Aperture for landscapes?

Hello all, I'm hoping someone can recommend a place online (or even better yet, a book), where I can read up on landscape photography, specifically regarding aperture selection.

I'm trying to improve my landscape skills (mostly non-existent at this point). I have a lot of areas to work on, primarily composition. But in the meantime, I'm confused by aperture selection. On this very forum, I've had people much more knowledgeable than me tell me that I should rarely go above an f/11, and pretty much never above f/16 for landscapes. And yet Ansel Adams was a founder of the "f/64 Group", so on face value, those would seem like opposing viewpoints.

On a recent landscape photo trip, I followed this advice and took almost all my shots at f11 (lighting conditions ranging from quite dark to pretty sunny). My favorite shot of the group was at f16, and I've got to say, I wasn't really happy with the clarity of any of them at distance. The advice to rarely go above f11 was given in response to a number of my previous photos (before I got into photography), that were taken at f22.

So as you can see, I'm pretty confused about why a higher f number is a "bad thing" for landscapes. So if anyone can recommend a good place to learn when and how to pick an aperture for landscapes, I'd love to read it.

Thanks in advance.

There is no authoritative guide or "rule". We have the "sunny 16" rule, so yes... smaller apertures have their place. Diffraction is the big issue with small apertures, and many are anal about it. I very, very frequently shoot at f/22, but moreso for the better light-stars this aperture creates, and for the longer exposure time it allows.

F/11 to f/16 should provide adequate DoF for most landscape scenes, but if (for instance) you have a flower close in the foreground, and want to try and get some of the background in focus, f/22 will help immensely.

Diffraction comes into affect at wider apertures.. the smaller the sensor size. DLA(diffraction limited aperture) can start around f/10-f/11 on FF, and ~f/7 on 1.6 crop.

I'm assuming that Ansel Adams much-larger format cameras don't show diffraction till larger apertures, and hence the f/64 group. I've shot at f/45 with my 70-200/4 +1.4tc (on T2i), with good results, so that would likely be similar to f/64 on medium/large format.

Also, be aware that every lens has its own "sweet spot".

Try it out for your self. On a tripod, good light, take pictures from f4 all the way up to f32 - or whatever you have. Do mirror lockup and remote trigger release if you can to get the sharpest image possible.

Jedi5150 wrote in post #15305676
Hello all, I'm hoping someone can recommend a place online (or even better yet, a book), where I can read up on landscape photography, specifically regarding aperture selection.

I'm trying to improve my landscape skills (mostly non-existent at this point). I have a lot of areas to work on, primarily composition.

I'm sort of a broken record on this point (that is, always referring people to this guy), and this isn't even your main question, but Ian Plant just published an e book on composition. I've been reading his blog for over a year, and he is absolutely great in the composition department, so that book might be for you, haven't seen it yet myself, but plan on buying it.

http://www.ianplant.co​m/blog/

Whenever possible I shoot a range of apertures and exposures; later I select the best on a large monitor later.

I use a 17-40L for most of my landscapes, and i would say the vast majority of those shots are f8. In fact, it's probably something silly like 90% of them

I stick to F/8-F/16 most of the time and will use ND filters to keep the shutter speed where I need it.

There is no single aperture for landscape.

Lets say you want to have everything in focus from near to infinity, the aperture depends on sensor size, focal length and how close your foreground is.

Find out about hyperfocal distance and how that relates to your lens and camera.

Check how much it matters to go somewhat over the hyperfocal, if your lens dosen't have accurate distance scale it is safer to focus on something well over the hyperfocal and loose few inches rather then trying to go as close as possible and risk loosing infinity focus.


The first thing I do with new lens is to check sharpness at different apertures, I normally find image quality worsening at f16 and become pretty bad at f22, I use this apertures only when I have too.

Next thing is taking test shots to check different apertures and how that affects DOF, landscape in the background and books or stuff with text in the foreground lined up in front of the camera at different intervals.


My favorite landscape lens is the canon 10-22, I shoot at 10mm most of the time, I like to go low and wide, going low (close to the ground) means f11 to f16, if I shoot standing up f8 or f5.6 is fine.

The site I use for checking hyperfocal is the DOF masters but there is an announcement on this forum that DOFMaster Site may have been hacked!

Nonnit
http://www.flickr.com/​photos/66582418@N05/

It is pretty scene specific and varies based on composition and focal length. If you want to isolate a piece of your landscape then a larger aperture might be appropriate. If you want "everything" in focus, it depends on how close your nearest foreground object is - the shorter that distance, the smaller aperture you need.

I notice that f/11 on my 5DII @ 21mm is used for a large number of my shots but it is by no means a rule.

Theres a pretty cool program called Exposure Plot which looks at folders and graphs your pictures
by shutter speed, ISO Aperture etc.

Its an easy way to see what settings you usually take pictures at.

http://www.cpr.demon.n​l/prog_plotf.html

You use the aperture you need to capture the scene. Saying something like never go above f/11 or f/16 is just silly. If you need to shoot at f/22, shoot at f/22. With a high quality lens, the difference in image quality between f/11 and f/22 is minimal. . .and if parts of the image that should be in focus aren't, then it really doesn't matter how tack sharp the rest of the picture is.

As for Ansel Adams, he was using a large format camera so the f-stop is naturally going to be much higher than an SLR. One of my favorite landscape books is called "Light in the Landscape", but it's more about composition and lighting. The author shoots film on a large format camera, so that's not going to help you at all with aperture selection. Honestly, though, if you understand the concepts of hyperfocal distance and depth of field, that's about all you need to know if selecting the correct f-stop is your only concern.

Nonnit wrote in post #15322020
Find out about hyperfocal distance and how that relates to your lens and camera.

This.

I prefocuss manually for all my landscape shots based on the hyperfocal distance of the apeture I want to use. When I had a 17-40 I found that f/14 was sharper than f/11 on my copy so I used f/14 any time I wanted front to back focus and set the focus distance to hyperfocal.

Here are some good books.
Brian Peterson's Understanding Exposure
Ross Hoddinott's Digital Exposure Handbook
D&C's The Digital SLR Expert Landscapes

There are smartphone apps for depth of field/hyperfocal. They can be a great help when shooting until it all comes naturally.

Nonnit mentioned "accurate distance scale." This is a very good point. Mine says 30 ft. when the actual distance to subject is around 15 ft. Making hyperfocal settings based on the scale did not produce the desired results.

xpfloyd's prefocus technique resolves the distance scale issue. This can work well if you keep in mind that the foreground object has to be at or beyond the prefocus distance while maintaining the same focal length. i.e. prefocusing a 40mm for 30 ft. @ f/11 but later shooting a foreground object at 8 ft. with those same setting will have disappointing results because nothing short of 14 ft. will be in focus.

Now I focus on the first foreground object and chose the aperture based on focal length and estimated distance of the first object. Depending on the distance to the first foreground object most, if not all, of the scene in front of it will still be in acceptable focus. But the point is that what really needs to be in focus will be.

Sometimes hyperfocal settings are not required. A scene that starts at 20 ft. and only extends 20 yards may allow the use a larger aperture that is in the lens' sweet spot.