How to FOCUS in Landscape Photography?

Great video thank you, my question is wich focus mode we should use?

Man, i was already familiar with the aperture settings BUT you truly made me understand the full potentiel and correct use of this tool. Your clear explanation and the examples given opened my vision about how to properly use aperture, for that i can only give you a deep thank you from my heart.

Great job

Once again, great. thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I got an idea. Grab the focus ring and shoot continuously as you focus one full rotation. Then pick one from the 100 photos!

So, in short there's no set rule

Fabulously helpful video as always 👏 👏 being quite inexperienced at landscape photography, I was wondering 🤔 once you have chosen your focus spot, is it possible to select manual focus to check overall focus, I have a Sony camera which has a focus peaking colour which to my thoughts should show up in all areas that are in focus. Am I correct in thinking this or like much in photography, not much is as straightforward as it seems 😅🤣 thanks for your wonderful videos 🙏😊

Great video! You provided excellent detail and reasoning with your methods. I've never really nailed down the best focusing methods for me and I will admit, I've been mostly "guessing" at the right spot for many years. Thankfully with APS-C you have some wiggle room with DoF, and as long as you keep apertures at f/8 or f/11, and don't focus on something too close to the lens, many shots will be in decent focus. The challenges are, mastering getting everything/almost everything in focus, and knowing when you don't need to get everything in focus. I really liked your reasoning about mountain layers and the trees of the forest not being the main characters, but instead support the story of the photo. Thank you very much for your insights, Christian!

Just discovered your channel. I love your presentation, I think the most enjoyable thing to me is how you explain your thought process! You communicate in a way that I feel would appeal to a broad range of experience levels. Nice job! Can’t wait to binge on your channel 😅

New subscriber here. Really enjoying your content. This video is something I’ve been trying to figure out for a long time. One of my problems is that I’m terrible at estimating distances so when I’m shooting stuff like waterfalls or woodlands, I waste time trying to estimate what the hyper focal distance is and I might lose the light or some other issue pops up. Any suggestions on how to get a quick but accurate measurement? Thanks!

How to make a ladscape photo intresting?

Thank you.

This was a really great and logical approach to something I have been trying to solve. Thank you.

Your da best teacher blessed you always.

You speak about 'waiting' for conditions to change.
I guess I'm fairly impatient! I find waiting difficult---- I am missing other pics, yet unfound!
But what are you talking about when you talk about waiting for conditions to improve? A few minutes? Hours? All day? Days? Weeks? What?
Being impatient it is difficult for me to sit and wait! I'm not sure I want to wait too long for Mr Grizzlie Bear to come find me! Or Mr Mountain Lion, either. Mr Turtle I can outrun, no problem. And don't forget what Mr Wolf did in Little Red Riding Hood! Sitting, waiting, I loose focus on my surroundings and Mr Grizzly might come eat me for his lunch! By moving I am scanning, looking, and looking, and looking. Listening, too.
Sitting for any length of time makes me feel vulnerable to wild animals, rattle snakes, scorpions, etc. Things you probably don't have to think about. Except for wild boars??? But I will do it if you say so! 99% of the time I'm alone, so safety is on me! And me, alone! (And Yes, I have bear spray! And a whistle! And usually an air horn! But no gun! And phones do not work in 97% of those western locations!)
So again, when you talk about waiting what kind of time are you waiting?
An average wait time, for you, is what, approximately? How long, on average?
Your longest wait time was what?
And did waiting pay off for you? Always? Or only sometimes? Just in case I find myself in 'more civilized' country and can wait!

Thanks in advance, should you reply!

Growing up in a very Grrman area of Minnesota I thought I was accustomed to a Germsn accent! WRONG!
I had a terrible time trying to understand you. Which is shocking to me.
So I will give it another go, which won't hurt. Maybe if I stop and start the video, understanding each word before moving on. Like, I thought you said 'photo stacking' but rather you were saying "focus stacking"! Maybe the ears are starting to go?!!! And in your pics of the grass, at f9 and f16, I had to really, really look hard for a while to see even the tiniest differences. So maybe the eyes are going too!!!
But the differences at f9 and f16, I thought, were so minute!!! Do they really make a difference? To the general audience? Or only to teachers and judges?
I try hard to get things right. But you are pointing out things I can't really even see, even after you call attention to it!
As I usually only shoot landscapes I will have to go back and review my pics for the sharpness at various distances.
My closest items are probably more fuzzy than yours, but you can certainly tell what the close items are! They just are not as sharp as yours!
I also tend to use a very wide angle lens when I do BIG wide landscapes. So in those everything tends to be sharply in focus due to the uber short DOF.
So, now, I will try using a prime lens, 85mm or 105mm, to see better, understand better, what you are saying here, with your suggestions!

I shoot in the western US. And sometimes I shoot across a deep gorge or valley toward hills maybe 5 or 10+ km away, at sun rise or sun set. The valley is in deep shade, so not a lot to focus on except for the distant silhouettes, clouds, etc. But i will try! THANKS FOR YOUR EFFORTS TEACHING!

Astral time lapse or lunar photography is something I do when far enough away from city lights. My Nikon prime lens are really great for that. Even on full moon nights I can do hand held when leaning against a building or tree. Maybe that is more of a monopod pic? But any info you have or want to share would be greatly appreciated as per astral, night time-lapse, eclipse, lightening strikes, etc, shooting!
On my next trip out west I want to shoot Saguaro cactus against a starry night sky. With the moon and no moon! And some Death Valley desert pics. Death Valley is a truely septacular location to shoot pics. But dangerous as it can be very cold at night yet super hot during the day. And there is no water there, so you really need to be prepared! But the landscape there is humbling with its supreme beauty! Maybe you will come one day to shoot it!

Thanks a bunch!

amazing video

Awesome 👍

Did u use manual focus or Manual Focus ?

Fantastic thank you Christian

Great tips on focusing Christian! very useful! It's always a challenge to focus properly in the field since you always face different compositions and conditions.

what a great presentation - well informed, well delivered and full of useful stuff! Well done Christian and thank you for posting

always come back to this video just to refresh my memory. It's so helpful. Thanks.

Very well explained! If your shooting wide angle using a 20mm lens or wider, have you ever heard of a method where you determine the distance from the nearest subject in your foreground you want sharp to your camera and then double that distance and that is your Hyperfocal Distance and where you focus. I use this method most of the time and it works extremely well.

Very good and clear explanation. As another guy also is writing, you are are a born presenter, thank you so much for your explanation.

I commend you for constantly giving and feeding us great and useful information too improve our photography without shoving in our faces (buy this and buy that) as so many of your contemporary U-Tube bloggers do. Thank you .... Needed too be said. Stay healthy and safe.

I'm old enough that a lot of my lenses have a hyperfocal distance calculator right on the focus ring. Progress...

youre lighting is on point man

Some things are worth watching more than once - and this absolutely is

This is certainly one of the best photography channels out there. Love the simplistic explainations :D

Subscribed. I am new to Camera world and this has made my life easy. Thank you Dude.

The way you explain things, your calm tone of voice just makes it so much easier for people to understand, not complicated or confusing but simple and to the point 👍 Much appreciate the time you take to do these helpful and insightful videos for us all. Thanks mate! 👍

Man I wish I had seen this video before my trip to Japan last May. Got a lot of blurry backgrounds :(

OMG! I feel SO identified about the hyper focal issue of not being “smart enough” to use it 😂 One question though: why switching off the camera/lens stabilisation? Thanks!!!

I miss the various focus helpers like half circle or diamond designs for focusing wish they could do it electronically on cameras today.

This is a good tutorial on the basics of focus for landscape. One thing: you have "Advertisement" showing on the upper right corner of the video because you gave it that category. You're not advertising anything. I suggest you change the category to "education". Thanks!

Thank you so much, Christian for sharing this nice tip. I'll try it out. I'd like to ask you if this tip only works with wide lenses or if it works with telephoto lenses as well. Thank you.

Thank you Christian, very informative video. I would be really interested in focus stacking video as well

Thanks alot Christian, very detailed video explained in the simplest best way possible. Will surely try out your method when i am out in the fields. 👏🏽👏🏽🙌🏽👍

Thanks Christian, really enjoyed this one

Ich finde es immer wieder toll, wie anschaulich und gut verständlich (insbesondere für mich als Laien) deine Erklärungen und Tipps sind! Auch deine Beispielbilder sind wie immer super schön und perfekt ausgesucht 👌🏼😍. Genieße dein Wochenende und lieben Gruß aus dem winterlichen München! 🙋🏼‍♀️

Thank you for making this video and sharing your experiences and knowledge so enthusiastically. 🎥🎬👌📷👍🙏🍀

Very good overview Christian. One comment on focus stacking. Photographers should be aware of focus breathing as if it is excessive it will make blending a very tricky exercise.

Ich kann überhaupt nicht verstehen warum 2 Leute "thumbs down" gegeben haben. Das Video war gut gedreht und ein wichtiges Thema. Wie immer "Vielen Dank".

Wieder ein sehr interessantes Video, super!

Servus Christian, das ist wohl eines der "ewigen" Themen 🤔 je mehr Möglichkeiten vorgestellt werden, desto unsicherer wird die Fotografen Schar 😉 deshalb: volle Zustimmung zum distance focussing👍 und wenn man sich nicht sicher ist, halt noch eine Variante dazu. Und passt.
"Schärfe Ausblicke" wünscht ich dir
Klaus

Good info Christian, you explained that really well. I loved the images you used as examples. It's always interesting to see how other photographers do their work. Thanks for sharing the video, enjoyed watching 👍🙏