Hiking in the Blue Ridge Mtns

[Comet Hunter]

The good news, I am only 45 minutes from Ceasars Head st park in the Blue Ridge Mtns, the bad news I don't take advantage of it as I should.
I hope that changes.

Still getting used to my new Canon R8 and the 27x70 2.8f stm zoom lens. I also picked up a 100x400 stm lens for it. I hope to spend more time in nature to make use of both.

Tell me your thoughts on my hike captures.

My bad, the sun was in the wrong location for this one, although you could see for miles
Also still trying out different focus settings. My wife is a little out of focus

such a pretty day for a hike
I should have had my wife stand on this side of the lookout.

leaves are beginning to change with blue skies above

Same here, wasn't thinking about the suns location. the whole picture look out of focus doesn't it

 

[AlanLichty]

Getting everything in your scene in focus is a lot harder than it looks when you have both a near and far subject. The first and last images are good cases in point - with your wife so close to you getting her in focus pretty much guarantees the distant view behind her will be out of focus as can be seen in the last image. Having the distant scene in focus as seen in the first image keeps you wife a bit on the blurry side.

Lots of techniques to mitigate this ranging from focus stacking to hyperlocal focusing. Reaching for higher f/stop values will also help although for the range of focus you are looking at with these images won't quite make it. Your R8 does include builtin focus stacking so do some searches and you will find a plethora of ways to use it.

 

[Comet Hunter]

Getting everything in your scene in focus is a lot harder than it looks when you have both a near and far subject. The first and last images are good cases in point - with your wife so close to you getting her in focus pretty much guarantees the distant view behind her will be out of focus as can be seen in the last image. Having the distant scene in focus as seen in the first image keeps you wife a bit on the blurry side.

Lots of techniques to mitigate this ranging from focus stacking to hyperlocal focusing. Reaching for higher f/stop values will also help although for the range of focus you are looking at with these images won't quite make it. Your R8 does include builtin focus stacking so do some searches and you will find a plethora of ways to use it.

Thx for the tips

 

[AlanLichty]

Thx for the tips

Any time - just ask.

BTW - my favorite of your hiking set is #3 looking up into the trees.

 

[Rick Nantais]

Great shots indeed but watch your horizon. takes 30 seconds in toshop to straithen it

 

[JimFox]

Hey Ed, it's great to see you out using your new camera. You will get the hang of it soon. I like what you shot here.

A couple of thoughts about focusing, I will repeat some of what Alan suggested.

1. Hyperfocal Distance is the landscape photographers friend, and most any photographer. What that means is that when you are composing a shot, aim and focus at something 1/3 the distance in your image. That will put the 1/3 towards you in focus, and the 2/3rds behind the focus point in focus. When you focus it's not focusing at the 50% distance, but the 33% distance.

That can be accomplished 2 ways.

A. While composing move your focus point in camera to an object that is 1/3rd the distance into the scene.

B. You compose, then move the camera so that the focus point (often in the middle of your camera) to the object that is 1/3d the distance in the scene. Half press the shutter so that the camera focuses, but doesn't take the photo. While still holding the shutter button half pressed, you now recompose the image and then finish pressing the shutter button to take the photo.

Note: I typically leave my focus point at the 1/3rd mark, so it's already where I want it to be. It's easy with the control pad to nudge the focus point when needed.

2. When a person is in the image like you have here, you typically would want to move the focus point so the camera focuses on her.

3. Aperture. Most lenses are at their sharpest when set to f8 or maybe f11. I personally prefer f13. It gives a large range of focus, but doesn't the diffraction isn't really noticeable. So there is this battle in the lens, the more you stop down you will get a larger focus range, but the more you stop down the image gets softer from diffraction. So at f22 on a Wide Angle lens, everything will be in focus, but the farthest things will start to get soft because of diffraction.


What was your fstop in these photos. What mode are you shooting in? Most of us will shoot in Aperture priority, because controlling what's in focus and the depth of the focus is most important to us.