Focus point for landscape shots

RicardoMilano

New member
Morning,

As a 'default' setting for landscape and streetscape shots, would I use A mode, aperture f11, and single point or multiple point focus?

Many thanks.:courage:
 

Eye-level

Banned
I'd use F8...especially for street shooting and that is assuming your somewhere around 30-50mm...you need to watch what your camera selects in terms of shutter speed too...that way you know how it (the camera) thinks...multi point AF is for if you have 8 kids in the same frame in my book...haha :)
 

Philnz

Senior Member
Morning,

As a 'default' setting for landscape and streetscape shots, would I use A mode, aperture f11, and single point or multiple point focus?

Many thanks.:courage:
"I use single point focus for the situations you mentioned".

Am I missing something here? Would you not use multiple point focus for landscape and streetscape in order to have as much of the frame in focus as possible?
 

RickSawThat

Senior Member
I pick the spot I want to be the center of the focus. I then use the aperture to control the depth of field to make as much or as little focus as I need. In a lot of landscapes you want a lot of depth of field so f/8 or f/11 gets you that as Jeff said.
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
As a rule of thumb, the focus point for landscape shots should be...infinity. If you're focusing on one thing in particular, I'm not sure you get the gist of landscape photography in the first place.
 

Philnz

Senior Member
As a rule of thumb, the focus point for landscape shots should be...infinity. If you're focusing on one thing in particular, I'm not sure you get the gist of landscape photography in the first place.
I agree in the "old days" we always set focus on infinity for landscape. Not sure you can do that with the 5100 so you use a small aperture setting to get DOF.
 

Eye-level

Banned
Many landscape photographers have a cardinal rule of composition concerning landscapes...they tend to concentrate on one small part of the landscape a boulder or tree or some object in the foreground for instance and place the emphasis here. It helps to establish a structure for the picture and helps guide the eye around the landscape. So you have to be careful and use the right focal length and f stop when focusing at infinity if you are composing in this manner.
 
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Eye-level

Banned
It is why landscape and street photography tends to be done with wide angle lenses...

As for the OP...I suppose you could have some sort of "default" personal setting like you suggest but I would say that the angle of the light because of the time of the day and season and location and the lens you are using is WAY more important than any setting...the settings for a good landscape shot are going to be so varied because of the light and the lens used that any default setting sort of becomes a moot point.
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
Am I missing something here? Would you not use multiple point focus for landscape and streetscape in order to have as much of the frame in focus as possible?

I am agreeing with what you said earlier. The point of any "scape" photography is to have everything in the frame in focus, preferably with a wide angle lens. It's good to have a focal point in terms of interest, but choosing a low f-stop to create DoF should be discouraged. Depth should come from the contents of the frame itself.
 

westmill

Banned
As a genral rule of thumb..... a lenses DOF will show one third in front and two thirds behind your focus point !
i use this when i use the hyperfocal distance point for maxermizing front to back sharpness.
Its very handy if you have a lens with a depth of feild scale. Some lenses come with a booklet or paper showing them.
if you are after maximizing your depth of feild, you are waisting two thirds of your available DOF by foccusing on infinity.
Your far better off using manual focus for land scape ( whats the rush lol )
You can actualy buy DOF calculation charts. they are in the form of a cardboard wheel, which you turn to match up Focal lengh
aprature, sensor size. Any budding landscape photographer should learn about using hyperfocal distance points.
Just google it ! Im sure there will be hoards of info and will show everything you need to know.
Although it sounds a little complex, its actualy quite easy once the penny drops.
 

westmill

Banned
There is also a iPhone app called "SimpleDOF" you pick your camera/lens and focal length and distance and it will give you the depth of field. Pretty interesting app
Heyyyy ive heard about that lol. its a brilliant Idea if you have an iphone.
Have you got it ? an if so... does it work well ? Me curiousity is kicking in here lol, sorry :D
 

Eye-level

Banned
I agree with you Westmill...by using the hyperfocal distance one is able to squeeze up to an extra 4 ft of DOF on a 28mm at F8 focusing a little bit behind infinity as opposed to just spinning the ring to infinity.
 

RicardoMilano

New member
Thanks for this discussion and input. May I summarise for my 6 months experience as a DSLR user: for landscape photos, in general, I'll use ISO 100 or 200, and for DOF I'll go for f11-f16. Then the focus point will be one third into the scene. How am I looking?

Many thanks
 

Eye-level

Banned
You may want to try F8 sometimes and you almost always want to set your white balance to flash and you must have a wide angle lens most of the time... :)
 

Mestre

Senior Member
It depends on the focal length but when i shoot landscape i use the hyperfocal rule, which is close to the focus on the first third.
 

westmill

Banned
My phone is just a lowly Nokia E72 lol.
I should have enough experiance to judge faily accurately by now anyway lol.
I wonder if anyone has used one with a degree of success though ?
 
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