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Jeffrey wrote:
Manual exposure? Really, for this question? Does one exposure setting work for all your landscape shots?
Like Milan said, start with f8, Av mode, autofocus on, evaluative metering, faithful color setting, and modify from there.
Everyone has their own approach, but of what most think of as landscape... most folks I know do photograph using manual settings and manually focusing using live view. My typical starting point includes the following:
1. Camera on tripod, with remote release attached.
2. Camera in manual mode with AF and IS turned off. ISO starting point is almost always at 100, though I'll increase this if necessary.
3. Most often I do my initial composition through the optical viewfinder, perhaps roughly manually focusing so that I can see the scene well enough to make compositional decisions.
4. If DOF isn't an issue (let's say a subject that is far away, and without any particular foreground), I'm most likely to select an aperture that will give me good resolution across the frame. This means not choosing the smallest apertures (since they can increase diffraction blur) or the largest apertures (since they can decrease resolution near the edge and may increase vignetting). In general this might be in the range of f/8, though that could vary depending upon the lens. If I need a smaller DOF I might choose a larger aperture as needed, or if I need larger DOF I'll choose a smaller aperture up to about f/16. (I rarely stop down to f/22, though there are occasions...)
5. In most cases I'll switch to live view mode at this point. Since the live view display shows the frame boundaries more accurately I will do final tune up of the composition here. (I especially like the option to show the 4:3 aspect ratio boundaries in live view on the 5Ds(R) since that is my preferred ratio.)
6. I use a combination of the plus/minus exposure meter at the bottom of the LCD and the RGB histogram display to make decisions about shutter speed, typically keeping the aperture the same. Depending on the nature of the scene, I do not simply use the meter derived settings, but I may depart from them for various reasons that I won't try to explain here right now. Almost all exposure changes are made by modifying the shutter speed, since changing aperture affects sharpness and DOF and changing ISO (too much) could also make IQ decrease. (In truth, you can use a higher ISO if you need to with good results — and if I have a shutter speed issue as a result of ISO 100 settings I'll raise ISO a bit.)
7. I use live view for manual focus — I virtually never us AF for landscape photography. (I do use AF for other types.) I select an element of the scene that I think is likely to be a primary focus point, considering its role in the composition and its distance relationship to other scene elements. I zoom in on that element using the 16x magnification setting and manually focus on it.
8. If I have DOF issues to think about I remain zoomed in to 16x. With exposure simulation enabled I press the DOF preview button and use the joystick controlled to move the display around to different areas of the scene, directly checking the focus effect of my aperture choice. (This helps me select the ideal hyperlocal point based on the effect on the scene, not some estimates. It also lets me check my assumptions about aperture and DOF directly.)
9. I'm now ready to make an exposure. If the scene is a relatively static one and the light is good that is a quick process. If things are moving (clouds, shadows, subjects in the scene, etc) this may take longer and I may make multiple exposures in order to have some to choose from later on. I'm not averse to making safety shots, so I'll usually make more than one exposure, and I might try additional exposures at different settings if I think they might be useful.
10. In some cases, for example scenes with very close and very far subjects and/or when using longer focal lengths, I may do a bit of quick focus bracketing "just in case," focusing a bit closer and further away than the ideal more-or-less hyperlocal distance. In some cases this turns out to be useful in post.
11. Out of habit I sometimes still bracket, especially in scenes with very large spans between highlights and shadows. These days this is more of an insurance policy than a necessity and I rarely resort to blending exposures in post.
Finally, there is no one way to shoot landscape. I don't have any problems if you or anyone else prefers a different approach. But since the OP asked... there you go.
Dan
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