Landscape photography from the field

Focus Technique

Sharp Front to Back: A Working Photographer's Guide to Focus Placement in Landscape Photography
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Sharp Front to Back: A Working Photographer's Guide to Focus Placement in Landscape Photography

There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes from arriving at a location before first light, setting up carefully, waiting for the moment, and then getting home to find your foreground is a soft, blurry mess. I’ve done it more times than I’d like to admit, usually because I was rushing the focus step, assuming the camera would sort it out, or not thinking carefully enough about where in the scene I was actually locking focus.

Where to Focus in Landscape Photography: A Field Guide to Sharp Images Front to Back
Video Tutorials

Where to Focus in Landscape Photography: A Field Guide to Sharp Images Front to Back

There’s a question I still ask myself every single time I set up my tripod, no matter how many times I’ve done this. Not what aperture. Not what shutter speed. Where do I focus? Get that wrong and it doesn’t matter how beautiful the light is or how perfectly timed your shutter release was. Soft images don’t sell prints, and they definitely don’t hold up on a 30-inch canvas. After twenty years of shooting landscapes, I can make that call quickly most of the time, but I still go back to first principles when a scene throws me off.