How do I make the background more sharp in this picture?

[kundalini]

1/125s f/7.1 ISO100 45mm (35mm eq:67mm)

If you're shooting at infinity, as I hope you are in this scenario, you can shoot at whatever aperture you like. The background will be in focus. Increasing your ISO will do you little/no good, as you already had a decent hand-holding shutter speed (unless you were moving quickly for some reason ) for that focal length. It should have also been fast enough to freeze motion in the trees if it was windy.

Sooooo, methinks you just missed the focus. Focus at infinity for landscape (well, most of the time anyway).

+1 :thumbup:

 

[xantho]

1/125s f/7.1 ISO100 45mm (35mm eq:67mm)

If you're shooting at infinity, as I hope you are in this scenario, you can shoot at whatever aperture you like. The background will be in focus. QUOTE]

What do you mean by shooting at infinity? Do you mean just shooting past everything and focusing on the sky? I am a noob so this may be the dumbest question.

If you look at the manual focus ring it gives several distances that will be the center of the focusing DOF. Turn it all the way in one direction and instead of giving a measurement in feet or meters, it simply says infinity...meaning things in the distance will be in focus and the DOF will determine how focused the foreground is.

What do you do if you don't have these markings on your lenses lol

 

[lvcrtrs]

Yeah, but the aperture number increases along with the DOF. It's just an easy way for beginners to remember it.

f/16 is a smaller aperture than f/4, but provides a larger DOF.

Hmmm, bigger number = bigger DOF. That is an easier way very few words way of trying to tell someone how that works. Instead of "bigger number, smaller hole...larger/smaller...more/less..."

 

[ANDS!]

Yeah, but the aperture number increases along with the DOF. It's just an easy way for beginners to remember it.

f/16 is a smaller aperture than f/4, but provides a larger DOF.

Hmmm, bigger number = bigger DOF. That is an easier way very few words way of trying to tell someone how that works. Instead of "bigger number, smaller hole...larger/smaller...more/less..."

The previous poster knew what the fellow meant that was being replied to - just couldn't pass up an opportunity to correct something.

What do you do if you don't have these markings on your lenses lol

Dont worry about it. Your camera knows the distance it needs to focus. You don't need to bother with it. If you are standing where you were standing, and your focus point is clearly on the treeline, the tree line will be in focus (it will still be underexposed but one has nothing to do with the other in this situation). The only reason you should bother with manually focusing the shot is if you know better than the camera the distance from You to Your Subject.

In short - oversimplify. . .dont overcomplicate. You missed focus on this one shot. No go back out and try it again.

 

[512]

i thik that is an AF problem, try to set up it with an average focus. also infinite focus could be useful with landcapes :thumbup:. you can also get a smaller aperture to increase the dof and a tripod with low light is a good choice.

 

[musicaleCA]

So you would not use autofocus at all? Just manual focus all the way out to infinity and then aim past everything and adjust the DOF so essentially the F number on your camera higher up ( example: F12 or F20 so on and so forth ) until you get the DOF you are looking for and everything will be in focus? The depth of field button thats on the Canon cameras near the lense...does that make your adjustments show up in the viewfinder so that you can preview? ( I just figured that this question reminded me of that button that I have never used and maybe this is related )

Thanks guys.

As others have commented on the infinity focusing issue, I'll add a bit about aperture.

In this situation, it's usually best to stop-down to where your lens is sharpest. Usually around f/8, but that's a rule-of-thumb that varies widely depending most of all on the max aperture of the lens (an f/1.4 lens may be sharpest at f/5, where as an f/4 lens may be sharpest at f/8 or f/9...kinda-sorta; these are just numbers I'm pulling outta my *** to give you a general idea). Once you're there, stopping down any further will reduce sharpness, and on crop sensor cameras (APS-C 1.6x and 1.5x), diffraction starts kicking in at around f/16, and sharpness will drop-off even more dramatically. The only times you should go there (particularly to f/20 or f/22 >.< ), is when you really need that extreme DoF. (4/3 sensors will suffer from diffraction even sooner because of their smaller size and even higher pixel densities)

The button you're talking about is called the depth-of-field preview button, and what it does is stops-down the aperture of the lens to where you've set it, to show you where your DoF will be. It's nifty, but depending on the scenario it can turn your viewfinder quite dark (I find it harder to use at f/16, even on a bright day). And it's not something you want to be futzing with in a fast-moving situation either. Those are the times to make an educated guess (personal opinion, but that's been my experience).

 

[Antithesis]

It looks like you've focused on the water on the foreground and not to infinity like has been mentioned. Try a smaller aperture. There are calculators around the net that show the DOF from X amount of feet in front of you clear to infinity based on aperture size. For the most part, you should be looking at smaller apertures of f16 and smaller for landscapes if you want most everything in focus. Keep in mind though, when a lens is fully stopped down you get what is called "diffraction", which will reduce the overall sharpness. It's a balancing act as with most parts of photography.

 

[musicaleCA]

called "diffraction"

I'm curious: Why the quotes?