How to Shoot Landscape Photos with 50D

Night Exposure 50D

When you want to shoot a landscape shot, wide angle lenses usually come in handy. I recommend the EF 17-40L F4.0 USM

When shooting a landscape, the most difficult questions users encounter tend to be 1) where do I focus for a landscape shot? and 2) What aperture should I use for a landscape shot?

Answering those questions is easy, but if you desire the most accurate and complete answer please continue to read.

1) Where do I focus for landscape shots?

Answer: Focus for a landscape shot depends on the composition of your frame.
If you will be shooting a shot of a city and only care about certain buildings being in focus such as the shot above, you will focus on the subject matter that is important to you.

When shooting with an XSi or 50D use an aperture of F8 or F11 but no greater than F11. Anything higher than F11 and you will lose sharpness in your photo due to diffraction.

I recommend using a tripod along with mirror lockup custom function enabled and a remote timer. You will then use live view 10x zoom to focus precisely and accurately on the subject matter most important to you. This will ensure that the area you focus at, is the area with the most resolution and detail captured by your lens and camera.

Scenario 2: Where do I focus when I want objects in the near ground and foreground sharp and “in focus”?

This is where things get complicated, you will need an understanding of hyperfocal distance focusing. Its not hard, its easy actually, but its a concept that may take a couple of read throughs to really grasp. Here is our chapter on How to use Hyperfocal Distance

2) In general I always use F8 for my aperture on landscape shots, however I would be comfortable using F11 but have never felt the need to go that high. F8 extracts all of the detail that I need from my image, without causing any diffraction.