THE SOLUTION

When using a digital camera with a full-frame sensor, most experienced photographers choose wide-angle zoom lenses (14–24mm, 16–35mm, 17–35mm) to shoot storytelling compositions. If using a digital camera with a partial-frame sensor, try the 11–17mm range. Wide-angle zooms are popular because they typically include the full range of focal lengths you’ll need for a storytelling image. Occasionally, you might want to try a moderate telephoto (75–120mm) or one of the “normal” focal lengths (45–60mm), depending on what you want to feature in your image. But regardless of the lens choice, there is one constant when making a storytelling composition: a very small aperture of f/22, or even f/32.

Now, there may be naysayers out there who will insist that using a small aperture is a bad idea. They believe that shooting at these small apertures costs you sharpness, contrast, even color. However, I’m joined by an army of experienced photographers urging you to turn a deaf ear to these protests. If you do, you will create some of the most intimate landscapes and cityscapes you can imagine. You’ll also experience the joy of sharpness from the up-close-and-personal distance of 14 inches all the way to infinity!

When you insist on not using small apertures yet still attempt to record intimate landscapes, your storytelling composition will lose the vital “beginning” of your story thanks to a lack of sharpness in your foreground. It’s like a story without an opening paragraph. You will never record a depth of field from 14 inches to infinity at f/8 or f/11 when using a 12–16mm crop factor wide-angle lens, or if using a focal length from 17 to 24mm with a full-frame camera. Let me repeat that: You will never accomplish a depth of field from 14 inches to infinity at f/8 or f/11 with any DSLR!

The next important question is, where the heck do you focus? Let’s say you are photographing a pastoral scene of a barn in a wheat field. If you focus on the stalks of wheat in the foreground, the barn (middle ground) and sky (background) will be out of focus. If you focus on the barn and sky, the wheat stalks will be out of focus. The solution is simple: don’t focus on anything in your composition. That’s right: don’t focus. Instead, preset the focus via the depth-of-field scale or distance settings on your lens (see below for explanations of these lens settings). Now, when I say “don’t focus,” what I mean is, don’t compose your scene and then focus on a point within the composition. For a storytelling exposure with maximum depth of field, you want to set your aperture first, then reference the corresponding distance indicated by your depth-of-field scale or distance setting. With a small aperture (big f-stop number) like f/22, your area of sharp focus will extend from a near point to infinity, so there’s no need to focus on anything else in your composition. You just need to set your focus for that near point, and it will extend indefinitely. Then simply recompose with your preset focal range, and shoot!

So how do you use a depth-of-field scale, or distance settings? Single-focal-length lenses have a depth-of-field scale that makes it easy to preset your focus for a given scene. A depth-of-field scale has your lens apertures on the bottom and a series of distances, given in feet and meters, on the top, including a symbol for infinity. Simply select an aperture, then look at the corresponding distance marks on the scale. There are two marks for every aperture, which line up with two distances on the top of the scale—a near point and a far point. These near and far points are your range of focus, or depth of field. Everything between these distances will be in sharp focus. Everything outside them will be blurry. For example, an aperture of f/22 might line up with 3 feet (1 meter) on one side and infinity on the other, meaning your depth of field will reach from 3 feet on the close end to infinity on the far end. There’s no need to focus on anything within this range because it will all be sharp. This depth of field is ideal for a storytelling image.

These days, however, most photographers skip the single-focal-length lenses in favor of wide-angle zoom lenses. Zooms offer great quality and a bigger bang for your buck, but there is a trade-off: they don’t have depth-of-field scales. They do, however, have distance settings, which, similar to depth-of-field scales, allow you to preset the depth of field before taking your shot. Since storytelling compositions rely on maximum depth of field, set your aperture to f/22 and then align a specific distance—3 feet (1 meter) or 6 feet (2 meters), depending on the focal length you are using. You’ll find these numbers above the distance-setting mark on your lens. At this aperture, if you set your focus to the near point (either 3 feet or 6 feet, as mentioned above), your depth of field will extend from that point all the way to infinity. So, again, there’s no need to focus on anything in your composition. Everything between your near point (3 or 6 feet) and infinity will be tack sharp.

With all of this in mind, here is my foolproof formula for setting up storytelling compositions with a wide-angle zoom lens when you want as much front-to-back sharpness as possible.

Your first step: Turn off autofocus!

If you’re using a camera with a “crop factor” and a lens with a 75-degree angle of view (18mm on a digital 18–55mm zoom lens), set the aperture to f/22 and then focus on something approximately 6 feet (2 meters) from the lens. Resist the temptation to focus toward infinity and leave your focus set to that 3- or 6-foot mark recommended above. Trust me, everything within this focus range will be sharp.

Next, if you’re in manual exposure mode, adjust your shutter speed until a correct exposure is indicated. Then shoot. If you’re in Aperture Priority mode, simply shoot, since the camera will set the shutter speed for you. Your resulting depth of field will extend from about 3 feet (1 meter) to infinity. Now you’re ready to shoot!

If you’re using a 12–24mm digital wide-angle zoom lens and a focal length between 12mm and 16mm, set the lens to f/22, focus on something 3 feet (1 meter) away, and repeat the final step mentioned above. Your resulting depth of field will be approximately 14 inches to infinity.

For those of you shooting with full-frame digital sensors and a focal length between 14 and 24mm, simply focus on something 3 feet (1 meter) away, set your aperture to f/22, and proceed as above. The resulting depth of field will again be 14 inches to infinity.

If you’re shooting with a focal length of 25mm to 28mm on a full-frame camera, you must set the focus distance to 6 feet (2 meters). This will yield a depth of field from 3 feet to infinity.