Landscape Photography - Depth of Field and Focus Point

Photographers capture landscapes chasing one perfect and beautiful moment. As photographers, we want to photograph our awe-inspiring scene, to turn out the way our naked eye perceives it, in absolute depth of field. So to render any part of your landscape image out of focus is unfortunate. And in my opinion, 90% of the time ruins the shot, unless in that rare case, your goal as a visual artist is to be artistically creative.

When I took this shot of Mt. Fuji, there were other local photographers in attendance on this beautiful misty morning. And as I looked around, at my fellow photographers, I knew they were probably all amateurs because of how they set up their tripods and the noise from cameras as they checked their image and settings after each shot. They were far too busy, a telltale sign of an amateur photographer.

Everyone ignored two rocks in the foreground that caught my attention. They were almost touching the reflection of Mt. Fuji and gave the sacred peak a foundation of depth that would have been lacking in the absence of the two elements in the foreground. While others set up their tripods at eye level, I set my tripod low actually in the water, and my camera was almost touching the water to capture the perfect angle and foreground and complete depth of field for the reflection of Mt. Fuji.

I recommend f/16, f/22, and a tripod is a must, and your ISO should be set to minimum for maximum picture quality. Where is your perfect focal point? There is a simple formula that my mentors taught me, and I will now share it with you. You take the focal length of your lens and your foreground and divide it by 3. This simple rule will yield the most depth of field for your landscape composition. For my Mt. Fuji reflection photo, I used a 24 mm lens at f/22, so I set my focal point at 24/3, so 8 feet or little more than 2 meters away from the rocks. There are a few inches of giving and take when using this formula.