mirror's already up. So if you take the shot with a cable release, you really have zero vibration!
Also, this is especially handy if you take wide angle shots, because autofocus is not very accurate and with modern zoom lenses the old technique of zoom in - focus - zoom out and reframe - doesn't work anymore. The focus shifts when you zoom out. Live View to the rescue.
Gerard Kingma
www.kingma.nu (http://www.kingma.nu)
-
I also use LiveView when shooting from a tripod. The 100% zoom and excellent LCD on the D300 make judging critical focus much easier when manual focusing; and the contrast-based AF is very accurate (if slow). I also like that LiveView AF lets you focus on any portion of the image rather than being limited to where the AF sensors are located.
-
Manually using the viewfinder, I see no use for af for landscapes it is more hassle than it is worth. I don't use live view unless I need very high focus accuracy because it is slow to use.
I am used to MF and LF cameras though.
-
Hi Mark. Can you explain this a little bit? I'm curious how AF is a hassle for landscapes.
-
I am on the same line as markL. I always use manual focus (well some times for laziness I make the first focusing in auto).
The main reason for me is that the focusing points (marks ?) are almost never where you need them (it could be a murphy's law), and need to wear glasses to use liveview.
-
Makes sense, but why not focus with center point, lets say on a shrub in the foreground, and then recompose (re-frame) and shoot? Don't you get the same result doing that as you would manually focusing on that shrub? Or is it that you don't trust auto-focus?
(again, i'm not trying to argumentative or anything i'm just trying to understand)
-
Makes sense, but why not focus with center point, lets say on a shrub in the foreground, and then recompose (re-frame) and shoot? Don't you get the same result doing that as you would manually focusing on that shrub? Or is it that you don't trust auto-focus?
(again, i'm not trying to argumentative or anything i'm just trying to understand)
Too complicated!
Autofocus is simply redundant for landscape photos, as the landscape surely isn't going anywhere. I have the lens set to manual focus so it doesn't try to refocus on me. I always shoot on a tripod, and usually do a quick 'rough focus', then take my time to compose the photo. Then I focus at the correct point for the scene manually. I guess I'm too old fashioned to use the live view on the LCD; instead I just make sure everything's in focus using the depth of field preview button. For wide angle shots sometimes I don't trust my eyes, and I'll use a depth of field program on my Palm computer to get the hyperfocal distance if there's something important in the foreground.
-
[quote name='lostlandscapes' date='Nov 22 2008, 06:50 PM' post='238841']
Makes sense, but why not focus with center point, lets say on a shrub in the foreground, and then recompose ................
Mainly because all the lenses I have (15 more or less bought along 27 years) have different ways to switch to manual focus (or are MF), so I usually forget about it after the first switch. Recently I took some pictures without the tripod (did not last a lot) in that case I found that AF could be useful but only with wave*something lenses, however since I not in sports, I have found that in that case, as Geoff pointed out, hyperfocal still has some points against AF even in term of speed :-D, unfortunately, it is getting to much complicated to use given the total absence of marks on the ( even not so recent) AF lenses.
-
I can usually focus more accurately manually with my 5D (sometimes) and Mamiya AFDII(always)
I find the object I want to focus on and manually focus, then use the military artillery method of over, under, on
I focus a bit off in one direction then a bit off in the other direction then set the focus ring to the center of the 2 out of focus positions
When compared on the computer at 100% this method consistently beats auto-focus. Don't know why.
Marc
-
Manually, for the reasons already stated.
If all i have along is a "bridge" style camera, then liveview, lock, reframe.
-
Makes sense, but why not focus with center point, lets say on a shrub in the foreground, and then recompose (re-frame) and shoot? Don't you get the same result doing that as you would manually focusing on that shrub? Or is it that you don't trust auto-focus?
(again, i'm not trying to argumentative or anything i'm just trying to understand)
Why Focus, Recompose Sucks (http://visual-vacations.com/Photography/focus-recompose_sucks.htm)
-
Makes sense, but why not focus with center point, lets say on a shrub in the foreground, and then recompose (re-frame) and shoot? Don't you get the same result doing that as you would manually focusing on that shrub? Or is it that you don't trust auto-focus?
(again, i'm not trying to argumentative or anything i'm just trying to understand)
With the camera on a tripod and composition set, moving it to af on something and them moving it back is a pain and much much slower than just turning the focusing ring watching the focus point change. The alternative is moving the af point around in the frame which takes even longer. ALso, on my D700 if I'm using live view the contrast detect af is very poor! There may also not always be something at the exact distance you want to focus on so the af will fail to lock.
I only ever use af if I will not being able to focus manually in time, there really is no other reason to use it (unless you have dodgy eyes or awful viewfinder).
-
Most of the points made against AF seem to be in regards to traditional AF, but with LiveView it's really different. You can focus anywhere on screen you want, even zoomed in at 100% pixels level. I find precise focusing easier with LV AF for some of my lenses, because the manual focus on some AF lenses leaves much to be desired (very short travel from a meter or two all the away to infinity, because they're optimized for fast AF).
I don't understand the comment about needing glasses for LV, I would think that a zoomed in LV would be much easier to see than the viewfinder.
Focusing through the viewfinder just isn't an option for me on a DX camera, it's impossible to judge critical focus and I don't think I could do much better with a full 35mm viewfinder. I'm sure it's different with MF and LF though.
-
I don't understand the comment about needing glasses for LV, I would think that a zoomed in LV would be much easier to see than the viewfinder.
The LCD doesn't have a diopter adjustment.
-
Thanks for all the replies. I've learned quite a bit from this. On to manual focus!
-
Thanks for all the replies. I've learned quite a bit from this. On to manual focus!
It would appear that most of the answers are based on digital photography. Since I use a 6 x 9 my method is a bit different. However, most are probably not interested in film camera with LF lenses. I will tell you that the AF on most digital cameras is pretty much worthless and if you want really well composed shots you will use manual focusing possibly (depending on your needs) choosing a wide depth of field. Good luck.
-
On my 5D, manual focus: viewfinder for composition and rough focus, then angle finder at full magnification for fine focus (accompanied by jaw clenching, teeth gritting, squinting and general muttering).
-
The LCD doesn't have a diopter adjustment.
On the other hand, the spectacles you might need to view the LCD screen are also useful for all the other adjustments and controls on the camera body, as well as being useful for reviewing the image you've just shot.
Since I'm one of those who needs specatcles for normal reading distances, I find I'm continually putting on, and taking off, my glasses when out shooting.
I think that generally, manual focussing is only justified when using wide apertures with a lens that you know is not particularly accurate with its autofocussing. Most (or a good many) landscape shots are probably taken with a view to achieving maximum DoF without too much compromise of resolution. In such circumstances, I see little point in trying to be ultra-accurate by using manual focussing.
Jonathan Wienke's point about the recomposing technique throwing off the original foussing to some small degree, when using a single, central focussing square in the viewfinder, is a problem only when using wide apertures at close distances.
-
A small point which is slightly off topic, but not too much I hope. I have a D200 and I'm constantly annoyed by the 3-position focus mode selector switch adjacent to the lens mount. This is horribly sloppy and actually seems to have positions where it has been moved but not quite activating the selection - which for me is usually between the "M" and "S" modes. It's always been this way and I have no idea whether it's a design fault or a one-off with my own example. I waste quite a bit of time rechecking it.
-
I use a ground glass and a loupe. With dSLR's I use manual focus, with help from live view. I've found that the focus and recompose method is less convenient as well as less precise, so I prefer manual focus for the most part. I do that for macros as well.
-
My eyes are not what they used to be. MR suggested that I use autofocus rather than manual focus. But if you want maximum front to back clarity, you'd set a small aperture and would you set your lense to infinity, or focus on something at the minimum hyperfocus point? What if you are using a medium zoom, like a 70-200mm, would you do anything different? What has anybody found with a Canon Mark III is the smallest aperture you'd risk using to avoid diffraction? F/22?
-
My eyes are not what they used to be. MR suggested that I use autofocus rather than manual focus. But if you want maximum front to back clarity, you'd set a small aperture and would you set your lense to infinity, or focus on something at the minimum hyperfocus point? What if you are using a medium zoom, like a 70-200mm, would you do anything different? What has anybody found with a Canon Mark III is the smallest aperture you'd risk using to avoid diffraction? F/22?
If you focus at infinity, the foreground will be soft. If you focus at the minimum hyperfocal distance, the foreground will be (reasonably) sharp.
The only thing that differs based on the lens is how wide a field you can get with hyperfocus. If you have a camera with live view, use that and magnify the image to check your focus; it's like having a built-in loupe. You'll never get it perfectly sharp, of course; for that you need tilts and such, so you have to pick and choose where you're going to compromise on sharpness. In most cases with landscape images, if the foreground is soft, the image will look out of focus, but if the foreground is sharp, the image will look sharp even if the stuff in the background is soft, as long as it's not egregious.
-
I've found, though, that it is better to focus on something not expected or atypical if you can in the mid-distance(say a tree or a rock or something so that there's a bit of bokeh (eeensy bit) in the distance. That way, it looks a bit more like a painting and a little less like a sterile print. It also hides some of the pixelation/makes it look a bit more film-like. As you can imagine the AF hates landscapes like this, so I turn it off almost all of the time.
If your eyes are getting older, a quick trick do do this is to set it to infinity and ever so slightly nudge the focusing ring a millimeter or two back to soften the extreme distance. I kind of wish there was some sort of manual stop/peg that the focusing ring could be set to not go past(so it would always be a tiny bit off from infinity), but I don't know of any gizmo like this.
-
Hi,
Depth of fields scales are calculated for a pretty tolerant level of unsharpness. I would recommend using marking for f/8 when stopping down to f/16.
Erik
I can't remember the last time I set focus by focusing on a particular element within a scene; I simply don't do it. Typically I'll decide on the nearest and furthest points that I want to be in focus and use the comprehensive scale on my lenses to set focus accordingly.
The problem with most autofocus and zoom autofocus lenses is that they are extremely short throw barrels with little or no DOF information and are therefore pretty much crap for landscape work.
-
Hi,
There is no magick, depth of field is limited. I'd suggest that we can use autofocus on something far away but not infinity. Regarding diffraction you loose sharpness once you go beyond f/16. There is loss of sharpness beyond f/11 on any lens that deserves to be put on a DSLR but I would suggest that f/16 is still OK in most cases.
I would also suggest that it is better to have either foreground or background sharp then evrything soft.
Best regards
Erik
My eyes are not what they used to be. MR suggested that I use autofocus rather than manual focus. But if you want maximum front to back clarity, you'd set a small aperture and would you set your lense to infinity, or focus on something at the minimum hyperfocus point? What if you are using a medium zoom, like a 70-200mm, would you do anything different? What has anybody found with a Canon Mark III is the smallest aperture you'd risk using to avoid diffraction? F/22?
-
Hi,
Diffraction is just a law of physics. The reason that diffraction matters less with larger formats is AFAIK twofold:
1) Enlargement is less if same printing size is assumed
2) By and large large format lenses are less sharp than smaller format lenses
Erik
I always allow 2 stops.
Diffraction is far less of a problem when using larger formats.
-
Personally. I either
1. Manually focus using live view and 10x zoom, including DoF preview. I use this a lot on the tilt/shift lenses, which are my main landscape lens. The focus confirmation helps here also.
2. Focus off something in the scence at appropriate distance (Either autofocus, or manual using focus confirmation), then check the scale on lens just to make sure of DoF
Regarding Diffraction, it is a strange beast. Been doing some research on this latley.
On my 1dsmkIII, anything beyond f10, will suffer from diffraction limiting the effective resolution. This is a law of the physics of light pretty much.
In my research on the net and some testing, I concluded that when the size of the airy disk gets bigger than twice the size of a pixel, (twice is an accepted value, on a bayer array), then detail will be lost due to diffraction.
This has nothing to do with print sizes, circles of confusion etc, I'm just refering to CAPTURE resolution and amount of detail captured in a shot.
When using the scale on the lens to set the DoF (effectivley, focusing a the Hyperfocal distance), it is a good idea to use an appeture a stop lower than what you are shooting, as these scales are overly optimistic in what is 'acceptably sharp'.
For the mathamatically inclined, A good site to play with the number is Cambridge Color. http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials...-calculator.htm (http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/DOF-calculator.htm)
Try changing the setting from 'manufacturers standard' to 20/20 Vision. The distances change considerably !.
Mark.
-
I use several techniques depending on the situation. I always try to use autofocus first. I'll set the focus point where it needs to be, then press the shutter halfway to gain focus. If whatever element I need in focus doesn't happen to fall on an autofocus point I'll either resort to manual focus and Live View or, with the camera on my tripod, tip the tripod to angle such that the focus point is on the right element, press the shutter half way to achieve focus, reset the tripod and then make the exposure. It usually works pretty well.