canon 70D distant landscape focus issues with AF. need advice from users

[Jontz71]

hello all,

recently got a canon 70D and a few lenses for landscape photos mainly.

for the life of me i can't figure out best method to get the deepest tack sharp focus with AF from view finder or "live view". Should i be using MF for my landscapes ? see my samples posted below. most of the AF seems always be in foreground.

using the "center point" focus i seem to always get soft landscape in the far distance. i've posted a test shots with meta data here:

Dropbox - SugarLoafMountain Tests

i've watched and tried the Youtube videos saying focus on the 1/3 way into photo and the rest will be sharp with at least F8-F11. have then tried to nail focus on the furthest object in the scene to no help either.

there has got to be a best method you experts know about to nail tack sharp deep focus for distance landscapes ?? hope i don't have to have camera calibrated to 3 different lenses ?

any help to this age old mystery greatly appreciated,

steve

 

[KmH]

No mystery to it.
Learn about the hyperfocus distance.

Understanding Your Camera's Hyperfocal Distance

The further away the background is the more more air there is between it and your camera.
All that air (which is usually moving to some degree and has temperature gradients) hinders achieving sharp focus.

When men went to the moon they unexpectedly discovered they had difficulty judging long distances and gauging the size of distant things because there is no air on the moon to blur things far away.
Humans use the blur as an aid to gauging distance.

 

[Derrel]

Hyperfocal distance only works on images seen at "appropriate viewing distance". On high-resolution digitial seen from 20 inches away on a high-quality monitor, zoomed in to 100%, the images is being seen 1)too large from 2)too close for the hyperfocal distance calculations available on-line and elsewhere.

Only ONE distance is really truly 100% as sharp as it can be; everything else is either "acceptably sharp", or less than acceptably sharp.

Your last image of sugarloaf, the shot from the high hillside, looks quite beautiful. The image I SAW, the 496k, rather small image, has ample depth of field...but I bet if you look at it at full, 18-megapixel resolution, at 100% pixels, on my 30 inch monitor, that you could pick out some areas where the focus is not as good as in other areas.

One trick in landscapes is to focus on the MOST-IMPORTANT plane, and to allow Infinity to be ever-so-slightly out of focus, because that is how things really tend to be seen, due to atmospheric haze; the farthest range items are,typically, obscured by haze. ANd, the farthest items are very small, so it makes sense to favor the CLOSER, and LARGER items with the actual focus placement.

Focus bracketing makes a lot of sense; some lenses suffer from significant focus shift from wide-open to their smaller apertures, and this can be a big factor at times, where the focus wide-open is actually NOT identical to the f/8 or f/11 focus; this never used to be seen very easily, but now we have 18,20,22,24,36-MP cameras and big monitors. On important images, try some focus bracketing. Start close, and then slowly move the focus backward over 4 or 5 frames. Pick the best effect. This will show you the value of focus placement that favors the most-important plane or zone.

 

[Jontz71]

Thank u all. Been struggling with hyperfocal at 1/3 but will try the calculator in the link provided above. Also just got the Reikin Focal Pro calibration software to see it helps.

Anyone have experience with the 70D and this calibration software ?

Anyone have success with landscape hyperfocal calculator in landscape or any tips on how to better employ it ? Youtube perhaps ?

 

[Jontz71]

Thank u all. Been struggling with hyperfocal at 1/3 but will try the calculator in the link provided above. Also just got the Reikin Focal Pro calibration software to see it helps.

Anyone have experience with the 70D and this calibration software ?

Anyone have success with landscape hyperfocal calculator in landscape or any tips on how to better employ it ? Youtube perhaps ?

 

[Jontz71]

Could someone explain from the Focal Calculator
Understanding Your Camera’s Hyperfocal Distance

Under "advanced settings" what the "view distance" would be if looking at a mountain range many miles away ?

 

[Derrel]

Many miles is considered Infinity.

 

[Jontz71]

Bless you all for helping us newbies

 

[babak.nori.75]

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