Manual focus for landscapes

[jamesmartin]

Just wondering if any people here use manual focus when shooting landscapes & how they go about focusing. Pretty much all my landscape shots are taken with my zeiss which doesn't have af. When starting out I just set it to infinity focus which seemed to work ok & still do it for all my shots. I used to mainly use f/8 except when wanting blurred water but now I work mainly using f/13. Zooming into the images in Lightroom they mostly seem sharp throughout & a few I've had printed on canvas look great, with some having a large dof. Everything I've read about manual focusing for landscapes is to focus roughly a third of the way into the images/hyperfocal distance etc & don't just set to infinity. I love how easy it is to not have to worry about focusing & the results I'm getting I'm happy with. But if I can get sharper images it's worth trying out, I tried it out just in the front yard but to me the shots set at infinity were clearly much sharper throughout the frame. On my next trip I'll try it out in the field to really put it to the test.
The lens is Zeiss milvus 21mm & camera body is Canon 5DSR 50mp. Could it be this lens being a wide angle prime & manual focus only lens that it just takes sharp images at infinity compared to a lot of other lenses? I don't have another wide angle lens or any experience with one to compare. Am I missing something?

[ameerat42]

I think you've summarised it fairly well, James. I use AF for almost everything
(but once it was different). In fact, for moon shots at night (and sun in daylight
with solar filter) there is no easy way I can nail infinity focus, and have to use AF.

It will be interesting to see what results you get.

[Jaded62]

James,

I have the same camera but use Canon EF lens. If there's enough light I always use AF but at dawn and dusk I use a my messy combo digital zoom/torch/1 third manual focus method.

I shoot f11 99% of the time for reasons of DoF and reliable sharpness.

If the subject is far away I use infinity but digitally zoomed in as far as possible for fine tuning.

If there's a convenient light source in the near distance (aka ~ 1/3 in any direction) I'll do a digital zoom in, manual focus.

If there's no light I'll do the same thing but use my LedLenser torch to light up something with sharp edges 1/3 into the frame. A rock, tree, whatever.

All of this requires a fixed f stop of course. I also don't stick strictly to the 1/3rd rule. I find anywhere between 1/4 and 1/2 into the frame to work fine but thats with my EF 16-35mm f/4L.

All this is all well and good but I've lost count of the number of times I've forgotten to switch back to AF as the light improves................

[Tannin]

Hi James.

At 21mm and f/8, your depth of field is huge. So long as you can keep your boots out of frame, focusing to infinity should work just fine on anything much further away than that.

I have the same cameras and mostly use auto-focus. The only lens I routinely use MF for is the 24mm Canon tilt/shift (which is of course manual focus anyway). But I don't use that one much.

I'm not sure that my eyes are really sharp enough to use manual focus these days - mind you, I tend not to use my wide lenses for landscapes all that much (16-35/4, 24/TS-E, plus the delightful but ancient little Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom, which only works on crop bodies), preferring the 24-105/4 and the 100/400 as a rule. So with those lenses focus accuracy becomes more tricky (because of the focal length) and easier (because most scenes are at infinity anyway, even at 300mm).

From time to time I take off the trusty 24-105 - believe it or not I've had it for 17 years and never replaced it because no manufacturer seems to have bothered making anything which is, all things considered, better - and use my primes: mostly 35/1.4, Tamron 85/1.8, and 100/2.8 macro. (I have a couple of others but those are the ones I use.) As it happens I used the 100 macro for some landscaping just today. Are they sharper than the 24-105? I've never tested formally, but I think so, yes. I should use them more often.

[jamesmartin]

James,

I have the same camera but use Canon EF lens. If there's enough light I always use AF but at dawn and dusk I use a my messy combo digital zoom/torch/1 third manual focus method.

I shoot f11 99% of the time for reasons of DoF and reliable sharpness.

If the subject is far away I use infinity but digitally zoomed in as far as possible for fine tuning.

If there's a convenient light source in the near distance (aka ~ 1/3 in any direction) I'll do a digital zoom in, manual focus.

If there's no light I'll do the same thing but use my LedLenser torch to light up something with sharp edges 1/3 into the frame. A rock, tree, whatever.

All of this requires a fixed f stop of course. I also don't stick strictly to the 1/3rd rule. I find anywhere between 1/4 and 1/2 into the frame to work fine but thats with my EF 16-35mm f/4L.

All this is all well and good but I've lost count of the number of times I've forgotten to switch back to AF as the light improves................

Interesting, thanks for that Jaded. My initial thought is wide angle lens plus f11, wouldnt manual focus set to infinty do the job all the time (like it seems to do for me). Obviously doesnt as sounds like youve got your lens/camera combo worked out, i actually had this lens when i first started out but didnt have much of a idea then (still dont have much of a idea when it comes to the technicalities of photography) & then got the Zeiss. As ive started using my 70-300mm lens more for landscapes ive found AF works best just focusing on the main subject & if enough light around the f11/f13, compared to the manual focus set to infinity (a lot of these photos a more intimate landscapes compared to wide sweeping landscapes).
yeah id be terrible at forgetting to switch back to AF lol

- - - Updated - - -


Hi James.

At 21mm and f/8, your depth of field is huge. So long as you can keep your boots out of frame, focusing to infinity should work just fine on anything much further away than that.

I have the same cameras and mostly use auto-focus. The only lens I routinely use MF for is the 24mm Canon tilt/shift (which is of course manual focus anyway). But I don't use that one much.

I'm not sure that my eyes are really sharp enough to use manual focus these days - mind you, I tend not to use my wide lenses for landscapes all that much (16-35/4, 24/TS-E, plus the delightful but ancient little Tokina 10-17 fisheye zoom, which only works on crop bodies), preferring the 24-105/4 and the 100/400 as a rule. So with those lenses focus accuracy becomes more tricky (because of the focal length) and easier (because most scenes are at infinity anyway, even at 300mm).

From time to time I take off the trusty 24-105 - believe it or not I've had it for 17 years and never replaced it because no manufacturer seems to have bothered making anything which is, all things considered, better - and use my primes: mostly 35/1.4, Tamron 85/1.8, and 100/2.8 macro. (I have a couple of others but those are the ones I use.) As it happens I used the 100 macro for some landscaping just today. Are they sharper than the 24-105? I've never tested formally, but I think so, yes. I should use them more often.

Cheers Tony. 17 years!! i love that, compared to a lot of things today that seems to be made to last a few years then its upgrade to the latest flashier one. i actually used my canon 100mm macro lens at a waterfall a few years back as i didnt have my 70-300mm with me, turned out pretty good