# Elegug Stack, Pembrokeshire



## buckas (Jun 13, 2008)

A cold, windy and wet autumn afternoon yielded to reveal a great sunset at Elegug Stacks on the south coast in Pembrokeshire.

5D3, 17-40 - LEE Polariser, 0.9 Soft & 0.9 Hard Grads.


Elegug_Stacks by drewbuckleyphotography, on Flickr

Thanks!

drew


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

Awesome stuff - love a good landscape.

Very nicely exposed!

Now I have a question - I am at the point now where I want to really improve my foreground detail.

I try to work on the principles of hyper focal focusing to get as sharp an image as possible. Some photos I see are super sharp and have loads of detail in the foreground. Is this due to PP or as a result of a good body/lens combo?


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## PJS (Aug 18, 2007)

Surely foreground detail in focus is a result of a very good lens, and the metering pattern the camera has and set to.
I'm sure a bit of unsharp masking adds a touch more.


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

PJS said:


> Surely foreground detail in focus is a result of a very good lens, and the metering pattern the camera has and set to.
> I'm sure a bit of unsharp masking adds a touch more.


What is this metering pattern you talk of? 

I suspect it is lens choice as my sigma 17-50 is canny bit sharper than my sigma 10-20.


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## buckas (Jun 13, 2008)

EddieB said:


> Awesome stuff - love a good landscape.
> 
> Very nicely exposed!
> 
> ...


Thanks matey, I'll be truthfully honest and say I've never even looked hyper focal distance for any of my lenses, from practice what I will say is stick the lens on manual focus, f/16 ish and manual focus the lens about a third of the way into the scene (most times about 3 metres in front of you) and that's pretty much it for complete front to back sharpness.

cheers

drew

p.s. metering pattern is to do with how you want the camera to evaluate the scene in regards to automating the aperture/shutter speed to make an "even" exposure based on the average shaped curve on the histogram. Metering is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to shooting landscapes as you're on (or should be) full manual mode anyways.


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

buckas said:


> Thanks matey, I'll be truthfully honest and say I've never even looked hyper focal distance for any of my lenses, from practice what I will say is stick the lens on manual focus, f/16 ish and manual focus the lens about a third of the way into the scene (most times about 3 metres in front of you) and that's pretty much it for complete front to back sharpness.
> 
> cheers
> 
> ...


Hmm ok - so I am at least heading in the right direction as I only shoot in manual mode. Think the only time I shoot out of manual is at the race track and even then I will sometimes go back to manual if lighting conditions are tricky.

Might reduce my apperture size as I usually shoot around F11... might go to F16. Cheers for the info


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## Brazo (Oct 27, 2005)

Eddie stick to F11 (max) Drew shoots full frame and that as a very rough rule of thumb gives you a stop less depth of field so F11 on crop body = F16 on full frame.

This is also why F2.8 gives front to back focus on a compact as the sensor is tiny.

From about F11 onwards on a crop body you suffer from diffraction which becomes even more noticable as you make the aperture smaller still. 

Focusing a third of the way into a scene is a good approximation as Drew says. On a crop body F5.6-F8 tend to produce the sharperst results so I tend to use these and 'attempt' to hyperfocal to get front to back focus. 

If you really want to get nerdy look into focus stacking!

On another note, whilst correct exposure won't affect focus, it can affect sharpness, a well exposed (even over - without blowing highlights) will appear sharper than a badly exposed photo. I routinely over expose and bring back down in PP to achieve this effect.


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## GIZTO29 (May 8, 2009)

Ed, from what ive been told the sweet spot is f11 on the 10-20  Maybe they sharpen the foreground on the images youve looked at. HAve you seen Daniel Chong on FB, 500px or Flickr? His shots are ridic but he is using a D800 lol

Phil


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

GIZTO29 said:


> Ed, from what ive been told the sweet spot is f11 on the 10-20  Maybe they sharpen the foreground on the images youve looked at. HAve you seen Daniel Chong on FB, 500px or Flickr? His shots are ridic but he is using a D800 lol
> 
> Phil


Cheers Phil - it's photos the people like Dave Brightwell, Steve Boote, and Mick have ridiculously awesome sharpness to their landscapes. I suspect it's all because they shoot full frame as well.


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## buckas (Jun 13, 2008)

if you can afford it, it's great having two bodies

crop for sports/wildlife/fast stuff eg.7D
full frame for landscapes/portraits/weddings eg. 5D2

however with the 5d3 on the scene now, i'm reaching for that whatever the subject matter


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

buckas said:


> if you can afford it, it's great having two bodies
> 
> crop for sports/wildlife/fast stuff eg.7D
> full frame for landscapes/portraits/weddings eg. 5D2
> ...


My dream setup is a 7d + 5d3 but cant justify the cost right now

I'll get a 7d in the new year and then go full frame in 12 months when I am out of the 2013 motorsport season. Depending on circumstance will depend on whether I go 5d2 vs 5d3 vs 6d. I was going to jump up to the 5d3 straight away but I am concerned about the reach I'll lose from the crop, I'd have to fund another lens (24-70/70-200/24-105) if I went full frame which I can't afford. And to be quite frank my photography is not good enough to justify spending the £££ on it just yet!


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## GIZTO29 (May 8, 2009)

buckas said:


> if you can afford it, it's great having two bodies
> 
> crop for sports/wildlife/fast stuff eg.7D
> full frame for landscapes/portraits/weddings eg. 5D2
> ...





EddieB said:


> My dream setup is a 7d + 5d3 but cant justify the cost right now
> 
> I'll get a 7d in the new year and then go full frame in 12 months when I am out of the 2013 motorsport season. Depending on circumstance will depend on whether I go 5d2 vs 5d3 vs 6d. I was going to jump up to the 5d3 straight away but I am concerned about the reach I'll lose from the crop, I'd have to fund another lens (24-70/70-200/24-105) if I went full frame which I can't afford. And to be quite frank my photography is not good enough to justify spending the £££ on it just yet!


The new FX (Full Frame) Nikon D600/800 have a great feature where you can switch to crop mode so its like 2 cameras in one. With the D800 you go from 36mp to 16.5 but the D600 drops quite a bit more to about 10. 
I'm in the same boat Ed, i want to upgrade but the crop sensor D300s replacement is nowhere to be seen :/ To jump to the D600/800 which i could get would mean buying new FX lenses which i just cant afford. :/


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## PJS (Aug 18, 2007)

Surely the point of the D800/600 is being able to select the sensor setting to best match with your lens?
Haven't looked into it, but logic would say it makes sense so APS-C designed lenses you may have already, can be used with the new body, and FF ones you were using with the 1.5-1.6x increase in effective focal length, can now be made full use of.

Makes sense for those moving up to FF photography, without having to invest in replacement lenses at the same time.


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## Glaschu (Sep 16, 2012)

GIZTO29 said:


> The new FX (Full Frame) Nikon D600/800 have a great feature where you can switch to crop mode so its like 2 cameras in one.


Nikon FX cameras have always had the ability to switch to DX mode, although unless one is determined to use DX lenses on one I can't really see any benefit...


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## GIZTO29 (May 8, 2009)

PJS said:


> Surely the point of the D800/600 is being able to select the sensor setting to best match with your lens?
> Haven't looked into it, but logic would say it makes sense so APS-C designed lenses you may have already, can be used with the new body, and FF ones you were using with the 1.5-1.6x increase in effective focal length, can now be made full use of.
> 
> Makes sense for those moving up to FF photography, without having to invest in replacement lenses at the same time.





Glaschu said:


> Nikon FX cameras have always had the ability to switch to DX mode, although unless one is determined to use DX lenses on one I can't really see any benefit...


I suppose it wouldnt be as bad going for the D800 and using your crop lenses until you can afford to upgrade lenses, not so much with the D600 as the res drops right down. :/
Ah, i thought it was a new feature. The one benefit i can see though is where Ed is saying in the previous post he'd like a 7D and 5D Mk3... well if he had Nikon FX he could just switch to DX mode which would be like switching to the 7D right? I appreciate the burst rate is slower in the D800 but i think hes wanting the 2 for the landscape/motorsport. Anyway why doesnt Canon have this ability?

Sorry for taking your post off topic here Drew, your shot is brilliant and i love the sunburst  We have some great stacks in teh North East that are perfect for these cliff top shots.. if youve got the nerve to get close to teh edge lol

Phil


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