Landscapes and aperture: Anything else to consider?

[Poki]

As my 24mm Zeiss lens comes tomorrow, I just have a little question for landscape photography. According to SLRgear, the sweet spot of the lens is at f/4, while loosing a tiny bit of quality till f/11. So, if I shoot a landscape in good light, should I choose f/4 (dof shouldn't be a problem focused at infinity anyways) or do I have to consider something else and better shoot at slower apertures? With slower lenses, the sweet spot is normally between f/7.1-f/9, so I never really thought about this.

 

[Bugleone]

If the subject is a 'distant' landscape,..ie, no part nearer than say, 100 feet/30meters then use whatever aperture you like (bearing in mind that difraction starts to impair the image after f11)

If parts of the landscape are near to camera,..say some foreground interest then it's best to set lens focus to hyperfocal distance,...this is tricky without depth of field scale (my main beef about the kit lens)

For an expensive lens like the Zeiss it would be vital to prepare yourself a depth of field chart to refer to until you get used to it and can judge by eye only. This is one of the reasons that I only use the kit lens on f8,...so that I can get a feel for the depth of field at all zoom settings .

Finally, if you simply use f8 you will get the best of all worlds really,......depth of field will extend from a few feet in front of camera all the way to infinity,...difraction will be very minimal,...corners will be sharp.

 

[Poki]

Thanks, Bugleone! That answers my question perfectly. As the lens should be excellent at f/8, this should well be the best solution to start with.

 

[Djarum]

Shooting at F8, the hyperfocal distance is 12ft. So, focusing at infinity, anything past 12 feet should be in focus.