sharp landscapes with gh1

[Soldier]

I'm shooting landscapes for establishing shots on the gh1 and a 24mm nikkor ai lens. I'm wondering what aperture recommend for maximum sharpness. the lens stops down to f 22 but my footage appears sharper at f11. Also lets say I'm filming a field of wheat with a farmhouse in the distance. should i set focus to the foreground so the wheat is sharp, or focus on the farm house which is probably too far away to appear sharp to the eye anyway?

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

I'm shooting landscapes for establishing shots on the gh1 and a 24mm nikkor ai lens. I'm wondering what aperture recommend for maximum sharpness. the lens stops down to f 22 but my footage appears sharper at f11. Also lets say I'm filming a field of wheat with a farmhouse in the distance. should i set focus to the foreground so the wheat is sharp, or focus on the farm house which is probably too far away to appear sharp to the eye anyway?

All lenses have an optimal f-stop range. It usually lies 1-2 stops down from wide open to 2-3 stops before the smallest.

So, for the GH-1 and the 14-140 f/4 lens that would be around f/5.6-f/11. Smaller apertures start to get into the zone of 'diffraction' effects, wider to wide open f-stops show problems with the lens. In the case of the Nikkor lens I'd say as a rule of thumb f/-8 would be the 'optimal'...

All lenses, and given a circle of confusion, will have a hyperfocal distance. That is the distance at which DoF reaches to 'infinite'... At the hyperfocal distance, scene elements that are 1/2 that distance to infinite
are in 'focus', relative to the Depth of Field.

Lighting and scene contrast also affect the perception of 'sharp'.

I'd suggest experimenting with various f-stops, having focused at varying distances, to 'see' the effects of these parameters in what you consider to be 'sharp' or 'soft'.

Or given that you have the 24mm lens, find an online calculator and plug in a few distances, f-stops, and see the resulting DoF distances.

 

[mikecazzx]

I'm shooting landscapes for establishing shots on the gh1 and a 24mm nikkor ai lens. I'm wondering what aperture recommend for maximum sharpness. the lens stops down to f 22 but my footage appears sharper at f11. Also lets say I'm filming a field of wheat with a farmhouse in the distance. should i set focus to the foreground so the wheat is sharp, or focus on the farm house which is probably too far away to appear sharp to the eye anyway?

I just watched a landscape photography tutorial tonight. He had suggested focusing on your foreground, since for example, a mountain in the background will appear soft and or the mountain contrast line with the sky would help it appear sharp.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

I just watched a landscape photography tutorial tonight. He had suggested focusing on your foreground, since for example, a mountain in the background will appear soft and or the mountain contrast line with the sky would help it appear sharp.

Ansel Adams and the rest of the f/64 'group' would roll over in their collective graves...

But there are a couple of reasons why distant objects may appear 'soft' even at higher f-stops that occurred to me after my post above... one significant item is 'aerial' haze. This can be cut via a polarizing filter for 'color' photography, or in B&W, one can use a Wratten 21 (orange) or for more a 25 (red), to cut through the bluish scatter resulting from water vapor in the air.

The point being, 'contrast' does give the human the impression of 'sharpness' of an image.

But these digital days, probably it would be better to do do this sort of think in post processing.

There are also 'tilting' lenses for small format cameras that allow for the near foreground elements along with some set of distant background elements to be brought in to 'focus' by tilting the focus plane, then add higher f-stop... This is what is done with a view camera, and some older press cameras. But there is a certain amount of distortion that occurs... so you don't get it for free...