Noob question - landscapes and aperture

[vroom]

I just got my first DSLR this weekend (350D) and will be flying to southern Utah later today. While there, I'll be taking many landscape shots.

My question is about shooting landscapes. I realize when shooting in Av, a higher f/ stop will yield a greater DOF, but it will also decrease the shutter speed. I'll be shooting handheld, so I worry that the longer shutter speed could lead to blurry photos.

Most of my landscape shots will be taken with a Sigma 10-20mm lens. Any tips on shooting landscape, such as general ranges for shutter and aperture? I know this is open-ended, but I don't know where to start.

Also, any links or tips on handheld panoramas?

[Cody21]

Welcome to POTN ...

You are correct .. a higher f/stop (e.g., f/16, f/22) will require more light for metering the scene. You didn't mention what time of day you were going to shoot. If in full sun, you should easily be able to get a reasonable SS at those settings. You might just take a series of shots - experimenting with more middle-of-the-road f/stops ... like f/11, f/8. On many lenses, those are considered the "sweet spot". If you find that the SS is getting too low, you can increase your ISO, and of course, use a Tripod. Have fun.

[vroom]

Welcome to POTN ...

You are correct .. a higher f/stop (e.g., f/16, f/22) will require more light for metering the scene. You didn't mention what time of day you were going to shoot. If in full sun, you should easily be able to get a reasonable SS at those settings. You might just take a series of shots - experimenting with more middle-of-the-road f/stops ... like f/11, f/8. On many lenses, those are considered the "sweet spot". If you find that the SS is getting too low, you can increase your ISO, and of course, use a Tripod. Have fun.

Thanks for the response. It sounds good, except for the tripod part. I'll be handheld the whole time, unfortunately. Most of my shots should be midday. I guess I'll be experimenting when I'm out there.

[Cody21]

That's the beauty of a digital camera ... Just play around with different settings. I strongly suggest you shoot in RAW mode and in Manual.. Learn that part of it all NOW rather than later after you have crutches built in. As far as Hand held -- as long as you're able to get a decently fast SS (e.g., 125+), you should be in pretty good shape. So aim for there and adjust your f/stop & ISO to 'keep it there' .. or faster. Good luck.

[DStanic]

If you are shooting during the day, you really shouldn't have to worry about a tripod.

There is the "focal length/shutter speed rule" which goes as such:
shutterspeed = 1/focal length. So if you are shooting with a 50mm lens, you will want to keep the shutter speed at least 1/50sec. There is the 1.6x sensor crop factor as well, so multiply focal length (50mm) by 1.6x = 1/80sec

Since you are using a 10-20mm lens, technically you could have it set at about 1/30 handheld.

Shooting during the day you should have no problem shooting at F8 or F11 at ISO200 and getting a shutter speed of 1/100 or more anyways...

Using Av mode I would just choose the desired aperture, and if the shutter speed is too low then just bump up the ISO.

[vroom]

Awesome. Thanks guys! I know I've read most of this stuff before, but it's hard to keep straight at the beginning.

[Doug Pardee]

Let me add that stopping down will increase the effects of diffraction as well. Different people have different tolerances, but f/14 seems to be where many people find diffraction starting to become objectionable (with an APS-C sensor such as yours). You might find that f/11 is about as far as you want to push it. Or maybe you'll be happy with f/16. Take some test shots and see.

Another point: many people like to use polarizing filters to darken the skies, but this results in light loss and needing even longer exposures or higher ISO at a given aperture. Personally, I find that using -1/3 Ev of exposure compensation on my XT/350D gives nice blue skies without any polarizer at all—and without the weird variable sky color at wide angles. I have a nice (and expensive) polarizer that I haven't used in a year and a half.

[GCD1]

Personally, I find that using -1/3 Ev of exposure compensation on my XT/350D gives nice blue skies without any polarizer at all—and without the weird variable sky color at wide angles.

This seems like a good approach. Do you shoot in RAW? If so, I imagine that it would give you sort of a "safety net", too, so that you are well covered just in case.

[Cody21]

If you underexpose a shot, RAW won't really save you. You can't put pixels back into the image in PP that weren't there to begin with. On the other hand, RAW will be helpful if you overexpose and image to some degree .. e.g., blown highlights and such.

[Doug Pardee]

If you underexpose a shot, RAW won't really save you. You can't put pixels back into the image in PP that weren't there to begin with. On the other hand, RAW will be helpful if you overexpose and image to some degree .. e.g., blown highlights and such.

Actually, the XT/350D Raw will let you recover underexposed images better than overexposed ones. The XT/350D in-camera JPEG conversion has a very steep rolloff in the shadows and a high black point. That's great for keeping noise low in JPEGs, but it doesn't give you much to work with for lifting shadows.

At the other end, the XT/350D's Raw only has about 1/2 stop more highlight headroom than the in-camera JPEG does. And not even that much at ISO 100. The main highlight advantage of Raw on the XT/350D is that the highlights haven't been compressed as much as the in-camera JPEG's highlights are.

[Doug Pardee]

Do you shoot in RAW? If so, I imagine that it would give you sort of a "safety net"

No, I switched back to shooting JPEG over a year and a half ago. I don't need a "safety net" (for 98% of my photos, anyway) and I don't enjoy post-processing. So for me, JPEG is the way to go.

[vroom]

Well, thanks to you guys, I think I got some decent shots. I started a thread over in the landscape forum.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=511745