I am at the point in my obsession that I can quickly see the mistakes I made after reviewing the images. One thing that stands out for me is my seeming inablility to get reasonable sharpness from front to back in my images.
I have read about Hyperfocal Distance, but I have not really tried to implement that yet. Most of my images are shot very early or very late in low light. So using the DOF preview button on my camera does not help as the image is usally too dark to see if I have even focused correctly.
I have a Canon 40D and using the LiveView function seems to help with focusing on an area in the shot but as I understand it this would always be focused at the widest apeture on the lens and the stopping down occurs.
How do you folks get reasonable capture sharpness from front to back in your landscape shots. Should I be bringing a tape measure with me each time and trying to nail Hyperfocal Distances?
I don't worry about hyperfocal distances really. If a deep DOF is what I want, like a waterfall shot for instance, I usually stop down to at least f/8 and try not to go past f/16 or so if I can help it. I do worry about diffraction but an in focus photo is way more important than diffraction. Of course the wider the lens the easier deep DOF is and focusing near infinity will help.
No way I am dragging a tape measure around. I don't know how much help this is. Maybe if I saw a few of your problem images I could give some better advice. Feel free to email a couple if you want. Mattken85@yahoo.com
Hey Bob, the hpyerfocus charts were made up for 35mm film and 8x10 prints - digital resolution is far ahead of the old film and so the results are not the same, especially if you want to make prints larger than 8x10. There are digital versions online but they are not really all that accurate.
There is really only a single plane that is in sharp focus in any photograph no matter how much you are stopped down - the rest of the image is just differing degrees of being out of focus, and how much of it is "acceptable" really depends on many factors, hence the reason that using hyperfocus is not the end-all answer. The nature of the beast is that as you stop the lens down the focus comes towards you from the point of focus somewhat while going away from you a lot more.
To use hyperfocus you focus closer than you would think since the "acceptable" focus extends a lot more behind than it does in front of the focus point (most folks try to focus close to infinity and that does not work if you have items in the foreground that you want in focus). A general rule is to focus 1/3 into the scene, although this would not work with close objects. An example - if you are looking at a scene where you have near objects three feet away from you and also all the way out to infinity, you would want to focus much closer to the near object than you would to infinity. In fact what hyperfocus means in this case would be to focus at six feet, then the "acceptable" focus would come back towards you 1/2 that distance - three feet - but also extend to infinity. In practice this really does not work with high-res digital and/or larger prints, but that is how you do it. The key is to select an f-stop and lens combination that will get you this without having to stop down to f32 - by looking at a hyperfocus chart (in this case either a 28mm lens at f16 or 24mm lens at f11) - the wider the lens the more you will have in focus at any given fstop) - this info is marked on some lenses too (used to be on all lenses) so you would not need the chart, but again, it is all guesswork anyway so no need for a tape measure. If I use hyperfocus what I do is set up the scene and the lens and focus just the way it says to, let's say the focus point is that same six feet at f11 (with a 24mm lens). I would then stop down an extra stop to f16 to increase my "acceptable" focus closer to me and also far away. Hyperfocus is of little use on normal and longer focal length lenses - you are really only talking about wide angle lenses here. Should be clear as mud, but in practice it is really easy once you get the hang of it - but again, not all that accurate anymore with high-res digital and big prints.
A much better way to get everything in focus is to use the "blended or bracketed focus" method that I teach (and will be included on my DVD tutorial that I hope to finally get to this next month or two now that our three book projects are in the can). There are at least three ways of achieving this, including manual blending, using the "auto align" and "auto blend" modes in CS4, or by using Helicon Focus (I've used this program for a many years on macros but it is now getting pretty good with landscapes too). Doing it this way allows you to use the best f-stop for optimum lens quality (you learned in the workshop which is the best f-stop to use) and still get everything in focus (shoot multiple images with different parts of the scene in focus, then blend the in-focus parts together for a final image). Some scenes are much easier to blend than others, and some scenes are nearly impossible to do. The key to any of these methods is that you must bracket your focus points while in the field - no way to do this later with a single image.
A final method is to use tilt-shift lenses, but they are difficult to get used to, can be slow to use, and are still limited in their use, especially in a forest environment like we have around here - they work GREAT out on the prairies though!
By the way, the wider angle lens you use the more you get in "acceptable" focus at the same fstop, and the smaller the sensor you use the shorter (wider) focal length lens you use to get the same field of view, so by using a point and shoot camera you can get much greater depth of focus, often from less than a foot away from the front of the lens to infinity at f8. The larger the sensor the smaller your depth of field will be at any given lens and fstop and field of view. (a crop camera gives you more depth of field than a fullframe camera does, medium format gives much less - great for portraits but not so great for landscapes).
Posted by Aaron Szabo on August 1, 2009 at 9:35 PM
And after all of that.... Sharp lenses, manual focus using live view, steady tripod, remote release, mirror lockup, reduce chromatic aberrations in RAW (if needed).
One of the worst things about the 40D and all of the EOS-1D models is the screen... All the newer cameras like the D90, D300 D3, D3X, 5D II and 50D have 4 times the monitor resolution (270,000 vs. 920,000 pixels). It's like comparing an old tube tv to a new LCD 1080p tv. What's weird is that a $7000.00 1DS Mark III has the same screen size and resolution of a $600.00 XSI.
One of the most important is the screen, and of course your eyesight.
If you're going to use the hyperfocal method, I'd try out a Laser Rangefinder instead of a measuring tape
Folks,
Thanks for the help....
Tim-I look forward to learning the front to back stich as well as shooting in a vertical mode and stiching those images. Can not wait to help you sell one copy of your DVD series!
Aaron- I do all those things you suggest. I am just not getting everything I want. I have found that LiveView is helpful and as I zoom into the sceen I can pick a spot that I can make razor sharp but in front and behind that ...not so good. I have adequate eqipment because I see images made with lesser quality eqipment than mine everyday that are much sharper throughout the image.
Matt- I will send you a sample image in a day or so so you can see what I mean.
Discussion
4 repliesI have read about Hyperfocal Distance, but I have not really tried to implement that yet. Most of my images are shot very early or very late in low light. So using the DOF preview button on my camera does not help as the image is usally too dark to see if I have even focused correctly.
I have a Canon 40D and using the LiveView function seems to help with focusing on an area in the shot but as I understand it this would always be focused at the widest apeture on the lens and the stopping down occurs.
How do you folks get reasonable capture sharpness from front to back in your landscape shots. Should I be bringing a tape measure with me each time and trying to nail Hyperfocal Distances?
No way I am dragging a tape measure around. I don't know how much help this is. Maybe if I saw a few of your problem images I could give some better advice. Feel free to email a couple if you want. Mattken85@yahoo.com
There is really only a single plane that is in sharp focus in any photograph no matter how much you are stopped down - the rest of the image is just differing degrees of being out of focus, and how much of it is "acceptable" really depends on many factors, hence the reason that using hyperfocus is not the end-all answer. The nature of the beast is that as you stop the lens down the focus comes towards you from the point of focus somewhat while going away from you a lot more.
To use hyperfocus you focus closer than you would think since the "acceptable" focus extends a lot more behind than it does in front of the focus point (most folks try to focus close to infinity and that does not work if you have items in the foreground that you want in focus). A general rule is to focus 1/3 into the scene, although this would not work with close objects. An example - if you are looking at a scene where you have near objects three feet away from you and also all the way out to infinity, you would want to focus much closer to the near object than you would to infinity. In fact what hyperfocus means in this case would be to focus at six feet, then the "acceptable" focus would come back towards you 1/2 that distance - three feet - but also extend to infinity. In practice this really does not work with high-res digital and/or larger prints, but that is how you do it. The key is to select an f-stop and lens combination that will get you this without having to stop down to f32 - by looking at a hyperfocus chart (in this case either a 28mm lens at f16 or 24mm lens at f11) - the wider the lens the more you will have in focus at any given fstop) - this info is marked on some lenses too (used to be on all lenses) so you would not need the chart, but again, it is all guesswork anyway so no need for a tape measure. If I use hyperfocus what I do is set up the scene and the lens and focus just the way it says to, let's say the focus point is that same six feet at f11 (with a 24mm lens). I would then stop down an extra stop to f16 to increase my "acceptable" focus closer to me and also far away. Hyperfocus is of little use on normal and longer focal length lenses - you are really only talking about wide angle lenses here. Should be clear as mud, but in practice it is really easy once you get the hang of it - but again, not all that accurate anymore with high-res digital and big prints.
A much better way to get everything in focus is to use the "blended or bracketed focus" method that I teach (and will be included on my DVD tutorial that I hope to finally get to this next month or two now that our three book projects are in the can). There are at least three ways of achieving this, including manual blending, using the "auto align" and "auto blend" modes in CS4, or by using Helicon Focus (I've used this program for a many years on macros but it is now getting pretty good with landscapes too). Doing it this way allows you to use the best f-stop for optimum lens quality (you learned in the workshop which is the best f-stop to use) and still get everything in focus (shoot multiple images with different parts of the scene in focus, then blend the in-focus parts together for a final image). Some scenes are much easier to blend than others, and some scenes are nearly impossible to do. The key to any of these methods is that you must bracket your focus points while in the field - no way to do this later with a single image.
A final method is to use tilt-shift lenses, but they are difficult to get used to, can be slow to use, and are still limited in their use, especially in a forest environment like we have around here - they work GREAT out on the prairies though!
By the way, the wider angle lens you use the more you get in "acceptable" focus at the same fstop, and the smaller the sensor you use the shorter (wider) focal length lens you use to get the same field of view, so by using a point and shoot camera you can get much greater depth of focus, often from less than a foot away from the front of the lens to infinity at f8. The larger the sensor the smaller your depth of field will be at any given lens and fstop and field of view. (a crop camera gives you more depth of field than a fullframe camera does, medium format gives much less - great for portraits but not so great for landscapes).
One of the worst things about the 40D and all of the EOS-1D models is the screen... All the newer cameras like the D90, D300 D3, D3X, 5D II and 50D have 4 times the monitor resolution (270,000 vs. 920,000 pixels). It's like comparing an old tube tv to a new LCD 1080p tv. What's weird is that a $7000.00 1DS Mark III has the same screen size and resolution of a $600.00 XSI.
One of the most important is the screen, and of course your eyesight.
If you're going to use the hyperfocal method, I'd try out a Laser Rangefinder instead of a measuring tape
Thanks for the help....
Tim-I look forward to learning the front to back stich as well as shooting in a vertical mode and stiching those images. Can not wait to help you sell one copy of your DVD series!
Aaron- I do all those things you suggest. I am just not getting everything I want. I have found that LiveView is helpful and as I zoom into the sceen I can pick a spot that I can make razor sharp but in front and behind that ...not so good. I have adequate eqipment because I see images made with lesser quality eqipment than mine everyday that are much sharper throughout the image.
Matt- I will send you a sample image in a day or so so you can see what I mean.