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The challenge in wide angle shooting as opposed to telephoto shooting is that there is usually a large depth of field involved.  With telephoto shooting, there is usually a strong subject matter and limited depth of field (out of focus background behind and/or in front).  This is especially true of bird photography where the intent is to have the bird in focus and the background smooth and out of focus, eliminating any distracting elements such as branches.

However, with landscape (normal to wide), the object is usually to have relatively sharp focus from front to back (it's ok to have distant subjects a little out of focus indicating large distances). The wider the angle, the more foreground there usually is to deal with.  If anyone has ever tried very wide lenses, it's not so easy taking interesting images.  That is usually because there is nothing of interest in the foreground and middle ground.  This makes only the background is of interest and the image fails as a whole (unless there is some extraordinary lighting etc).

The image attached, I believe has something of interest in the foreground all the way to the far distance.  This was a relatively easy example but sometimes it's not so easy.  How do you work on this?  There are many ways, but one is to get lower to the ground and put subjects like flowers, rocks into the bottom of the frame.  In order to have foreground and background in focus you will need our lens set to f8 or higher (see previous blog on how to use hyper-focal settings to maximize depth of field). If shooting at a distant mountain, hopefully a lake will allow you to use reflections as the middle ground.  Otherwise, trees, shrubs etc can be easily used for middle ground subjects.

How did I get the foggy look on the shore?  See my previous blog: http://vinsingh.posterous.com/77541150 on long exposures.

-Vin Singh

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