What’s wrong with this picture?

Iadmit that the out of focus branches at the top of this frame drive me a little crazy. I shot this picture of a castle along the Rhine River in Germany from a precarious vantage point, and usually I don’t include overhanging branches in my compositions of landscapes or architecture. I find them to be somewhat distracting in most (but not all) cases. If they are included, however, they have to be sharp. Otherwise they completely ruin the image. Even if they are almost sharp, it still doesn’t look good.

The picture on the previous page with the out of focus branches at the top of the frame shows what happens when you use a lens aperture of f/2.8 with a foreground subject close to the camera position (about 8 feet away) and where the background has to be sharp. The image above where those same branches are sharp shows what happens when the aperture is closed down to f/16.

Because small lens apertures should be used when including both a foreground and background, a tripod should also be used. This is particularly the case when complete depth of field is required. The small f/stops force the shutter to be slow to compensate for light loss. So, either you use a tripod and shoot with a low ISO, or shoot without a tripod and raise the ISO. The former option is more desirable to keep the noise at a minimum. §