Someday I am going to run out of questions , but not today!
I was wondering… I am having some trouble reaching focus with my EOS T7 in a landscape situation. First to get a lot of depth of field, I know I need to use a smaller aperture like F11 to F2x. For now, I stay around… 8 to 13, it’s not enough probably…
Now my problem is about reaching focus, I tend to pick a tree big enough to be able to see the focus either in the eyepiece or in the LCD, but it’s not working well, my backgrounds are often blurry, I can’t really use the background to focus because the details are often (always) too small.
How do you focus your landscape shots? Do you have a special tip to improve your focusing success?
NOTE: I learned how to use the Histogram not long ago, now I take 1/2 less pictures but with better quality, so thanks for that. now it’s time to improve my focus, in all manual.
Bonus Question: Do you use the image stabilizer when your camera is on the tripod for landscape?
If you’re just trying to get as much of the landscape in focus as possible, you might want to take a look at hyperfocal distance. That’ll help you get a lot in focus in one frame. It won’t get everything though. If you have something quite close and quite far, you can do some focus bracketing, then blend the images together in gimp after the fact.
I also think that some out of focus areas are good, it tells your eye what is important in the frame.
Yes, by mistake, quite frequently. Sometimes I can even see the pulsation as the lens tries to subdue the non-existent vibrations. Next remedy will probably involve putting reminder labels all over the tripod.
Me, too. I upgraded from a non-stablized Sigma 17-70 to a Canon 24-70L IS and quite often forget to turn it off when using the tripod. Given that I use a tripod more often than not, maybe I should leave it off so I can – less often – forget to turn it on when handheld … That would also save me a bit of battery as well. IS is great but at 70mm or less it’s far less necessary than with a telephoto.
Since I am reading it here is some info from “Understanding Exposure”…
Go with distance setting, from the distance marks on the lens. F-22 setting. Set focus to 1 meter based on the lens. This works on focal distance of 16-24mm on full frame DX cameras or 10-16mm on cropped sensor FX cameras. Your field of focus is supposed to be 14-24 inches out to infinity. From here you set exposure and scene and pull the trigger.
My lenses do not have the distance marks, why I don’t know O.o but I find some object at about 1 meter and focus on it. Usually turning the ring until I feel the resistance (it does not stop) then back turn it just a bit for focus on the object at a meter.
This will require a tripod and turning off auto focus and stabilization. End results is you are supposed to be in focus at all times and can… um focus (pun intended)… on the scene and setting up the shot.
More important than aperture to answer your question, what is the true focal length of the lens you are using? Forget about conversion factors with the crop sensor. However, if you are using an 18mm lens, an aperture of F8 and you focus on an object at least 2.5 meters away from the camera the distant mountains will be in focus because of DoF and half way back to the camera from the point of focus, again due to DoF. This is a rough guide but works well. F11 or f16 just gives a bigger safety margin.
Unless I’m missing something, we don’t know what lens the OP is using. I think we should know the focal length of the lens before making recommendations on where to focus and what to expect to be in focus.
f22 will reduce sharpness via diffraction quite considerably. It varies with the camera but generally f13 is a good place to stop on APS-C, f16 on full frame before diffraction becomes noticeably detrimental.
If your camera doesn’t have focus peaking, I would recommend an app like Photopills that gives you a visual representation on your smartphone of focusing distances. You input your settings and hold your phone at the same distance as your camera (essentially resting on top of it), and Photopills shows at what distance to focus for maximum depth of field.
Most lenses these days lack decent distance scales (if they have one at all), but you can see objects at the same distance and focus on them.
Avoid very small apertures (f13+ on APS-C, f16+ on FF) as you will introduce diffraction and thus negatively impact image quality.
As mentioned above if you have objects very close to the camera (ie sub 1m) and a deep background, focus stacking is the way to go. That way you can use an even less ‘diffracty’ aperture (say, f8) and still capture enough depth of field in both images to get sharpness throughout the scene.
In general, for wide-angle lenses, about 1/3 of the in-focus region (depth of field) is in front of the lens, 2/3 behind it; for longer focal lengths, the distribution is 1/2 - 1/2.
I think many use focus stacking to get everything in focus. Focus Stacking Tutorial for Landscape Photography. That may look unnatural, though, and maybe having very distant background slightly blurred contributes to a feeling of depth.
Sadly, I can’t afford a tilting lens for my DSLR. But I do have a 90mm lens that will cover 5x4, so all I need to do is bodge something to join the camera to the lens.
Hahah thank god, I don’t really need to do it It’s fun to do behind the computer maybe, but taking 2, 3 separate shots of the moving sky and leaves in the trees, even separated by a single second, they are never 100% identical.
Plus, on my camera, to take 3 bracketed images, I need to hold the button to take multiple shots, the camera is moving, I would need to buy some kind of remote control to shoot but this can’t be done either because I have established a moratorium on purchases, I am infected with GAS and it’s the only way to cure myself.
Many cameras can connect by Bluetooth to a free app on the phone that will act like a remote.
More important than aperture is focal length of lens. I have great DoF on my Canon G16 at f1.8 because it has a 6mm wide angle lens. Now if I used a 28mm wide angle lens at 1.8 on a full-frame camera then the DoF would not be so great. So what is your camera and focal length? Without this we are all giving advice without complete information required.
The timer works for a single shot but as far as I know, not to bracket 3 pictures with the built in bracketing option of the ESO T7. To take the 3 shots, I need to push the button using the continuous shot option, it will take the 3 shots and the last one will take more time to happen.
Note: I don’t use a cellphone, I don’t have one! Still a fan of the land line wire, no EMFs, less tracking, etc.
, but not today! 
now it’s time to improve my focus, in all manual.
I was not expecting to learn about stacking at all here, this took me by surprise. Blending, bracketing and stacking 
It’s fun to do behind the computer maybe, but taking 2, 3 separate shots of the moving sky and leaves in the trees, even separated by a single second, they are never 100% identical.