Learning Landscapes - Aperture Selection

[Brownbear]

In my quest to improve my landscape images I would like to know a little bit more about aperture selection with respect to how others make that decision which seems to be a creative compromise by choosing the aperture on ones lens in order to obtain the best quality/sharpest image.


Say if one wanted to photograph a field of flowers which included a meandering path (or a river which one wished to create the silky water effect) leading to mountains in the background and/or create great sense of depth of field amongst the flowers.

It seems to me that to achieve front to back sharpness one would wish to choose a smaller aperture F22 or F16 as a compromise but that the best aperture choice for me for the lens I own might be F8...

ie; when photographing landscapes do you choose the aperture that will give you the highest quality image or choose your settings to suit your vision, or just the best compromise?


Thank you.

[bnnrcn]

You know that I'm a beginner Christina,but what I have read about F stops is that stops between F8 and F16 are the best for landscapes ..Above or below these stops you will get softer images..So I think It is up to you.

[kdoc856]

It seems to me that to achieve front to back sharpness one would wish to choose a smaller aperture F22 or F16 as a compromise but that the best aperture choice for me for the lens I own might be F8...

ie; when photographing landscapes do you choose the aperture that will give you the highest quality image or choose your settings to suit your vision, or just the best compromise?


Thank you.

I tend to think that we get overly concerned about the "softness" that might ensue from the diffraction at f/22 and smaller. Firstly, we need to get to know how our lenses perform in that configuration- it might be completely unnoticeable- but more importantly, we need to balance that effect against the importance of achieving the proper DoF, which in my view will absolutely make or break the shot. Luckily we have the ability to shoot at multiple f stops and do case by case comparisons. It only takes a moment, and as landscape shooters, we have a very slow moving subject most of the time .

[Polar01]

Christina in landscape photography it is not just the use of aperture it also depends on the lens used. Lets use your 10-24mm on the D7100 as that lens is f/3.5 @10mm, now if you focused on something that was approx. 6ft away everything from approx. 2.5ft to infinity would be in focus now why would I want to use f/16 or f/22? Lets just say that I change only the f-stop to f/8, what would be the change well instead of from 2.5ft it is now 1.5ft to infinity.
If I wanted to smooth out the stream as is meanders through that field of Blue Bells I have some things that I could do. My ISO would be at the lowest setting as you use the D7100 you can set it to Lo-1 or 50 like my D600, if that does not work then increase my f-stops, maybe I will have to go to f/22 or even further, then again I could add an neutral density filter to slow the shutter to the speed I want with only a small change in aperture settings.
With almost any lens that is under 28mm you can get great DOF with a close foreground, as you move up pass 30mm then that sharp foreground moves farther and farther away from the camera.
So you see it is a combination of knowing what lens to use and how to make the best of it.

Cheers: Allan

[FrankMi]

...when photographing landscapes do you choose the aperture that will give you the highest quality image or choose your settings to suit your vision, or just the best compromise?

Hi Christina, for the specific scene, lighting, camera, lens, etc. there can be more than one possibility. What I do in a situation like this is to take the image more than once and note the settings used. I can then decide what settings worked best for me under those circumstances for future reference.

[Mike Buckley]

Using your example, Christina, achieving the desired depth of field is far more important to me than anything having to do with varying degrees of sharpness or diffraction pertaining to various aperture settings. That's because my camera system is meant to be controlled by me, not the other way around. So, I will use a mid-range aperture if it provides sufficient depth of field. If not, I'll stop down until the desired depth of field is achieved and not think twice about it.

Keep in mind that whatever we perceive about sharpness and diffraction has to do with two factors: the size of the image and how far away the viewer is from the image. Much too much is made of diffraction in my mind for 99.9% of the images that are captured. That's because so few of them will be printed at a size that is large enough to show the adverse effects of diffraction. Even when they are printed large enough to show those effects, most people would not or at least should not be viewing them close enough to see those effects.

I think the information shown below from the CiC tutorial is sound, practical guidance. The bold font was added by me for emphasis.

"NOTES ON REAL-WORLD USE IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Even when a camera system is near or just past its diffraction limit, other factors such as focus accuracy, motion blur and imperfect lenses are likely to be more significant. Diffraction therefore limits total sharpness only when using a sturdy tripod, mirror lock-up and a very high quality lens.

Some diffraction is often ok if you are willing to sacrifice sharpness at the focal plane in exchange for sharpness outside the depth of field. Alternatively, very small apertures may be required to achieve sufficiently long exposures, such as to induce motion blur with flowing water. In other words, diffraction is just something to be aware of when choosing your exposure settings, similar to how one would balance other trade-offs such as noise (ISO) vs shutter speed.

This should not lead you to think that 'larger apertures are better,' even though very small apertures create a soft image; most lenses are also quite soft when used wide open (at the largest aperture available). Camera systems typically have an optimal aperture in between the largest and smallest settings; with most lenses, optimal sharpness is often close to the diffraction limit, but with some lenses this may even occur prior to the diffraction limit. These calculations only show when diffraction becomes significant, not necessarily the location of optimum sharpness (see camera lens quality: MTF, resolution & contrast for more on this)."

[TonyW]

I have just had a play with the CiC depth of field calculator. Suppose you are using a 50mm lens at f/8. If you focus at 20m or further, the DOF goes to infinity. At a focus distance of 20m, distances as small as 9m are acceptably sharp and at longer focus distances this minimum does not increase much. This means that for the usual landscape you don't have to worry about DOF and aperture can be chosen according to other criteria.

In practice though it's hard to know what the limits are without your calculator at hand and to gauge distances accurately if it is not quite a "usual" landscape.

[rpcrowe]

It seems to me that many photographers are overly concerned with DOF when shooting landscapes/cityscapes (virtually the same techniques). Unless you have a significant object close to the camera (which is a recommended way to achieve an interesting image when shooting landscapes with a ultra wide lens) the DOF will usually have no great impact on your image. I will most often shoot at around f/8 or f/11 but, will stop down when I want a slower shutter speed (to smooth running water for example) or when I want star shaped effects from point source lights. I will open up when I want a faster shutter speed or a more shallow DOF. It is seldom, however, that I need a fast shutter speed in landscape photography.


Canon 7D, ISO 160, 100mm, 1/20 second @ f/32 (tripod mounted)

Regarding the great fear of diffraction, IMO, proper (or improper) sharpening technique in post processing will have more impact on the sharpness of your image than will diffraction resulting from the f/stop you are using...

[Brownbear]

Thank you to all for sharing and for the helpful tips, advice and links.

I'm not too worried about diffraction because everything I've read here (forums and tutorials) plus my books seem to indicate it is nothing to worry about but I do plan to explore my lens and how they perform at different apertures... and at times it seems that a small aperture is very nice to use.

For example Richard's gorgeous image has star bursts and incredible depth of field, so I wonder if I could manage this type of shot with my Nikkor 28-200 mm lens at F32 (and I will try one)

Frank... I just returned from trying to photograph a landscape and indeed exposing the scene correctly didn't leave me with many options. I will be returning for another visit

Mike... Thank you as always. I especially appreciate how you explain the reasons behind your choices. I will review those tutorials again and I fully expect to come away with a stronger comprehension this time around...(ie; versus a few months ago)

Allan, I haven't used my wide angle lens much yet but I plan to start doing so in the near future. I think it is a good lens.

Binnur and Tony... thank you for sharing.

Richard... I think your image is incredible and your choice of F32 certainly contributed to the quality? I don't think this image could be soft and sharpened to look like yours?

Thank you to everyone for your replies.

[Mike Buckley]

Richard... I think your image is incredible and your choice of F32 certainly contributed to the quality? I don't think this image could be soft and sharpened to look like yours?

Richard would surely be the first person to remind you that his image presented here is really small, so small that we simply can't evaluate sharpness except in the small size displayed here. Remember that if you print an image the size of a postage stamp, even out-of-focus images will look sharp. I'm not suggesting that Richard's image is the least bit out of focus, rather that at such a small size you shouldn't be so wowed that it appears sharp when in fact it may or may not be sharp at the full-size resolution. Knowing Richard's experience and expertise, I would happily bet that it is sharp at the full size. It's just that we can't make that determination at the relatively small size presented here.

Richard was probably motivated to shoot at f/32 to produce the star bursts, which is very smart thinking on his part. It's an example of controlling the camera system to use the aperture that makes the image as you want it to appear, rather than the camera system dictating to you what to do out of concern for diffraction.

Also keep in mind that Richard's lens may be superior to yours or mine and might produce a better image at f/32 than yours or mine might produce at f/22. I have no idea if that's the case and only mention it to bring to light the variables that affect the quality of a photo.