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How to Focus in Landscape Photography
How to Focus in Landscape Photography
• Beginner Photography
How to Focus in Landscape Photography • Landscape Photography
• Wildlife Photography
BY SPENCER COX | 64 COMMENTS
LAST UPDATED ON AUGUST 2, 2023 • Portraiture
• Post-Processing
• Advanced Tutorials
Focusing is one of the pillars of photography. If you don’t focus in the right place,
at best, your photos won’t be as sharp as possible – and, at worst, they could be
completely unusable. There’s a lot that goes into focusing correctly, even in a Photography Life
genre like landscape photography, where your subject tends to stay relatively
still. To get the best results, you’ll want to optimize your techniques as much as
UNFILTERED
possible, and that’s what this article covers. So, how do you focus properly for
landscape photography?
Table of Contents
1. Double the Distance Method
2. Manual Focus vs Autofocus
3. Optical Viewfinder vs Live View
4. Focus Using AF-ON
5. Autofocus Modes
6. Autofocus Area Modes Join Our
7. Dealing with Focus Shift Member Page Today
8. Summary
• Camera Reviews
The first step is to know where to focus; all the camera settings and techniques
• Lens Reviews
in the world won’t help you take a sharp photo if you aren’t focused at the right • Other Gear Reviews
spot. And luckily, there is a “right spot” to focus for landscape photography – • Best Cameras and Lenses
one that gives your photos the greatest possible detail from front to back, where
PHOTOGRAPHY TUTORIALS
the foreground and background are equally sharp.
All you need to do is focus at “double the distance” – twice as far away as the
closest object in your photo. If the closest object in your photo is a patch of
grass one meter away from you at the bottom of your composition, find PHOTOGRAPHY LANDSCAPE
BASICS PHOTOGRAPHY
something that’s about 2 meters away, and focus there. (This all applies equally
well for feet, or paces, or any other system you use; it’s just double the distance.)
This method will give you a foreground and background that are equally sharp,
which is what most photographers are after. It’s also super easy to use in the
WILDLIFE MACRO
field; what could be simpler than multiplying a number by two? If you want some PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHY
more technical background on this subject, I also recommend checking out our
longer article on hyperfocal distance – but this is all you really need to know.
STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
PHOTOGRAPHY VIDEOS
NIKON D800E + 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 15mm, ISO 100, 1/20, f/16.0 Subscribe to our newsletter
Here, the closest object in my frame is some grass at the bottom of the image. It was only about a
foot away from the plane of my camera sensor. So, I focused two feet away, which aligned with the
corn lily plant.
The reason is simple: For every photo, there is only one single perfect distance to
focus. If you focus successfully at the right spot, it doesn’t make any difference
whether you acquire it manually or automatically. In either case, your final photo
will look exactly the same.
So, perfect manual focus and perfect autofocus will give you identical images.
What matters, then, is the speed of your focusing – and how accurate it is. The
simple reason why I tend to recommend autofocus is that it is noticeably quicker
for landscape photography, and it tends to be accurate as well.
However, if you’re in a situation where your autofocus system isn’t locking focus
accurately, or if you don’t trust the autofocus on your particular camera and lens,
switch over to manual. This frequently happens at night, for example, or in a
landscape with very little contrast. If there isn’t something the autofocus system
can latch onto easily, manual focus is the way to go.
To start, for focusing manually on a landscape, live view is pretty much essential.
Today’s DSLR viewfinders, no matter how big and bright they may be, simply
aren’t intended for precision manual focus. Instead, the best way to focus
manually is to use a tripod, switch to live view, and increase the magnification to
100% on your focusing target. Then, slowly rotate the manual focus ring on your
lens until the scene looks as sharp as possible.
For autofocus, I also tend to recommend live view if possible, although the
differences won’t be as drastic here. The biggest change is that your camera
uses a separate autofocus system – contrast-detection or phase-detection –
depending upon whether you focus via live view or the viewfinder. Contrast-
detection (used in live view) is slower, but it tends to be a bit more accurate.
That’s usually a worthwhile tradeoff for landscape photography.
If you don’t have a DSLR, don’t worry about any of this. Mirrorless cameras and
point-and-shoots generally only have one autofocus system. Even if your
mirrorless camera does have an electronic viewfinder, it rarely makes a
difference whether you focus with it or the rear LCD screen.
Say that you want to lock focus for a few photos in a row – a pretty common
situation in landscape photography. With the half-press focus enabled, though,
you’d need to keep switching in and out of manual focus to lock anything down. It
simply isn’t efficient.
Instead, there’s a way to decouple the focusing from your shutter button, which
solves the problem. You can focus as often or as occasionally as you want, and
you don’t have to worry about switching to manual focus on your lens. This
option is known as the AF-ON button.
The AF-ON button doesn’t do anything other than focus when you press it, but
that’s still a big deal. If you’re still half-pressing the shutter to focus, try switching
to AF-ON just for a couple weeks. Most photographers, after doing so, will have a
hard time switching back.
Not all cameras have a button directly labeled “AF-ON,” but, almost always,
there’s still a way to enable it. See if you can assign a custom button to do so, or
change the function of something else (say, the AE-L/AF-L button). Other than
point-and-shoot cameras – and, often, even then – you should be able to find a
way to decouple the focus and shutter mechanisms without a problem. It’s
something I strongly recommend, and not just for landscape photography.
The AF-ON button on the Nikon D810. On other cameras, there won’t be a button with this label, but
you’ll be able to program something else to perform the same function.
Autofocus Modes
For landscape photography, the good news is that you’ll be photographing
nonmoving scenes far more often than not. That vastly simplifies your autofocus
options, including your focusing mode.
There are two main focusing modes: single-servo and continuous-servo focus.
Essentially, single-servo autofocus (also called AF-S, one-shot AF, and so on,
depending upon your camera) only focuses once, no matter how long you hold
down your focusing button. Once it locks focus, it’s done.
But some don’t. If that’s the case for you, just use continuous-servo instead,
which should have a “release priority” option, or have it built in by default.
There’s nothing hugely wrong with continuous-servo mode, anyway; it’s just
more prone to readjusting itself slightly on a stationary scene, which isn’t all that
big of a problem.
Which one should you select? A lot of this is down to personal preference, and
it’s also something you should research in more detail for yourself (including our
article on autofocus modes, if you shoot Nikon). My main recommendation is to
avoid using the auto-area focusing mode, where your camera evaluates the
scene and tries to guess what your subject is. That, as you would expect, often
works very poorly, especially for landscapes, where double-the-distance is rarely
the most obvious part of the image.
That’s why you should test this out yourself and do some additional research.
Which mode is best for the types of subjects you like to shoot? I wouldn’t use
auto-area mode, but all the others can be viable, depending upon the situation.
Luckily, as a landscape photographer, you have it pretty easy. It’s hard to mess
up focus when your subject remains the same distance from your camera,
moment to moment.
NIKON D7500 + 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 45mm, ISO 100, 0.2 seconds, f/11.0
So, what is focus shift? Take a look at our full article as well, but it simply means
that as you stop down your aperture – even without refocusing your lens – the
photo’s plane of focus can change. So, a photo taken at f/1.8, and a photo taken
at f/2.8 with the same lens, could be focused at slightly different distances,
without you actually refocusing the lens yourself. That’s true whether you’re
using manual focus or autofocus, and it looks something like this (images from
the Nikon 28mm f/1.8, known for having relatively strong focus shift):
Can you see how the sharpest point is right at (or slightly in front of) the zero in
the image on the left, while it’s closer to the eight in the image on the right?
For certain types of landscape photography, such as capturing the Milky Way,
focus shift still matters. If you focus with your lens set to f/1.8, and then you stop
down slightly (say, to f/2.2) to get more depth of field, your stars might not be
quite as sharp as possible – not wildly out of focus, but not quite optimal, either.
But you should always watch your settings carefully if your equipment has the
potential for focus shift. You’ll want to stop down your aperture first, and then
focus using that aperture, if it’s not too dark to do so – something that is usually
only possible to do in live view. (Even then, it isn’t always possible, depending
upon your camera. Some cameras only operate live view at a single aperture,
which can’t be changed.)
For day-to-day landscape photography, don’t obsess over focus shift. Even with
offending lenses, a landscape aperture like f/11 goes a long way to masking the
problem. And autofocusing in live view at a smaller aperture – the one you’re
planning to use for the photo – isn’t always a perfect solution, anyway, because
you’re not giving your camera as much light to work with, nor as thin a depth of
field (which helps the autofocus system’s consistency).
A possible compromise, if your lens has particularly high levels of focus shift, is
that you can consider focusing at a “medium” aperture like f/4 or f/5.6 before
stopping down and taking the photo. I do this from time to time with my Nikon
14-24mm f/2.8 lens, which has a decent amount of focus shift. But even that is
often overkill; focus shift is far more of a problem when you’re at large apertures.
NIKON D800E + 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 24mm, ISO 100, 0.6 seconds, f/9.0
I took this photo with the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, which has some focus shift. By focusing in live view
using an aperture of f/4, I got the best of both worlds – as much light for my focusing system as
possible, with a lower potential for focus shift along the way. Again, though, these issues are
relatively minor, and focus shift is only something you should think about once you get everything
else right.
Summary
Hopefully, you found these suggestions useful. To sum it up, the most important
steps for focusing in landscape photography are as follows:
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64 COMMENTS Newest
Pc Babu
February 24, 2020 10:30 am
Excellent article. Clearly explains how to focus using the double distance method. I have one
question though. How accurate is this method when compared with hyper focal distance
method and 1/3 distance method. In low light conditions using live view is a problem. How to
over come this? Thanks.
PC Babu
0 Reply
Sure thing. This method is perfectly accurate for cases when you want the foreground
and background to be equally sharp. There are other ways to find this same distance
(even just trial and error), but this is the only optimal focusing distance if equal
sharpness is your goal.
The 1/3 focus rule isn’t even a real technique that can be followed – what does it even
mean? I’ve never heard anyone explain it clearly. And following traditional hyperfocal
distance charts will give you way too much blur in the background for no good reason
(30 microns with most charts). You can nearly always do better than that.
In low light, there’s never an easy way to focus where you want. I personally carry a
flashlight for this reason. Identifying the proper focusing distance is easy enough (again,
double the distance method if you want equal foreground/background sharpness, or
focusing on your subject if subject sharpness is the priority). Actually focusing there may
require you to shine a flashlight on your subject, or use manual focus if autofocus is
failing.
0 Reply
PC Babu
Reply to Spencer Cox February 25, 2020 8:20 am
Thanks for clarification and excellent tip for focusing in low light conditions.
0 Reply
BRIAN
September 12, 2018 12:31 pm
-1 Reply
Dan s
June 2, 2018 1:02 am
Another wonderful and informative article Spencer. Thank you! I very much appreciate when
you summarize using bullet points. I find this very helpful as it assists me with memorizing
what you have taught.