Landscape - DOF

[Dolby]

Just curious - I've always thought that when taking a landscape photo, you need a small aperture (F8 to F16) because you need the depth of field.

But I see on the online DOF calculator, a 28mm 2.8 focused at 2,000m give you a range from 14.6m near limit to infinite on the far end.

Would these also then be acceptable for landscape (for example, on the edge of the cliff so there is no foreground)?

 

[floydthebarber71]

I'm not sure how correct that is, but 15m is a long way. I thought with landscapes you would be trying to use your lens at its peak sharpness, which is usually around f/8-11 anyway?

 

[fvdbergh]

Would thes also then be acceptable for landscape (for example, on the edge of the cliff so there is no foreground)?

Depends on how sharp you want the image. Re member, if something is within the depth of field, it does not mean it will be tack sharp. It only means that a point light source will project onto the sensor to form a dot with a diameter smaller than some specified limit. This limit, the circle-of- confusion, depends on your sensor size and pixel size because it is derived from a given a fixed print size. According to what I have read on the internet, this was back in 1930, meaning that we are unlikely to agree with what was considered sharp back then.

My point is just that your opinion of sharp may disagree with the DOF calculator, so go out and shoot those settings.

Also keep in mind that focus deteriorates continuously as you move further from the plane of focus, but that this could be highly nonlinear - see the toothwalker website for some math