kdawg
Staff member
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- Jun 25, 2003
It all sort of depends on what you are shooting and how far or close you are. You can shoot landscapes from a far using zooms but I would say majority like to shoot wide and be up close. You can always shoot panoramic as well if you don't have the right lens to cover your landscape. A tripod is an absolute must imo. As far as subject matter, that also depends on what you are shooting. There are times where you might be so close to your foreground that you might not be able to get everything sharp in focus with the foreground and background and even at a smaller aperture like f/22. That is where you focus stack where you take a pic of the foreground and background in 2 separate pictures and blend them in as one.
Usually the rule of thumb though is to shoot with lowest ISO and at about f/12-f/22 to get everything in focus. Of course if there is no light, you will have to change your setting accordingly. Also your settings depend on if you want to do a long exposure or a freeze frame. There are a lot of variables to landscapes but once you shoot all types of things, it gets easy. For example, star photos is usually shooting with your f-stop really open with your ISO at 3200 where as say shooting a waterfall is a low ISO with a more closed f-stop.
Sorry, I disagree with some of that.
Lowest ISO is definitely right - but I don't agree with the f-stop. If you're at the smaller end you'll get so much diffraction that it will ruin the sharpness. You will get better results from most lenses at around f/8-f/10.
I wouldn't focus stack either unless it's super critical - hyperfocal focus will give almost the same result with one exposure - the whole point of that is that everything will be sharp enough that it doesn't matter (as there are limits on what matters even for big prints).
Beyond that choosing the focal length is generally about what you want to fit in the scene - but a little about how you want it to look too. I've got a picture I've been looking at recently which is nicely composed, well exposed and perfectly sharp throughout the scene - but it bothers me and I think it's because if I'd been further back with a longer lens it would have compressed the scene giving a nicer effect. A longer lens compresses the distances so they don't look so far apart - it's a bit unusual but longer lens landscapes can be interesting.
The other advantage of hyperfocal focus is that it simplifies the process. My favorite landscape lens is usually my 17-50 and at f/8 for 17mm the hyperfocal distance is 2m - so I can leave it set at that all day and all I have to do is adjust the shutter to allow for the light conditions. I can go out all day and not adjust it.
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