How to get crisp backgrounds

[sreejithk2000]

Last weekend I was in Niagara with my wife and I was doing a lot of landscape and portrait photography. As expected in Portrait photographs, I was getting good bokeh in almost all portrait snaps. But unfortunately, I had a mighty falls in the backdrop and I wanted the falls to be as crisp as the subject itself. Since the subject was very close to the camera and the falls was miles behind, the camera was not rendering crispy backgrounds even when I shooted in landscape mode.

Please share your views on how to get both close and distant objects in sharp focus.

I use a Nikon D40 with 18-55 kit lens.

[agresbach]

i'm not as familiar w/ the landscape mode settings so I cant advise on that, but in these situations if you switch to aV mode (aperture priority.....i'm not 100% if nikon calls it this since i use canon but i'm sure the same applies), you choose which aperture to use (higher # f/stop will give you more depth of clarity, lower # will give you a shallower depth of field, like the portrait effect you mentioned). In this mode you'd choose a higher # (i dont do a lot of landscape photography so maybe someone else here can advise what setting to use for that) but then the camera will choose the appropriate shutter speed to properly expose and that should help you out. Keep in mind that as you increase the aperture, the slower the shutter speed you'll need to properly expose so if it gets too high you may need to use a tripod to avoid camera shake

good luck!

[OsmosisStudios]

You can only get so much without resulting to 2 things: Extreme apertures or Tilt-Shift lenses.

Extreme apertures are things like f/16 and f/22. They give a deeper DoF but also invite diffraction and can leave you with a shutterspeed that simply isnt manageable.
Tilt-Shift lenses are expensive and can be a pain to learn.

[wulf]

Read up about Depth of Field and hyperfocal distance. It might be possible to get everything acceptably sharp as long as the subject isn't too close.

Or, if you want to achieve what optics won't allow, take a shot of your wife in position and then another with her out of the way (using a tripod or other support so the camera doesn't move between the two). You should then be able to blend the two pictures together.

The best option of all might be to take some wonderful shots of the falls and some where your wife is clearly the subject and just put them side by side in your album.

Wulf

[Xposurepro]

you'll also need to take measures to properly expose for the subject and background. If you have a person in the shade and a sunlit waterfall in the background, you're going to blow out the waterfall the moment you expose for the subject. So you will want to add some strobe techniques onto your DOF studies.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by sreejithk2000

Please share your views on how to get both close and distant objects in sharp focus.

Wide angles, small apertures, stepping back from your subject, and hyperfocal distances. Hard to do hyperfocal with an 18-55 kit lens, though, since it doesn't have a distance scale.

But in your situation, what I'd do is:

1. Use the 18mm end of the lens.
2. Stop down to f/11 or f/16.
3. Take the shot.
4. Chimp and see if you got what you wanted. (No DoF preview button. Drat).
5. If not, step back a few feet and try again.