How to achieve ultimate sharpness in your landscape photos.
As landscape photographers we are generally addicted to a few things. We're addicted to dramatic light, epic sunsets, huge storm clouds, and we're addicted to sharpness. More than any genre of photography landscape photographers often go through great lengths to achieve the maximum depth of field ensuring everything between our foreground and background is in focus. It's an obsession that often requires us spending huge amount of money investing in the most expensive lens in our quest for ultimate sharpness. One of the questions that I often get when discussing sharpness especially with beginner landscape photographers is, "Where do I focus in the scene to get the maximum depth of field?" And the answer I revert to 99% of the time is, "It depends on the scene." So before I dive into detail on where you should focus lets first take a look at the physics and dynamics of the lens. Now different focal lengths will produce different depths of fields. Wide angle lenses will produce a deeper depth of field than a telephoto lens. This is why telephoto lenses such as a 70-200mm are generally so popular with portrait photography to produce a shallow depth of field which though amazing for portraits is often not the case with landscapes. On the opposite side a wide angle lens is really great for getting that maximum depth of field between foreground and background which is perfect for landscapes but not so for portraits. For this reason most landscape photographers will prefer shooting with a wide angle lens than a telephoto. Another thing that plays a huge role in getting the maximum depth of field in your images is the size of the image sensor in your camera. Full Frame cameras such as the Canon 5D Mark II, Nikon D800, or a Sony A7R III will produce a shallower depth of field than a Crop Sensor APS-C cameras such as a Canon 7D, or Micro Third Sensor. Basically what you'll need to bear in mind is, the smaller the sensor the greater the depth of field and the easier it will be to get everything in focus. Personally speaking, it's why I went for a crop sensor body when I started shooting landscapes. Take a moment to think about the sensor size of your iPhone or any other mobile phone and you'll understand why it's so great at getting everything in focus. The next variable to consider with depth of field is the size of the aperture within your lens. Using a very small aperture such as f/16 or f/22 will produce a deeper depth of field than using an f/2 or f/4. This is why taking full control of your camera settings is so important to achieving the best artistic results for your images. The last but not least variable you need to consider is the distance of your subject you are focusing on from your lens. So lets say you're shooting a scene where you have a majestic mountain in the background and some flowers in the foreground. So the closer you get to your foreground in this case those amazing flowers, the shallower your depth of field will be. If you're standing at full height and pointing your camera down at the flowers a distance of say about 5 feet from your lens, using an aperture of between f/16 to f/18 will allow you to get everything in the scene tack sharp. However as you begin to move the lens closer to your foreground (in this instance the flowers) what you'll notice is as you focus on the flowers the background begins to get out of focus. This is because by moving closer to your foreground your depth of field gets less. Now consider a scene where your subject is 700 feet away. In this instance it would be much easier to get everything in focus because you wouldn't have anything close to your lens. Not only could you get everything sharp by simply just focusing to infinity but you could also by using an aperture value of f/5.6. So if anything what I want you to understand here is, the closer you get to your foreground the more difficult it is to get everything sharp throughout the image.
Enter therein the Hyper-focal Distance
Hyper-focal distance simply put is an estimation of the area you can focus in a scene where everything will be, "acceptably sharp." And while some landscape photographers will swear by this method I however urge you to take it with a grain of salt. So if you're shooting a scene much like we discussed earlier with the flowers and the mountains in the background where you are positioning the lens close to the foreground say 6 inches, depending on the lens and sensor size hyper-focal distance will generally suggest that you focus somewhere in the region of about 1 - 2 feet beyond the closest flower to get both the flower and the mountains "acceptably sharp." Key word - ACCEPTABLY SHARP which is by no means, TACT SHARP. That being said there's nothing wrong with using the hyper-focal method if you're okay with your images being, "acceptably sharp" and there are quite a number of apps you can download to your phone to help with that, but if you want to get the most sharpness throughout your images then the hyper-focal distance method isn't something you want to use. If you're not much into techniques such as focus stacking which I'll explain later one method I suggest rather than using the hyper-focal distance method is by just focusing about 1/3 the way into the frame from the bottom (or right about the bottom third line *rule of thirds*) and using a small enough aperture of about f/16 you'll generally get everything sharp front to back. Most importantly you'll want to ensure that your foreground, "the closest thing to your lens" is sharp as this is the first place the viewers will look. Believe me when I say that the last thing any viewer wants to see is an out of focus foreground in a landscape photo.
Now let's envision shooting a forest landscape using a telephoto lens to compress those trees. Where you'll focus in such a scene filled with depth is going to be very important. Ideally you'll need to consider a few things. What your main subject is, and do you want everything to be sharp throughout the scene. Ideally for most forest scenes you may not want everything in focus as it can often make for a distracting photo and why you might want to create a shallow depth of field using an aperture value of f/4 or 5.6 to simplify the scene and thus create a possibly more successful photo. But, what if you want the maximum depth of field and unable to achieve it using a telephoto lens? Now comes focus stacking. Focus stacking is the process where you're stabilizing your camera on a tripod then taking a series of several images first focusing on the closest subject to your lens then at different depths into the frame until you get to the background. After you've done this you then import those photos into a photo editor program such as Adobe Photoshop to create what is known as a focus stack. Now you'll have an image sharp front to back regardless of the physical limitation of your lens.
If you've never done a focus stack let's take a quick look at how I do it.
First I import my photos into a single stack in Adobe Photoshop. If you import using Lightroom what you'll do is:
1. Import the photos into Lightroom
2. Select all images
3. Right click then select import as layers into Photoshop
4. Select all the layers in Photoshop
5. Go to Edit, then - Auto Align Layers (this is to compensate for something called focus breathing which I'll explain in a later blog).
6. Go to Edit again then select - Auto Blend Layers. This will tell Photoshop to look at all the layers and select the in-focus pixels from each image.
7. Once that's complete you'll need to select the crop tool and crop the image to remove the dead pixels created after you aligned the layers.
Note: This is how I focus stack. I recognize there are many ways to focus stack however this is the one I use and which has worked best for me.
One of the reasons I love focus stacking is, most lenses will generally perform at their best three to four stops from their widest aperture. So a lens with a widest aperture value of f/4 will generally perform at it's best at f/8 or f/11. This is often called the, "Sweet Spot" of the lens. However as you try to increase your depth of field and go beyond those apertures such as f/20 - f/22 you'll generally run into the problem known as diffraction which results in your images becoming soft. With diffraction all lenses are different and less visible in the more expensive lenses and why focus stacking is so important.
If you're out shooting a landscape and have the scene you're capturing allows you to use your lens at it's best aperture then by all means do so. If you're on a tripod generally it won't matter what your shutter speed is but there are times when it will matter such as when you're shooting a scene where objects are moving. This can happen when shooting seascapes or a scene where your subject is a tree and the leaves are moving in the wind. Not every scene will yield a great image when the subject is moving. One way I've been able to get around this when I come upon a scene where my foreground typically flowers is moving in the wind is I'll open up my aperture and take one exposure using a fast shutter speed to freeze motion then I'll take a next frame using a smaller aperture for my background adjusting my shutter speeds and ISO to achieve the same exposure and later blend the two images in Adobe Photoshop. If you haven't got a tripod and are shooting hand held you'll want to use a high shutter-speed which will likely mean using a high ISO to compensate for that small aperture value and depth of field. Something you should also note is some lenses with image stabilization do not perform at their best when shooting on a tripod so just to be safe you might want to turn that feature off.
Achieving Ultimate Sharpness does not end with your how you capture your images whether it's by focusing 1/3 the way in or focus stacking. Sharpening after you've processed your images is just as important and dependent on whether you're sharpening for the print or for posting on the internet. Most of the time when posting to my Instagram account and any other Social Media platform I'll sharpen my images using either Lightroom or TK Action. When sharpening for Print 99% of the time I will use Photoshop for the full control and wide range of filters which allow me to be more selective in the areas of my photos I want to sharpen.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. Hope you've learnt something and if you like please feel free to buy me a coffee by visiting this link: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kreygscott
