How do I get sharp landscape shots?

Hi there,

I'm off on a walking holiday to Switzerland in a few weeks and was after some advice on how to get sharp landscape shots? I have found in the past that my efforts are lacking sharpness from the foreground right through to the background and was wondering how to overcome this?

I'll be using a Canon 20D along with a Sigma 18-50mm 2.8 EX lens on the trip.

Any tips would be much appreciated.

Mark

A tripod and a small aperture. The smaller the aperture the greater the depth of field (foreground focus to background focus) and will make the whole image sharp. The tripod is used because when you shoot small apertures, the shutter speed slows to compensate for the difference in the amount of light coming through the lens. A slower shutter exposes the frame for a longer amount of time and any movement will start to take the edge of the sharpness.

Tripods are also usefull shooting panoramics. Just to remember to set up with the head level so the camera will stay parallel to the horizon making photo stiching much easier.

Hope this helps,

Tim

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Originally Posted by cyberlord

A tripod and a small aperture. The smaller the aperture the greater the depth of field (foreground focus to background focus) and will make the whole image sharp. The tripod is used because when you shoot small apertures, the shutter speed slows to compensate for the difference in the amount of light coming through the lens. A slower shutter exposes the frame for a longer amount of time and any movement will start to take the edge of the sharpness.

Tripods are also usefull shooting panoramics. Just to remember to set up with the head level so the camera will stay parallel to the horizon making photo stiching much easier.

Hope this helps,

Tim

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Tim, do you set your camera to manual with the landscape shots or shutter controlled shots?

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Originally Posted by photofun

Tim, do you set your camera to manual with the landscape shots or shutter controlled shots?

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I don't know about Tim but my camera lives in the aperture-priority mode. I jest check in the view finder or on the LCD on the camera to see what the shutter speed is, then adjust the ISO or aperture to keep the shutter speed up.

I'm usually using manual mode and a spot meter for stuff like this, but of course it doesn't affect the sharpness. A sturdy tripod and good technique are needed for sharp images. By good technique, that means not using the shutter release (use a cable release or self timer instead so the camera doesn't move when shooting) and usually you would want to avoid the 1/8 to 1/30 shutter speeds which seem to have more problems than others (faster and slower) even though you're on a sturdy tripod. If the tripod is on snow, sand or anything else not very sturdy, push it down or weight it down to keep it solid.

A small aperture (higher "f" number) will give you more depth of field, but don't close down too far. Most lenses start losing sharpness at their smallest aperture, or even one stop away from it. Try to stick to something more like f8 or f11 if you can - as long as it gives you enough depth of field.

A lot of the really great landscape prints that you see have had some expert Photoshop work. The reason for it is that digital images are soft and require sharpening. Some people set their cameras to do sharpening for them, and usually the results are pretty good this way. You'll have more options, although it will take more time, to sharpen later in Photoshop. Scott Kelby's book Adobe Photoshop xxx for Digital Photographers (replace xxx with your version of PS) has an entire chapter on sharpening.

Many thanks for the replies,

I think my problem is possibly down to my choice of apeture and focusing point. I have been using a sturdy tripod and a cable release but my end results still seem to lack sharpness, which brings me to my next question......

How do you select the right apeture for your chosen landscape shot? I haven't quite grapsed how you decide whether to select f11, f16 or f22 etc!

Also when taking lanscapes shots, where should I be focusing in order to obtain sharpness from the foreground right through to the background? Should I be focusing on the furthest point away from me or somewhere about half way??

Thanks,

Mark

Excellent point about the focus point - which I forgot to mention... Focus 1/3 of the way into the shot, away from the camera.

Here's a Hyperfocal calculator - try it out and it see how the numbers change as the focusing distance and focal length of the lens change. Note that there are three different selections at the bottom of that window (35mm film, large print, extra sharp). These could be considered different quality levels because DOF is based on accepted sharpness. It's not like the area just outside of the DOF will be out of focus, but it's a guideline and starting point. But like I said, as you start using a smaller aperture there can be a loss of sharpness just based on how optics work. I generally try not to use the last two f-stops on the lens because of this, but if I need to in order to get the results I want, I will.

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Originally Posted by markgriff

Many thanks for the replies,

I think my problem is possibly down to my choice of apeture and focusing point. I have been using a sturdy tripod and a cable release but my end results still seem to lack sharpness, which brings me to my next question......

How do you select the right apeture for your chosen landscape shot? I haven't quite grapsed how you decide whether to select f11, f16 or f22 etc!

Also when taking lanscapes shots, where should I be focusing in order to obtain sharpness from the foreground right through to the background? Should I be focusing on the furthest point away from me or somewhere about half way??

Thanks,

Mark

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Most of my landscapes are hand held with the aperture set around F5.6-F11 with the shutter set above 200th sec. The faster the shutter the less camera movement, which will degrade the sharpness of the image. Also the lens will loose sharpness at the very small apertures due to deffraction.

Why don't you just try Auto Landscape and see what settings it gives you ;)