Autofocus points and landscape...

Lets say you wanted to take a landscape shot with everything in focus. Would you use your center autofocus point and focus on something far away, or use all of the autofocus points? Thanks for any help.

You should focus a third of the way into the image, I tried to find a photo to explain and rather handily found a whole article:

http://digital-photography-school.com …in-landscape-photography/

How about None of the AF points?

What I think you want to know is:

To get the most possible area in focus use the hyperfocal distance.
http://www.dofmaster.c​om/hyperfocal.html
The DOF calculator on the side will even calculate it for any camera, lens, aperture combination you may have.

Stocky wrote in post #5579896
How about None of the AF points?


What I think you want to know is:

To get the most possible area in focus use the hyperfocal distance.
http://www.dofmaster.c​om/hyperfocal.html
The DOF calculator on the side will even calculate it for any camera, lens, aperture combination you may have.

Need to be careful when using DOF scales and tables. The circle of confusion factor (CoC) is dependent upon the size of the expected final print. Typically, the "standard" CoC is based on an 8x10 print, IIRC. You can compensate by either factoring in a specific CoC value for a larger print, or by adjusting the aperture...just something to be aware of.

Do you know how the final print size effects the CoC size? Would the DOF be significantly shorter on a 20x30 print?

Stocky wrote in post #5579896
How about None of the AF points?


What I think you want to know is:

To get the most possible area in focus use the hyperfocal distance.
http://www.dofmaster.c​om/hyperfocal.html
The DOF calculator on the side will even calculate it for any camera, lens, aperture combination you may have.

No, i simply want to know which AF point you use.

I use nothing but center focus point.

Pick your focus point, then lock it by holding your shutter half way down and recompose and depress shutter the rest of the way as described in Anke's link.

sorry if I mistook you for someone who wanted to know what to do and why in order to get the best picture out of the camera. If you don't want to know where you should actually focus then I recommend using all of the focus points and letting the camera pick one for you. In this case IT is likely to make the better choice anyway.

I tend to use the centre focus point, lock focus and then switch to MF. This way i can recompose and not worry about accidentally firing off the shutter or letting go and missing the focus.

Stocky wrote in post #5582049
sorry if I mistook you for someone who wanted to know what to do and why in order to get the best picture out of the camera. If you don't want to know where you should actually focus then I recommend using all of the focus points and letting the camera pick one for you. In this case IT is likely to make the better choice anyway.

thanks, but with responses like that, you can keep your help to yourself.

kevin_c wrote in post #5582162
I tend to use the centre focus point, lock focus and then switch to MF. This way i can recompose and not worry about accidentally firing off the shutter or letting go and missing the focus.

Kevin .. curious why you wouldn't just use MF instead of the whole "center focus, lock...." What benefit is there to your process? or is that a misprint? Did you mean M and not MF ?

A 2 year member and you don't know that everything cannot be in focus?
Even a flat wall will have lens distortion and the edges won't be in focus.

Cody21 wrote in post #5582594
Kevin .. curious why you wouldn't just use MF instead of the whole "center focus, lock...." What benefit is there to your process? or is that a misprint? Did you mean M and not MF ?

I just find it easier to use AF to 'zap' the selected focus point/area, besides my ageing eyes aren't as good as they used to be - DSLR focus screens aren't that good for MF in my experience. On my old MF film cameras it's much easier to focus manually with a split prism focus screen...

chauncey wrote in post #5582620
A 2 year member and you don't know that everything cannot be in focus?
Even a flat wall will have lens distortion and the edges won't be in focus.

wow i thought this was the place for help, not getting attacked. I guess this forum isnt as 'friendly' as everyone makes it out to be.

troyer16 wrote in post #5585804
wow i thought this was the place for help, not getting attacked. I guess this forum isnt as 'friendly' as everyone makes it out to be.

Hmm that was rather harsh wasn't it. That's not the sort of advice that POTN is all about. You can report the post to a mod by clicking the /!\ button if you want.