Trouble getting sharp landscapes

This may be the most basic of questions, but I really seem to be having trouble in this area. How do you guys go about getting sharp on wide angle landscapes?

I'll give a quick example of what I'm using/doing:
The other day I was out shooting waterfalls. I was using my 30D with a 24-70 2.8 Sigma. I used a tripod with solid footing, no shake. I was maybe 100yrds-ish away from the falls. I auto-focused on the rocks to the left of the falls, re-composed and took the shot. My settings were 1/2 sec at f/22 or f/25 (can't remember). I used the mirror lock-up CF and the timer and was not touching the camera when the shutter opened.

In the shot there are objects at various distances throughout the scene, ending with the falls. Closest was probably 25-50yrds.

Nothing is sharp. When I look at it 1:1 everything has a blur. I can't figure it out.

I also tried a technique I read about in Bryan Petersons' book "Understanding Exposure" where he says to use f/22 and manual focus using the distance scale. He says set it at 2' and everything from 2' away to infinity will be sharp. Not true (for me anyway). It made everything MUCH worse. The photos I took that way were visibly blurry vs. the ones the other way where I had to zoom in to see it.

I know it's gotta be something in my technique. I could really use some help here. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Chris

Can you post one so we can see?

Hope this works. One problem is the quality really takes a hit by downsizing/uploading it and I don't have a web gallery to link to so this may not be of much help. Thanks for the response

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Can't see the shot. just the red x. what kind of tri-pod are you using

I think from what you said you were doing, you've got the right idea with everything. You're doing the same as me and I rarely get soft shots. As calicokat said, what's the tripod? And dare I ask but is the lens actually sharp? Not back focussing or anything like that, or maybe even something smeared on the front filter/element? Basic questions I'm sure you've addressed.

Using an Dynatran AT-6703 by Amvona. If you have seen them before you know they are knockoffs of other popular tripods. It is very well constructed, and very solid. Nothing flimsy about it.

Chris

Not sure why you guys can't see the shot btw?? I uploaded it to the site and it's showin fine for me. Is there something else I need to do?

Hmmm, I am wondering about the lens too, some lenses are not sharp at F/22, maybe try F/16

I can see it now

I guess I should have tried f/16 to see if that helped. I'll make sure I do that next time. As for the lens, I recently purchased it from a pro wedding photographer on this site. He has hundreds of images taken with this lens on his site and they are all shap. For good measure I did a lens focus test on it when I got it and it was right on. In my own experience shooting people, pets, etc. since I have had it it is quite sharp.

Maybe it's just not sharp at f/22 like you said. All the stuff I have done with it until my waterfall day has been at 5.6 and under.

Thanks for the replies so far

Oh, any thoughts on why the pre-focusing at 2' thing isn't working? I'm assuming Bryan Peterson knows what he's talking about so it has to be something on my end.

Chris

I use the distance scale and pre-focusing thing on most of mine and it works perfectly. Although I did take a little amusement and interest in Colin Prior (highly regarded (except by me) Scottish landscape photographer) saying that he thought the hyperfocal distance was the most useless myth he'd heard of.

I'd imagine to be quite honest that although this much banded about argument of lenses being sharper at f/16 than f/22 may be correct, the effect is minimal. Certainly not enough for you to be calling into question your whole technique. For what it's worth a friend of mine runs a Tokina 24 or 28-70 f/2.8 which he's owned for years, since before he started buying L lenses anyway. On his original D30 (3Mp) it was razor sharp, on his 1D was soft as hell, on my 5D razor sharp and on his 1D MkII is pretty good. Very strange that it should do that but there's no doubting the variance.

Your tripod is solid, so is your technique by the sounds of it, so there's very little else to question. Was it windy against the tripod during exposure? Did you weight the tripod down? (Not always necessary IMO). Did you move the ground at all whilst exposing with your feet, sometimes possible on slightly boggy ground?

Well, if I'm shooting to have everything in focus at small apertures like f22 or 18 or even 16 I focus on infinity. I'd say forget the waterfalls for now, just do some experimentation with that lens at various apertures and focus points and see what happens. That's the coolest thing about digital, just throw the bad ones away (after learning why they were bad ).

KAC

Hi
I am new to photography (about 4 months or so) and I can offer you no concrete advice because I know absolutely nothing about the theories of correct exposures in different conditions. I am using a method which works well for me, since whatever I do is purely intuitive (as far as photography is concerned), I take a lot of pictures at each scene using different settings for each shot. So I might have about 20 or more identical pictures taken at different settings. Then when I am back home at the pc I compare shots and note the settings of the better ones, relative to each lens that I have used (I have 5). This probably sounds very basic and unsophisticated but I have to say that it is working nicely for me and hopefully my intuitive fumblings will eventually evolve into a worthy photographic technique. Give it a try.

C

One phenomenon that may be causing this is diffraction. Basically, as the aperture becomes smaller, light has to spread out in more directions to fill the sensor (or something like that). That's why a lens might be sharper at f/11 than at f/35.

Here is a good web page introducing diffraction.
And here are all the nitty gritty mathematical details.

My opinion is the branches on the left are what the AF is picking up, try using the center Af point, this might help.