Where to Focus for Landscape Photography

Knowing where to focus in landscape photography can be tough. Especially when you are dealing with foreground that is important to get detailed and sharp, which sits relatively close to the camera, whilst having a glorious vista on the horizon that also demands that same level of detail and sharpness.

For years I struggled with this. And I strugled to find accessible information that just gave me a simple answer that I could use out in the field. Much of the advise centred around three strategies: a third in; focus stacking; hyperfocal distance.

The ‘third in strategy seemed the simplest’ and was the one I chose to follow for many years. Simply focus a third of a way into the scene. That was it! Can’t really get any simpler than that. But where abouts is the third. Is it a third in distance? A third in the viewfinder? If I have a mountainous range in the background that sits three miles away, do I focus at the one mile marker, or on the rule of third marker on the screen? I learnt to weigh it up and mixed and matched dependant on what I was shooting and it worked, sometimes. But whilst it did get results on a lot of compositions (and I used it succesfully on a lot of compositions), I often found it lacking when it came to close and far subjects in the same image.

So then came focus stacking. Focus stacking relies heavily on post processing. In the field you basically focus at different points throughout the scene and then composite the various images in photoshop (or similar) during post processing. This is actually fairly simple process as it can be automated in may programmes. Focus stacking can produce fantastically tack sharp images. Where sharpness is your ultimate goal then, without doubt, this is the way to achieve it. But, for me at least, I wasn’t sold. Firing multiple images and having extra work to do in post production is not my cup of tea. The extra storage from the extra shots plus the subsequent composited TIFF file. The need for a tripod at all times, each image must be exactly lined up with each other. The extra time per image to process. .No this wan’t going to be for me, except for in the most necessary of shoots.

So that left me with one option, hyperfocal distance. And this had been daunting me for years. I had actively not learnt it. It seemed genuinely ridiculous to me that I would need to go into the field with charts and measuring tapes but that was the only option left, or was it? There is another……….

In the video tutorial below, we will uncover the mathematical secrets of hyperfocal distance, and then we’ll dismiss them completely. Because there is a far more efficient and simple method that we can use. A photographer friendly method that takes into account the shot in front of you. And one that just requires ‘one step’.