This 60% in is a bit general. If there are things up front that I need more sharp I will focus 1/3 in. If everything in the foreground is silhouetted I will focus 2/3 in. This is why so many people read stuff and get it wrong. Like most things in photography it just depends.
In many cases I am more concerned about what is sharp at a distance than what is sharp in the foreground.

Typically when your doing landscapes on wide angle lenses your playing around with your focus ring just short of infinity. What I will do to make sure I'm covered is

1) Focus on 2/3 frame in lock focus and turn focus to manual.
2) Readjust camera and compose and take shot.
3) Adjust my focus ring slightly in..Take another shot.
4) Adjust my focus ring slightly out.. Take another shot.

Shooting this way on a tripod gives me lots of option. I can pick any one of three separately focused images.. depending on what I'm trying to get. I could also focus stack the images if I like(Although I've never had to do this!)


So here is my sequence I usually shoot when I shoot landscapes.

1) Camera on Tripod and do the focus thing above.
2) At each given focal length I will bracket my shot for 7 brackets on my 5D MKIII
3) Adjust focus in shoot 7 more brackets.
4) Adjust focus out and shoot 7 more brackets.


That's how I get my shot the way I want and that process gives me the ability to create HDR images if I need.

I don't use AEB when I shoot HDR. I manually bracket...This is the method that Joel Grimes uses. (That's who I got it from)

I expose under 3 stops.... Take a picture turn my dial for 3 clicks Take a picture again... Turn my dial 3 clicks...


I never look inside my camera except to compose the initial shot. I can feel the exposure clicks to know where I'm at.

I can take 21 shots of a landscape scene in less than a minute.
I don't have to even look at the back of my camera(Except for the initial composition) I know I've gotten a shot with an exposure and depth of field because of the process I followed not from my eye site.

That's the way I do it.

This 60% in is a bit general. If there are things up front that I need more sharp I will focus 1/3 in. If everything in the foreground is silhouetted I will focus 2/3 in. This is why so many people read stuff and get it wrong. Like most things in photography it just depends.
In many cases I am more concerned about what is sharp at a distance than what is sharp in the foreground.

Typically when your doing landscapes on wide angle lenses your playing around with your focus ring just short of infinity. What I will do to make sure I'm covered is

1) Focus on 2/3 frame in lock focus and turn focus to manual.
2) Readjust camera and compose and take shot.
3) Adjust my focus ring slightly in..Take another shot.
4) Adjust my focus ring slightly out.. Take another shot.

Shooting this way on a tripod gives me lots of option. I can pick any one of three separately focused images.. depending on what I'm trying to get. I could also focus stack the images if I like(Although I've never had to do this!)


So here is my sequence I usually shoot when I shoot landscapes.

1) Camera on Tripod and do the focus thing above.
2) At each given focal length I will bracket my shot for 7 brackets on my 5D MKIII
3) Adjust focus in shoot 7 more brackets.
4) Adjust focus out and shoot 7 more brackets.


That's how I get my shot the way I want and that process gives me the ability to create HDR images if I need.

I don't use AEB when I shoot HDR. I manually bracket...This is the method that Joel Grimes uses. (That's who I got it from)

I expose under 3 stops.... Take a picture turn my dial for 3 clicks Take a picture again... Turn my dial 3 clicks...


I never look inside my camera except to compose the initial shot. I can feel the exposure clicks to know where I'm at.

I can take 21 shots of a landscape scene in less than a minute.
I don't have to even look at the back of my camera(Except for the initial composition) I know I've gotten a shot with an exposure and depth of field because of the process I followed not from my eye site.

That's the way I do it.

I have a friend of mine that uses live view on his camera. He tries to convert me every time we talk. He takes superb landscape images.
The answer is.. I do not use live view. I just don't get misses with my method. That's why I do it the way I do. I think coming from film years ago I still kept this habit. I will tell you my images are as sharp as my friends and I get in and out faster.
By all means use live view. On a 5d mkiii you can shift your focal point around and zoom in to examine your sharpness making sure your sharp where you want. This is really not a right or wrong thing. My method is just another way that works real well for me. Downside is my method uses more space ion my computer. Upside is I get lots of shots with lots of options.

Pardon my misspellings and grammar... On a mobile..

Russ, thank you for posting; like the others, I appreciate your taking the time to do so.



The upside of having options is a powerful idea. In my experience as an engineer, this is the same as saying, "You can't have too much data." You can always choose to only use some of the data you have, but you can't use any data you don't have. Taking all those shots is capturing more data, and as he said, he doesn't get misses with his method. I just wanted to emphasize the conceptual value of this phrase; it's definitely something to keep in mind when out shooting.