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Manual Focus or Autofocus for Landscape • Landscape Photography

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BY SPENCER COX | 27 COMMENTS
LAST UPDATED ON AUGUST 2, 2023 • Post-Processing
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Landscape photography is often slower paced than other genres, allowing for a
more methodical approach to composition and camera settings. That includes
focusing; manual focus is more popular for landscapes than most other genres. Make Every Hour
Indeed, there’s a whole market of third-party manual focus lenses geared almost
exclusively to landscape photographers. But autofocus still has its benefits. So,
Golden Hour
which method is right for you?

Manual vs Autofocus: The Simple Answer

If you’re struggling to decide between autofocus and manual focus, you’re
probably thinking too hard. Why? Because there’s only one correct distance to
focus for every photo. Assuming nothing is preventing accurate autofocus or
accurate manual focus, the photos you capture will be identical with either
technique. Join Photography Life’s
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But – manual focus tends to be slower, especially if you require pin-point
accuracy. And unless your manual focusing method is near perfect, it’s
actually less precise than autofocus simply because of human error.
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Personally, when I find myself at a more crowded landscape or overlook, I tend to • Camera Reviews
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see a surprising number of people using manual focus for most of their
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landscape photos. Usually, this is not done carefully from a tripod in magnified • Best Cameras and Lenses
live view, but while shooting handheld through a DSLR’s viewfinder. This is not a
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recipe for tack-sharp shots.

Manual focus is for taking over when your camera’s autofocus can’t do a
good enough job. For example, with Milky Way photography, almost no cameras
can autofocus on the stars successfully, and manual focus is a must. The same PHOTOGRAPHY LANDSCAPE
goes in low-contrast environments like a thick fog. BASICS PHOTOGRAPHY

Most of the time, though, autofocus is more than good enough. It’s quicker and
more convenient than manual focus. And, if nothing goes wrong, it’s identically
accurate. That corollary – “if nothing goes wrong” – may sound worrying, but it
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shouldn’t be. The odds of anything going wrong in autofocus are lower than in PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHY
manual focus.

You’re also, crucially, more likely to tell if autofocus is inaccurate because the
focus point will blink to let you know. If you focus manually at the wrong point,
COMPOSITION & BLACK & WHITE
you could take an entire series of photos without realizing it until you get back
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home.

When and How to Use Autofocus for Landscape Photography

If you use autofocus by default, you’ve probably already realized the cases when
NIGHT SKY PORTRAIT
it works really well: daytime photos, sunsets, and just landscapes in general. With PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHY
enough light, there aren’t many situations where autofocus consistently fails.
(This is just as true outside of nature photography, such as capturing portraits
and sports, too.)

Take a look at the photos below. I focused automatically for both of them, since it STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
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saved time, and it was totally accurate:

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Keep in mind, though, that all autofocus techniques aren’t created equal. There
are still some bad ways to focus automatically that might end up giving you
blurry photos, where you’re focused on something other than your main subject.

First, my top recommendation is to avoid autofocus area modes where your

camera tries to guess what your subject is. For lack of a better term, I call this
“auto-autofocusing,” and it means you can’t position your focusing box wherever
you want. Instead, your camera decides for itself what your subject is, and it
focuses on that. For most landscapes, single-point and single-servo (AF-S)
autofocus is ideal.

Second, there’s a difference between contrast-detect and phase-detect

autofocus. With DSLRs, almost always, the viewfinder uses a phase-detect
system, while live view is contrast-detect. For mirrorless cameras, all autofocus
tends to be contrast-detect (or a hybrid system). Phase-detect autofocus is
quicker, but it needs to be calibrated properly or risk some noticeable errors.
Even then, contrast-detect is more likely to be accurate overall, although the
differences aren’t enough to ruin a photo. But if you don’t have a separate reason
to shoot through your DSLR’s viewfinder, live view is usually the way to go.

Third, even the best autofocus systems can get falter in areas of minimal detail.
Choose a high-contrast point for focusing, like blades of grass or the edge of a
rock. Focusing on a cloud, for example, will not always work well.

Using Manual Focus for Landscape Photography

Despite the benefits of autofocus, there are plenty of reasons why you may still
want to use manual focus for landscape photography. I already mentioned that it
comes in handy in dark and low-contrast environments, but that’s not the only
situation where it matters. A lot of photographers also use manual focus when
they need consistent focus from shot to shot.

It looks something like this: When you’re shooting on a tripod and reshuffling
your composition slightly for every photo, you don’t need to refocus every few
seconds. But if you’re using autofocus, and your camera focuses each time you
half-press the shutter button, that’s exactly what will happen. So, a lot of
photographers will switch their lens to manual focus to have perfect consistency
from shot to shot.

Personally, I don’t do this. I have my camera set to back-button focus so that

focusing is decoupled from the shutter button. On my camera, this is the AF-On
button, but it isn’t called the same thing on every camera. Almost all of them
have it as an option, however.

But when manual focus is essential, how do you use it properly? The best way to
get guaranteed precision manual focus is to take things slowly. Use a tripod,
open live view, and magnify the live LCD image to its highest setting, or close. I
recommend setting a relatively wide aperture – something like f/2.8 to f/4 – to
exaggerate areas that are slightly out of focus. Then, carefully and slowly move
the focusing ring on your lens until the image looks as sharp as possible. You
may need to focus back and forth a couple times to find the sweet spot.

This might seem like a time-consuming method, but that’s because manual focus
can be tricky. Most people’s eyes aren’t good enough to nail 100% accurate
focus using the unmagnified LCD screen, and especially not through the
viewfinder. Unless you’ve had a lot of practice, tripod-based live view is the only
manual focus method that works consistently well.

Conclusion

For most landscape photographers, the bottom line is simple: Until it fails, use
autofocus. And when you do need to focus manually, use high-magnification live
view to improve your odds of a perfectly sharp result.

In most situations, the good news is that careful autofocus and careful manual
focus will result in exactly the same photos. The benefit of autofocus is that it’s
quicker, and it also minimizes human error. Manual focus still has its uses, of
course, so you definitely need to know how to use it properly. But for the vast
majority of landscape photographers, especially as you’re learning and growing
your skills, autofocus should be your default setting.

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FILED UNDER: PHOTOGRAPHY TECHNIQUES

TAGGED WITH: AUTOFOCUS, FOCUS, LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY, MANUAL FOCUS

About Spencer Cox

I'm Spencer Cox, a landscape photographer based in Colorado. I
started writing for Photography Life a decade ago, and now I run
the website in collaboration with Nasim. I've used nearly every digital camera
system under the sun, but for my personal work, I love the slow-paced
nature of large format film. You can see more at my personal website and my
not-exactly-active Instagram page.

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27 COMMENTS Newest

dave cadwell
April 30, 2019 6:23 pm

With regards to this debate, I think one has to look at what is being photographed. I was in
China last month on Tianmen Mountain. The mist was so close and thick that in this case it
did not matter. Pea soup is thick. Avatar Spire, if I may call it that was barely visible to the
eye. Pull up the camera and all you had was mist reflections. I carry a 10x loupe with me to
check the focus on my screen. The zoom in technique was useless here. I found more
variation going from Manual to Aperture Priority. In most cases I went back to Manual.
Tamron 10-24 Di ii VC HLD lens. IMHO if your lens is “hunting”, go Manual. If your battery is
low, go Manual.

0 Reply

Jan Holler
April 29, 2019 3:26 pm

I’d say it does not matter, Spencer. You have to review anyway be it AF or MF and even if
you’d carefully managed the hyper focal distance or half the distance and the correct
aperture. So why bother? In any way, the result is acceptable only if everything is in tack
sharp focus as you have planned.

0 Reply

Philip Carter
April 26, 2019 8:03 am

When I started out in photography 50 years ago (i.e. well before autofocus was around),
focusing landscape shots was often a matter of working out what in the scene you wanted to
be in focus, and setting the depth of field accordingly, combining the set aperture with the
depth of field and distance scales engraved on the lens and lens focusing ring. This could be
checked visually by stopping down the lens to achieve a ‘depth of field preview’. This way
you could control whether nearby, middle distance or distance elements in the composition
were in focus, or deliberately defocused. More often than not achieving exact focus on a
particular branch or blade of grass didn’t come into it. Autofocusing on a point in the scene
can, with experience, achieve a similar effect, especially if you are a MFT shooter where
depth of field is more generous that for bigger formats and you may not need to be so
precise, but to write an article on focusing in landscape photography with no apparent
awareness of depth of field, let alone a method of setting it with a modern camera, is
somewhat baffling.

1 Reply

Rich
Reply to Philip Carter April 26, 2019 8:15 am

Philip, I read the article as a discussion of auto vs manual and not as a discussion of
focusing en toto.

0 Reply

Spencer Cox Author

Reply to Philip Carter April 26, 2019 1:27 pm

Philip, thank you for your comment and perspective on this topic. This article is intended
much more for beginning landscape photographers, and it is intentionally limited in
scope to just focusing techniques. Our advanced article covers more of the topics you
mention: photographylife.com/how-t…hotography

However, I do want to mention that Micro Four Thirds or not – doesn’t matter. You don’t
get more depth of field by going with the smaller system, assuming your framing is the
same. Equivalence is beyond the topic of this article of course, but we’ve written plenty
in the past about why this is true.

Also, the depth of field scales engraved on lenses – even those few modern lenses
fortunate enough to have one – are not perfectly optimal. They are designed to produce,
usually, a 30 micron circle of confusion at each extreme. They also don’t take into
account Airy disks from diffraction. In other words, at best, they will give you a “minimum
acceptable” sharpness at the extremes. Luckily, there are other methods of focusing and
choosing an aperture that will turn “minimum acceptable” into “mathematically maximum
possible” for a given scene. We’ve also talked about this before:
photographylife.com/how-t…t-aperture

0 Reply

Philip Carter
Reply to Spencer Cox April 27, 2019 11:24 am

Thanks Spencer but I’m not sure about your contention that ‘you don’t get more
depth of field by going with the smaller system’…. according to my usual guru,
Thom Hogan, a MFT shooter using a 14mm lens need only set an aperture of f5.6
to get the same depth of field as a Full Frame shooter using a (equivalent) 28mm
lens at f11, giving two stops more light to play with MFT (see
www.sansmirror.com/artic…-size.html). This of course assumes identical framing
of the subject. Is there something here that I’m misunderstanding?

I’ve taken a look at your other article ‘How to focus in landscape photography’ and
have a question about your explanation of the ‘double the distance method’. Is this
method going to work for a reader, new to Photography Life and not familiar with
your other articles, whose 17mm MFT lens is set to f1.8? I note that you don’t refer
to the effect of different apertures in this explanation (although you do in your
article ‘How to Choose the Sharpest Aperture’). Surely this is critical information if
the ‘double the distance method’ is to work?

0 Reply

Spencer Cox Author

Reply to Philip Carter April 27, 2019 11:48 am

Sure thing, Philip. Thom’s explanation is not wrong – a 14mm lens on Micro
Four Thirds at f/5.6 will give you the exact same framing and depth of field
as a 28mm lens at f/11 on full frame (ignoring the different aspect ratios of
the sensors).

The incorrect part is to assume that gives you two more stops to play with
on MFT. Specifically, full frame cameras already have a two stop advantage
in ISO over Micro Four Thirds cameras. So, it exactly cancels out (and it’s no
coincidence that it does; this will always be the case comparing sensor size
performances, assuming the same sensor generation and quality). So, ISO
100 at f/5.6 on MFT is equivalent to ISO 400 at f/11 on full frame. And, going
further, full frame has the advantage overall because you can lower its ISO
to (usually) base 100 and use a longer shutter speed to get back that light
instead. MFT can’t do that. So, at worst, full frame cameras are no better
than small sensors if you need a lot of depth of field – and in any case where
you can lower your ISO, full frame cameras are better. Hope that makes
sense.

As for the double the distance method, the only goal of that method is to
get your closest foreground and farthest background equal to one another
in sharpness. If you use a wide aperture like f/2.8, both the foreground and
background may be quite blurry – but they will be equally blurry. In order to
get them maximally sharp, you still need to select the correct aperture,
balancing depth of field and diffraction. If you want mathematical precision,
that process is complicated enough that I needed to write the separate
“sharpest aperture” article. If you don’t need mathematical precision, just
selecting anything from f/8 to f/16 (equivalent) is a good ballpark depending
on the scene and your lens.

0 Reply

Philip Carter
Reply to Spencer Cox April 28, 2019 4:05 am

Hi Spencer, I’m not sure whether you’re standing by your statement

‘you don’t get more depth of field by going with the smaller system’. In
good light Full Frame doesn’t actually have an ISO advantage over
MFT – that only arises when you have to crank ISO up to maintain
shutter speed – but in any case that’s not strictly relevant to a
discussion of depth of field, rather a discussion on image noise.

I’m surprised to hear that MFT cameras can’t offer an ISO of 100 or
lower, or benefit from the use of longer shutter speeds. Neither seems
to apply to the MFT cameras I’m aware of.

Forgive my dimness, but I had assumed that the usual objective of the
landscape photographer with respect to focus was to get the image
adequately sharp from the nearest point you want to be sharp to the
farthest point you want to be sharp. Those points don’t have to be the
farthest or nearest, or be equally sharp. That’s certainly always been
my concern when photographing landscapes. Either way, the
additional information about the critical role of aperture that you
supply in your latest comment does rather need to be in the original
article, do you not think?

For myself I think I’ll let these issues rest for now. Spencer, can I
suggest that you author a new article on focus in landscape
photography that puts all the critical information in one place, rather
than leaving it spread out across three articles?

1 Reply

Spencer Cox Author

Reply to Philip Carter April 28, 2019 8:26 am

Philip, at low ISOs it is more about dynamic range than noise.

However, noise differences can still be visible between a Micro
Four Thirds camera and full frame if both are at ISO 100,
especially in heavily edited photos.

The sarcasm in your answer is not necessary; there aren’t Micro

Four Thirds camera’s with an ISO of 25, which is roughly what it
would take to match the dynamic range of a full frame camera
at ISO 100. Let alone ISO 16 to match the dynamic range of full
frame cameras with base ISO 64. Using longer shutter speeds
has nothing to do with it, unless you average multiple exposures
on M43 to reduce noise (also something that can be done on
full frame of course). Hence why M43 at f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/100
second does not give the same image quality as full frame at
f/11, ISO 100, 1/25 second – while both have identical depth of
field. And if 1/100 second is necessary for a sharp image, full
frame needs to be at f/11, ISO 400, 1/100 second – putting its
performance, on average, exactly the same as the M43 camera.
This, really, is the big advantage of M43: in cases where you
need a lot of depth of field and also a relatively fast shutter
speed (i.e.,something in the scene is moving quickly), M43
cameras will retain all their weight/size advantages without
giving up any image quality over larger sensors, even something
like medium format.

To your other point, what you want in depth of field is entirely

up to you. My goal is usually to prioritize foreground and
background sharpness equally, and to maximize the sharpness
of both. That requires focusing at double the distance and
selecting the proper aperture, as calculated in the article I
linked earlier. But that won’t be every photographer’s goal. For
Milky Way photography, the stars almost always take priority,
and focusing at infinity is necessary. For some photographers,
the hassle of maximizing sharpness (or getting close) is not
worthwhile, and they aim for adequate sharpness instead, while
minimizing time spent attaining it in the field. Your approach is
up to you.

I, too, am done with this discussion at this point, having written

several articles and now responded with very detailed answers
to questions that, hopefully, are sincere.

0 Reply

Spencer Cox Author

Reply to Philip Carter April 27, 2019 12:17 pm

There is one point in Thom’s article where he is incorrect, though, that can
easily be misleading – a list of several camera sensor sizes, with the
equivalent apertures from one to the other. Specifically, Nikon 1 at 19mm f/8,
M43 at 25mm f/11, APS-C at 35mm f/16, full frame at 50mm f/22.

And then he says, “diffraction starts to come into play with some of these
options, as well.”

If you’re printing the same size, diffraction starts to come into play with all
these options, equally. You don’t get better diffraction performance on
Nikon 1 at f/8 versus full frame at f/22. The Airy disks take up exactly the
same percentage of your frame.

Nothing against Thom, who is one of only a few genuine experts in cameras
and photography who is writing today. But with such a complex topic, it’s
not uncommon for even the experts to make some misleading or mistaken
claims.

0 Reply

Christoph Münch
April 26, 2019 7:42 am

In my opinion it makes no sense to open a battle between fans of either autofocus or manual
focus.
Other people prefer autofocus – for good reasons, perfectly fine.
I personally have discovered vintage lenses, and since I have no other choice than manual
focusing, I also discovered that that made my photography more conscious, slower and more
fun.
With the magnification in the EVF of my Sony I can focus VERY, very exactly.

0 Reply

Spencer Cox Author

Reply to Christoph Münch April 26, 2019 1:16 pm

Christoph, I’m glad you’ve found a set of lenses that you enjoy working with! And you’re
right, it’s all down to personal preference in the end.

0 Reply

Rich
April 26, 2019 7:19 am

Spencer, a well written article as usual. Because of an age-related vision problem for the
past year or so I have used my DSLR as if it were a mirror less. Viewing everything through a
loop via the live view LCD. Consequently, all my images are shot using auto-focus contrast
detect, single point. Since I started doing this my rejects have never been because of a focus
error. I also use back button focus so once I’ve attained focus it doesn’t change when taking
multiple images that will be stitched.

0 Reply

Spencer Cox Author

Reply to Rich April 26, 2019 1:15 pm

Thank you, Rich. I also see essentially zero rejects due to focus inaccuracies these days,
and I attribute that largely to using AF under ordinary landscape conditions. I do see
some depth-of-field related rejects because I chose in the field to focus on a subject
that is too far or too close – but that’s a different issue, since the camera still locked on
just fine to the subject I pointed it at. Those photos would have been just as bad if
focused manually.

0 Reply

Daniel
April 26, 2019 6:24 am

Sorry, but this article does not live up to your usual quality standards (eg. how-to-focus-
landscape-photography is way better). Autofocus fails to balance focus for the whole shot,
consider depth of field and lens characteristics (see eg. page 2 of the Sigma 14/1.8 review on
this site). Actually, auto-autofocusing is the best mode for this: the more relevant autofocus
points are in focus, the better, but careful manual focus with split screen and maybe a loupe
would be far superior to autofocus. Lens characteristics like focus shift or curved field of
focus are not part of autofocus algorithms most of the time (I heared, that some Nikon lens /
camera combinations actually correct focus shift, but I could not verify this). If you know
your lens, you can get far better results with manual focus, the differences could arguably be
measured in the hundreds of dollars you waste in very good lenses, if you don’t use their full
potential.

0 Reply

Spencer Cox Author

Reply to Daniel April 26, 2019 12:59 pm

Daniel, I don’t disagree on that point. The difference is that this article is intended for
beginners, whereas the other is an advanced article (which is how I positioned them on
our general landscape page photographylife.com/landscapes). So, the various topics you
mention, like field curvature and focus shift, are beyond the target audience of this
article. Not that they are unimportant!

However, in live view, or the EVF on mirrorless cameras, all the characteristics like focus
shift and field curvature are incorporated in the camera’s autofocus (assuming that the
camera lets you focus with the aperture stopped down to what you’re using for the
photo). Personally, finding such precise manual focus that there is no error at all takes
me a significant amount of time – sometimes, with focusing on stars at night, 10-30
seconds. I don’t think people tend to put that same level of precision into manual focus
with magnified live view under general conditions.

I see a lot of photographers manually focus at one distance, then take multiple photos
with different compositions (even slightly) without refocusing. That alone will throw off
accuracy far more than any imprecisions in the autofocus system, assuming you re-
autofocus for each shot.

0 Reply

David Mantripp
April 26, 2019 3:49 am

What about hyper-focal focussing to maximise DoF ? That is often trickier with AF, especially
if there are no good targets at the range you want to focus at. And stopped-down focussing
in general ? I’m not sure in the days of Live View and LV Boost that MF at wider aperture is
such a good idea. At the very least I’d add the proviso to also check that you then set an
appropriate aperture for the depth range you want to be within acceptable focus.

Another point which might be worth mentioning is that even for fixed objects, in particular if
they are close and/or you’re shooting at a wide aperture, there is often some benefit in using
C-AF.

Personally I’d recommend that people learn MF first before using AF. That way you’re more
likely to be in control, not the camera. But that’s just idealistic :-)

0 Reply

Spencer Cox Author

Reply to David Mantripp April 26, 2019 1:10 pm

Certainly, David, if you are trying to focus for hyperfocal distance and can’t find a good
target at your chosen distance, manual focus is the way to go.

When I recommended that live view manual focus should be done at wider apertures like
f/2.8 to f/4, that’s done to balance the effects of focus shift versus adding more human
error. If you’re taking landscape photos at f/16, for example, manual focus at the perfect
spot is practically impossible (assuming, of course, that live view is actually stopping
down all the way to the aperture you are shooting at). Beyond f/5.6, focus shift
essentially disappears on most lenses anyway.

As for AF-C, if you’re shooting handheld, that’s quite true. Thanks for adding that point.

0 Reply

Einride
April 26, 2019 2:32 am

As long as your autofocus system is 100% reliably sure, use autofocus. The problem is that
this almost doesn’t exist. The Z 6 is actually the closest I’ve come. It’s never confirmed focus
and not been in focus, unlike the X-Pro 2 I had which would sometimes give focus
confirmation but then mysteriously be out of focus in a very strange way (not that it grabbed
something else, nothing was in focus). DSLR’s may have focus calibration issues.

I use autofocus quite often these days but the best thing about manual focus is that it is MY
mistake. It is far far less frustrating and encourages me to try harder next time. When the
technology messes up, well, they just makes me want to throw away the camera. Any
beginners should absolutely use manual focus.

0 Reply

Spencer Cox Author

Reply to Einride April 26, 2019 1:04 pm

You make some important points, Einride. I will note that I don’t recommend “flying
blind” with autofocus, but also making sure that the camera is doing a good job in the
field. Even if you go way above and beyond the norm – magnifying every single
autofocused photo you just took to check sharpness – it’s still faster than manually
focusing with the care that good manual focus requires.

Given as much time as you need (say, 30 seconds or more), I don’t deny that manual
focus will beat the camera’s autofocus overall. It’s why we test lenses at Photography
Life by magnifying live view and focusing manually. But even then, we understand that
human error applies, so we bracket focus by moving the camera forward and backward
on macro rails. Fairly often, our sharpest result is not the initial focus attempt.

0 Reply