Sunrise over Middle Head and Smokey, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

[gail bisson]

I am hoping for input from the experts as I am not exactly the brightest bulb in the string when it comes to landscape photography.
We hiked up Broad Cove Mountain in the dark to arrive at the top at sunrise.
My first mistake was that I did not bring my tripod so had to shoot at 5.6 to get enough SS with no shake.
My question is- had i brought my tripod what aperture should I have selected? I am thinking F 16 or more would be best. Where should my active focus point rest?
Basic beginner questions but I plan on going back on Sunday am to shoot this scene again WITH my tripod!
This is full frame pano crop with my 1DMKIV. I will take my 1DX on Sunday instead.
24-105mm SS 1/400 ISO 800.

[dankearl]

It looks fine focus wise, not much to be gained in this scene shooting smaller apertures.
The trend in Landscape these days is to shoot at the sharpest apertures and focus stack.
Most Landscape wide angle lens are actually sharpest at f5.6 to f8.
Unless you need a small aperture for longer Shutter speed (water, mostly), try shooting 2 or 3 (some people use more,
I can't really tell the difference past 3) shots at near to far distance into the frame and focus stack them.
One of the easier PS methods, there are a lot of tutorials that are easy to find.
Of course you need a tripod for doing it.

[Dvir Barkay]

nice shot, maybe would have like to see some more that fog in the bottom corner, could have also been interesting. I find personally that F/5.6 works alright if the focus is in a good place and their isn't a lot of foreground/background dynamics to the landscape. I personally have a love hate relationship with tripods, they are great, but I prefer handheld when I can. So I think that F/5.6 works a lot of times. I usually stop down between F/8 to F/11 for most of my landscapes. One great things about Sony cameras with the in body stabilization which is priceless when it comes to travel/ handheld landscape photography, because it works with every lens (good to see Canon, Tamron, Sigma, finally starting to put that in all kinds of lenses).

[Don Railton]

Hi Gail

As Dan said the focus is pretty good in this so you have not missed out at F5.6.. but you don't have anything in the frame that's real close so DOF is not very challenging in this. For single images where you need greater DOF than this I usually don't go beyond about F14 because diffusion will cause the IQ to fall off at F stops greater, not by a lot but that's why some stack. I have not found the need yet... I would take a tripod on your next trip and maybe try some shots earlier than this, just before the sun peeks it head above the horizon. I am always astounded what the camera can see that I cannot...and I my opinion tripods were invented for landscape photography...they open up so many options.. IMO the focal point in this sort of image would be centered about a 1/3 up from the bottom putting 1/3 of the image in front of and 2/3 behind the focal plane. Have fun..

DON

[gail bisson]

Thank you for your help!
Gail

[Morkel Erasmus]

A nice scene, Gail - lovely colours and fall of light overall.
I find myself wanting more at the base of the image (more of those immediate trees) - suppose there was some distracting stuff down there that you excluded on purpose?
Some good advice from Dan above on focus stacking. I haven't been shooting enough landscapes these days to say I've actively tried it - still need to wade into those waters.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Gail, the focus for this image is perfectly fine at f5.6. I agree with both Dvir and Morkel on the fog and more on the bottom. If you could time it to be there about half an hour before the sun hits the horizon you may be rewarded with some lovely colors in the sky. Clear skies don't really produce decent skies, often under these conditions I will watch what is happening in the western sky as this is when you may get the lovely pink pastels. The majority of my landscape images fall in around f8, f11, and f16 and the choice of f-stop is determined by the scene that I am capturing. Looking forward to seeing more of your landscape work :S3: