Why use a narrow aperture for landscape photography?
Asked 2/15/2016
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I often hear that landscapes should be shot at a small aperture to maximize depth of field. But if a landscape is focused near infinity, wouldn’t everything already be in focus regardless of aperture? Am I misunderstanding how aperture affects depth of field in this case?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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Or am I misunderstanding how aperture works?...I thought the further away something is, the greater the depth of field. So when an object is three and a half miles away, it's going to have a huge depth of field!
You're not wrong about that, but landscape photography often involves more than just photographing very distant objects. You often have objects at a range of distances, like flowers up close with trees in the middle ground and a mountain range behind them. In a portrait, you want to (literally) focus on the subject, so bokeh that reduces everything else to a lovely blur is welcome. In a landscape, you usually want someone to feel like they're taking in an entire vista -- everything should be sharp. If there's any blur, it should be intentional motion blur due to a long exposure. And you don't always focus at infinity -- you want to focus close enough that both foreground and background will be sharp.
Originally by user4262. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4262
10y ago
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Aperture still matters in landscape photography because many landscapes are not just “everything at infinity.” Often you have foreground, midground, and distant background elements in the same frame—such as flowers nearby, trees farther out, and mountains in the distance. A narrower aperture increases depth of field so more of those different distances appear sharp at once.
Also, lenses are often not at their sharpest when used wide open. For many landscape situations, a moderate aperture such as roughly f/5.6 to f/11 is a good balance: enough depth of field, while avoiding the softness some lenses show at wide apertures and the diffraction softness that can appear at very small apertures.
So the goal is usually not simply “focus at infinity,” but choosing focus and aperture so the whole scene feels sharp. Wide apertures are more useful when you need more light, faster shutter speeds, or intentionally blurred backgrounds.
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