[carlosodze]

hello, i would like to know what's your landscape technique when you want everything in sharp focus, i am just famiiar with the hyperfocal distance concept but i had read that using it doest give you the same sharpnes level in the background as infinity focus. (and i know that infinity focus doesnt give you sharp foreground), so... what to do?

I am considering (and will try soon) using layers in photoshop with a photo taked at infinity and another at the hyperfocal distance, (using the foreground of one and the background of another, i.e image stacking),

thanks for you opinions.

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Last edited by carlosodze; 06-21-2014 at 05:15 PM.

[mikeSF]

both you mentioned and a few others are valid techniques for landscape focusing.
personally, I never ever use infinity focus except maybe for astrophotography (and even then, i dont peg the ring assuming it is at infinity, i do careful trial and error to confirm location of best sharpness)
Anyway, i use hyperfocal for confirming adequate aperture selection and then find a point of focus within the field that represents the best balance of foreground and distant objects. occasionally i dont mind blurring the background to isolate a compositional element that is closer. no real rules here...well except to not use infinity, lol.
practice and you will find your groove for focusing. good luck!

[stevebrot]

Make sure that the foreground elements of interest are in focus. The eye (brain) expects this and will even forgive a less-than-perfect background if the important foreground.


Steve

[Adam]

hello, i would like to know what's your landscape technique when you want everything in sharp focus, i am just famiiar with the hyperfocal distance concept but i had read that using it doest give you the same sharpnes level in the background as infinity focus. (and i know that infinity focus doesnt give you sharp foreground), so... what to do?

I am considering (and will try soon) using layers in photoshop with a photo taked at infinity and another at the hyperfocal distance, (using the foreground of one and the background of another, i.e image stacking),

thanks for you opinions.

One good technique is to fine-tune the focus setting in live view. Zoom in to the image and adjust the focus until the details are their sharpest

Adam
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[Na Horuk]

Depends on what you want to achieve and what lens you have. A good 14mm lens will have a large DoF, so you waste it by focusing on inf. If you use a 100mm for landscape, then you will be focusing around infinity anyway.
It also depends on the scene, what you want to achieve. Does that log in front of you have to be in focus, or the mountains at the horizon? Will the log be distracting if its out of focus? Will people notice if the mountains are not perfectly sharp? Will the atmospheric interference prevent perfectly sharp photos of those mountains anyway?
Also, keep in mind that hyperfocal might no longer be useful. Here is why. First of all, most lenses don't have DoF scales anymore and some have miscalibrated distance scales. Secondly, hyperfocal (and zone focusing itself) was created back in the film days, to give you "acceptably sharp" photos. Film had different properties from modern digital sensors, and what is "acceptably sharp" is also debatable. Some people use one stop lower aperture when using zone focusing with crop sensor cameras (so Av mode at f8, but you zone focus as if you have f5.6). Then there is the problem of diffraction - you can go to f22 on your lens, but the image quality will suffer. Everything will be "in focus", but it will also be fuzzy. On modern crop sensor cameras, people prefer to stay under f14, around f8 if possible. Finally, modern cameras have a very high pixel density/resolution. This means that lenses need to be sharper than ever, but it also means that "critical focus" is becoming more difficult. Even things like handshake blur now pose a bigger problem. Zone focusing is just not as reliable as it used to be - unless you figure out your own distances per aperture, for your specific camera and lens. I think some photographers do this, they take photos and then mark their personal "hyperfocal" for a certain aperture on the lens focus ring.

So for sharp landscapes.. use a nice tripod, lens hood, polarizer (but not on ultra-wides), 2 sec timer and remote release, focus your lens manually, use DoF preview, use focus peaking and any other tool you need to get the photo you want. (unfortunately, focus peaking is kind of useless with UWA lenses, but it helps me a lot with infinity focus with my 58mm f2.0 lens) Feel free to take more than one photo with different focus. And then also post process the photo, adding sharpness if you need to. Those "pro landscape photos" that you see? They were worked on for quite some time, with different sharpening techniques and programs to get the photos to look so good, to make the look better than real life. Focus stacking, what you mentioned in OP, is also a good idea, but is usually mainly used for macro work. The problem with stacking photos in landscapes is that things move - trees, branches, animals, people, water, clouds.. this is also a problem for exposure bracketing / HDR.

[Imageman]

I think theres a slight misunderstanding.


No lens can have everything in sharp focus. There is a single plane of focus and everything else forward and rear of that plane is out of focus to some degree.


The focus point is in sharpest focus and everything further away from that point is less and less sharp the further you go away from it.


At the widest aperture is the least sharp focus, and then focus improves the more you stop the lens down.


Different lenses behave differently some will resolve their best around 2 stops below maximum aperture and many others continue to sharpen up as you stop down towards f8.


After f11 diffraction effects due to the aperture behaving like a pinhole may reduce sharpness, on some lenses this effect is not noticeable.


With regard to depth of field a small aperture like f11 yields broad depth of field and this effect can be used in hyperfocal technique, but its important to realise that within the depth of field band focus becomes less and less distinct the further away from the focus point you move.


This is because the depth of field markings suggest only where "acceptable" sharpness can be found, and whos to say what is or is not acceptably sharp.


In other words, if you set f11 and place the f11 depth of field mark against infinity such that the other f11 depth of field mark falls close to the camera, most of the scene will be out of focus when viewed critically at high magnification and only a small band close to the focus point will be judged as sharp.


For critical hyperfocus work towards infinity, when you set f11, use a smaller band such as the f5.6 marks or the f8 marks this can reduce obvious focus issues at the edges of the depth of field area created by the hyperfocus technique. All your really doing though is shifting the depth of field band around in the scene your not in any way improving the actual focus.


The remedy is as has been said, to use a wide angle lens with greater depth of field.


This issue of taking landscape images with all areas in focus can only be resolved with a field camera with movements that can tilt the plane of focus.


A tilted plane of focus can be made to run from foreground to infinity thus rendering total focus front to back in the scene. That's why theyr still in use today for landscapes.


My own approach is to examine the scene, and if there is detail I wish to have in focus from close by to infinity, and the lens depth of field scale would offer me that breadth at f8, I would use f11 instead, then split the depth of field so its closer to me than the closest detail and ranges beyond infinity. This gives the best focus covering the detail to be captured. The ISO and shutterspeed must take second place to the aperture, to ensure the correct aperture is available.

[stevebrot]

This issue of taking landscape images with all areas in focus can only be resolved with a field camera with movements that can tilt the plane of focus.

I understand what you are wanting to say. A view camera, of which field camera is a type, may often be used for near-far focus with good success. There are limits however, as well as side-effects, but if you want near-far a camera with the right movements can help make it possible.

That being said the camera doesn't actually tilt the plane of focus per se. That remains parallel to the lens plane for a subject plane that is also parallel (the normal case). What it does allow is placement of the lens plane at an angle to the subject plane with placement of the image plane complementary to the subject plane. It is hard to explain in a few words, but actually fairly easy in practice. The side-effects include possible distortion of perspective. The reader can Google "Scheimpflug" for enough detail to make your head hurt.

With digital images, the problem may be approachable with a narrow aperture and image stacking. As for wide angles and DOF...For a given degree of magnification and absolute aperture the DOF is the same as for any other lens. The apparent near-far sharpness of a wide angle is due to low magnification and comes at the price of everything in the background being tiny, tiny, tiny in a near-far scenario.


Steve

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Last edited by stevebrot; 06-23-2014 at 06:38 PM.

[wombat2go]

Scale focussing for mid-range land-scapes on medium format?

This photo was focussed by setting the scale to 5.5 metre,
which is what I estimated as the distance to the 4th rearmost palings of the bridge rear frame.
(I use imaginary body flips of me to the distance, assuming I am 2 metre tall which I am not quite.)

https://app.box.com/s/s68k5k3nhdcvz07ak2kl

The lens was the Takumar 6x7 90mm at f/16, and accurately perpendicular to the film back.
on 18 inch, 450mm wide (22 monitor) , the image is fairly sharp from fore to aft, as are the paper prints.
zooming to about 36 inch, 900 mm image width, the front and rear dof starts to become visible as does the grain of the Fuji 160.

[Imageman]

Hi Stevebrot


I don't believe we are in disagreement, I say a field camera which is a hand holdable version of a view camera for use in the field that has front movements and rear movements, does in fact tilt the plane of focus.


The lens is fixed to the front standard, the plane of focus is parallel to the lens, and so the plane of focus is parallel to the front standard, and if that moves the plane of focus moves with it, they'r inseperable.


You can tilt the front standard on a field camera, the lens tilts with the front standard, the plane of focus tilts with the lens and front standard when it tilts.


Therefore with the field or view camera, you can tilt the plane of focus. I don't see an issue with stating this.


Tilt the front standard, lens tilts, plane of focus tilts.


The subject may or may not have a plane, a ball for example has no plane, tilt the plane of focus by tilting the front standard and there is little or no change in the subject in terms of focus. if the subject is a wall, that has a plane, and tilting the plane of focus allows changing focus effects whereby the wall may be entirely in focus or the plane of focus cuts the wall obliquely or less obliquely, couple that with aperture changes and a range of effects can be portrayed, depicting different portions of the wall in and out of focus


A flight of steps has a raking plane to it and tilting the front standard allows the plane of focus to be tilted to match exactly the plane of the steps. Now we begin to see a real world application of this tilting plane of focus. set a modest aperture of f6.4 and a band of sharpness can sit on the flight of steps running up it and parallel to it, allowing all of the steps front to back and any object on the steps to be sharply in focus.


The attached image is an Ansell Adams work, the scene is totally in focus from the photographers feet all the way to the hills and clouds at infinity. This was almost certainly created using a tilted plane of focus similar to the flight of steps example. This image does indeed show that the plane of focus is complementary to the subject plane, and it also shows some perspective distortion as you describe.


I know you understand completely what I am describing steve, I am simply trying to show that we are not in disagreement here but talking of the same thing from a different perspective.

[Na Horuk]

haha but wait guys, I think tilt lenses are not really part of this thread. The OP didn't ask about them and they really complicate things. Also, there are very few tilt lenses available for Pentax (and they all cost a little fortune).

[Imageman]

The op spoke about total focus in landscapes and tilt is the only way you achieve that unless you image stack.


Quote "i would like to know what's your landscape technique when you want everything in sharp focus"


The last post about tilting the plane of focus was in response to earlier comments about it, so I believe its still on topic. Only as a side issue however that hopefully is now dealt with.

[Na Horuk]

You are perfectly right, but hyperfocal and zone focusing can be confusing enough, adding tilt to the equation.. I merely didn't want the discussion to become overwhelming No offense meant to anyone

[wildman]

I merely didn't want the discussion to become overwhelming

A laudable goal...
...and all the guy wanted was a reasonably sharp shot with his modest little k30.
A tripod mounted view camera with full movement? That isn't overwhelming it's simply irrelevant.

[Imageman]

Guys,


The op asked how to achieve total focus front to back in an image, this is impossible, but you can have acceptable sharpness front to back using hyperfocal technique, and I explained my view on that.


The only way total focus front to back can be achieved is by view camera, so I put in 2 sentences mentioning that's how its done, for completeness. Of course its irrelevant which is why I only spent 2 sentences out of 20 mentioning it in passing.


I was then taken to task about it because of my incomplete description of what was to me an irrelevant topic.


So reluctantly and for completeness having been taken to task over an incomplete description of view camera lens tilt, I explained view camera lens tilt more fully, and now I find I am taken to task for explaining it more fully.


Whats wanted here, when I go for staying on topic and explaining less off topic that's not good enough, but when I explain more fully off topic that's not good enough either. Im not looking for an argument here, im simply trying to answer a question.

[stevebrot]

haha but wait guys, I think tilt lenses are not really part of this thread. The OP didn't ask about them and they really complicate things.

Mea culpa! Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!!!

I did assist in the thread hijack!!! But I also added that the OPs proposed solution (focus stacking) was a good solution.


Steve