Shooting Landscapes

[faisal]

When shooting landscapes i.e using a focal length of 10-20mm...I use an aperture not more than F8 as I had read somewhere that when shooting so wide, you don't really need to use big F numbers to have everything in focus. I also prefer staying under F11 due to the paranoia I have with diffraction.

Since being a part of a local forum, people keep telling me that I should use F11-20 for landscapes while I keep telling them about diffraction but no one seems to care and continue to shoot at f16 and so one...

How right or wrong am I by sticking to my F8 limit when shooting at ultra wide to wide focal length????

Thanks!!!

[D Thompson]

How right or wrong am I by sticking to my F8 limit when shooting at ultra wide to wide focal length????
Beats the heck out of me whether you are right or wrong. I just know what I do and if I'm shooting landscapes, regardless of the focal length, I'm usually at f16. Occasionally, I use a few other settings, but it has absolutely nothing to do with worrying about diffraction.

[TheWengler]

Shorter focal lengths result in a larger depth of field which means you don't have to stop down as much. That all works fine if everything in the frame is far away. However, when you have foreground elements that aren't at infinity focus you might have to stop down more get everything in acceptable focus. Generally I shoot landscapes at f/11 or f/16.

[Csae]

Im around f11 f13 most of the time as well. Like wrengler mentioned it depends on the distance of content in your frame.

Mind you, diffraction doesn't kick in the same on all cameras, and its not a instant drop, its a slow degradation, where sometimes extra DOF is still preferable even with diffraction creeping in.

I honestly wouldn't worry about diffraction much, its not something extremely noticeable other then numbers and anything over f18.

[lukeap69]

Faisal

I suggest when you are done shooting with your preferred aperture, try the smaller apperture up to f/22. You can judge for yourself whether there is noticeable loss of conceived sharpness on every fstop.

Cheers

Arnold

[AlexMonro]

I generally shoot landscapes around f/8 to f/11, depending on the focal length used and how much DoF I need. Diffraction depends partly on your sensor resolution - there's and in-depth article at Cambridge in Colour (http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm).

There are a few more articles on that side which thouroughly explain Depth of Field and allow you to calculate it - even at f/8, it shouldn't be hard to get everything from a couple of metres to be reasonably sharp.

I do miss DoF scales on lenses though.

[faisal]

Thanks everyone for the inputs.....maybe using f11-16 is not a bad idea sometimes... :)

[rewired]

shoot for your DoF, especially on crop cameras
http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

You can manipulate the DoF by setting focus 1/3 into the subject

there really isnt any need to exceed infinity focus except for purposes of exposure. Shooting F11-16 is more like FF territory, where they absolutely need to use tighter apertures.

I would think a crop Canon is falling into diffraction somewhere between F8 and F11, Nikon APSC is only 1/3 stop off that so theyre the same, four thirds is 2/3 stop less than Canon APSC so theyre more like F6.3-F8.

That said, diffraction is a gentle process, and doesnt have great effect until you exceed by several stops. And you will garner more DoF with tighter apertures. So its a tradeoff, but you need to be aware what you are trading.

Finally, wides and ultra wides have huge DoF to begin with, telephotos a lot less so. use the calculator to see where you are at.