Canon XSi How to shoot Landscapes

F11, 1/90 sec, 17mm

Landscape shots are an important aspect of photography. I’ve looked around the web and have been shocked at some of the advice I’ve read regarding how to get the best landscape shots.

F9, 1/200, 18mm

One of the worst pieces of advice I came across was to shoot a landscape shot at the narrowest aperture you could select. That random site which claimed to be an expert SLR guide, suggested shooting at F22 or higher if possible. What the dSLR user must realize is that this is extremely awful advice.

F8, 1/160th, 28mm

When you are photographing a landscape, if you were to select the narrowest aperture your lens is capable of you would suffer from diffraction of the image. Why? Well in my earlier lesson about aperture, I explained that light is collumated through the aperture blade opening and exposed onto your sensor. When the hole becomes so small, the light goes through and then begins to disperse out again. This will lead to lost image quality, more blurred details, and degradation of your image quality.

So ignore those lessons out there that tell you to use the maximum depth of field by using the narrowest aperture you can achieve.

What aperture should we use?
That all depends on the type of lens and image etc…
My advice is to shoot for between F8 and F11 with F11 being the maximum your willing to use for an F stop.

F16, 30 seconds, 17mm

The next key to your landscape shots is hyperfocal distance focus and of course proper exposure. Depending on what you are looking to do, you will likely need to use manual mode and our exposure techniques to achieve your results. Here I was able to use a tripod, and through manual mode get an extended exposure that wasn’t blown out.

A tripod is ideal for landscape shots, it allows you to use a narrower aperture, a slower shutter speed, to take in the scene and get a great depth of field.

You don’t need a tripod to get great landscape shots, but it can help to achieve more stable shots especially in less then ideal lighting conditions. Above I demonstrated a variety of shots, you can see I was able to get nice clear shots using apertures as wide as F5.6 and as narrow as F16.

If you are hand holding, you will need to ensure the shutter speed is 1/(focal length x 1.6) so for instance if we are using a 17-40L lens, and we are shooting at 17mm on our Canon Xsi we will need a shutter speed of 1 / (17 x 1.6) = 1/27 sec minimum shutter speed. If you choose anything slower then 1/27 then you will likely have a blurry photo.

Where to focus?
Focusing for a proper landscape shot is a bit tricky when first learning.
You will want to maximize the image quality, sharpness, and focus by focusing at your lenses hyperfocal point.

When shooting landscape shots, you will likely want the greatest depth of field your lens can achieve. The greatest depth of field your lens is capable of is acquired by focusing at your lenses’ hyperfocal distance.

When you focus your lens on a subject, some areas will be in focus and other areas will be out of focus. The area in focus is covered in your depth of field, and is considered to be within the focal plane. When you focus at the hyperfocal distance point, everything from half the distance of H and back to infinity will be in focus.

Hyperfocal distance is calculated as the following:

H = (focal length^2)/(aperture x Circle of Confusion)
The circle of confusion on the canon XSI is .019

so the hyperfocal distance for a 17mm lens at 5.6 aperture on the Xsi =
(17×17)/(5.6x.019) = H = 2716.16 mm or 2.71 meters

This means, at an aperture of 5.6 and a focal length of 17mm on your Canon XSi your lens hyperfocal distance point is 2.71 meters (8.8 feet) away. So how does this help you? It basically indicates that if you focus at something 2.71 meters away then all subject matter from half the distance of your focus point to you, and all the way to infinity will be in focus. So 4.4 feet to infinity would be in focus, if you focused at 8.8 feet. This is a helpful understanding of depth of field, and will prevent you from suffering diffraction by using too narrow of an aperture. Try to avoid anything over F11 if possible when using normal non macro lenses.

Once you calculate your hyperfocal point, you focus on that point and frame your shot as you want. Everything from half the distance of the hyperfocal point to you, and from the hyperfocal point to infinity will be sharp and in focus.

Frame your shot so it looks nice, pay attention to your horizon. The flaws with my images I’ve posted here, show that the horizon is not flat … it can ruin a photo and altering it in photoshop will lead to a loss of details. So pay attention to your horizon! if you are shooting in live view mode, you can place the grid on the screen to see if you have lined the horizon up properly.

Use one shot auto focus mode, use the remote trigger or the 2 second self timer. If you are extremely paranoid about camera shake, you can also use the custom function for mirror lock in combination with a remote shutter release or 2 second self timer.

For further examples of images showing depth of field, which will help you understand the concept of hyperfocal distnace, please check out our guide to depth of field.