Pedersen Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska.
It has been awhile since I have answered any Ask Ron questions. As a reminder, I will answer any photography question as best I can.
A couple of weeks ago I received this question:
I love how you capture a foreground, middle ground background with such great depth.
Do you typically try to accomplish this with a 24 T/S or the 24 1.4L?
Thanks, Ray
To answer your question, yes I do use Canon’s tilt shift lenses a fair amount. By tilting the plane of focus I am better able to position the depth of field from near to far without sacrificing a lot of shutter speed. I go into more detail in this post on tilt with Canon’s tilt shift lenses. These lenses are especially valuable when you have something really close, say within a couple of feet, and still want to keep distant objects in focus.
But, I don’t use those lenses as much as I should. It is so much easier, faster and lighter to carry one 24-105 then three tilt shift lenses. In these circumstances, I use a small aperture to maximize depth of field – usually around f/16. I then focus about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way into the scene. I also almost always will use a tripod, mirror lock up and the 2 second self timer to minimize any movement as much as possible. This is about as good as it gets without tilt. If something still has to be a bit out of focus I would rather it be distant objects – I believe prominent foreground elements have to be sharp – distant objects like mountains can be more forgiving.
Tomorrow I will answer another recent question on depth of field – this one regarding bokeh.
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