Living and working in east Sussex I have now covered most of the south downs between Eastbourne and Brighton.  I had one area left to scout the far side of the Castle Hill nature reserve near Woodingdean.

Setting the Hyperfocal

It was initially an overcast day walking down the footpath known as Norton drive to an area of the south downs known as the Bostle with good views south of Rottingdean, the windmill and the coast.

The distant windmill of Rottingdean made a good background focal point but needed some foreground interest.  The red poppies gave good colour contrast and made a good subject to set the hyperfocal.  According to  Photopills at 35mm my standard F/11 was not enough to keep the the foreground to infinity in acceptable focus, I had to stop down to F/22.

Further down and looking north into the south downs the clouds were breaking up revealing some blue sky and casting some shadows over the parched dry landscape of the south downs.  At 22mm I could focus on the foreground poppy and use an aperture of F/11.

Manual Focus Ring

I was using manual focus and setting the subject distance on my lens focus ring.  Not all lenses have these anymore, when using autofocus its a shame the subject distance is not fed back into the viewfinder.

From Hyperfocal to Infinity

I continued walking to Pickers Hill farm and Highdole hill and took the footpath back up towards the Castle Hill nature reserve.  Around monument I continued to practice using the hyperfocal often selecting contrasting colourful plants as my foreground interest, subject and focal point.

I was using the viewfinder for my initial composition and then manually selecting focus via photopills calculations.  I was not even checking the landscape photos I had taken via the LCD screen, I would save this until I was back at home on the big screen post processing.

At the lenses widest angle of 15mm and focusing on a subject in the foreground between 1 to 1.5 meters I knew I could use F/11 to keep everything in acceptable focus to infinity.

The weather

Visibility this day was very good, there was a breeze blowing that could cause some motion blur on the plants that I was using as my focal point.  For a faster shutter speed I could have increased the ISO.

I was also using a polariser which generally decreases light entering the sensor by two stops but cuts out reflections if the sun is within a 90% angle from your landscape shooting position.   As well as the land I wanted to include the sky as it was blue with white gentle clouds passing slowly by.  As morning turned into afternoon, it was a beautiful day if a little hot.

Castle Hill Views along Bullock Hill

I continued to follow the footpath round from standean bottom and then along Bullock hill with great views of the Castle Hill Nature reserve below and beyond which I had visited briefly only the week before.

With the above landscape photo it was not necessary to calculate the hyperfocal as nothing was included in the foreground.  In these situations you can open up to your lens sweet spot, switch back to auto focus and select one third of the way into the composition.  So here I would have focused on the small trees and bushes in the mid ground.

I took so many good landscape photos that day around the south downs using the hyperfocal calculation based on subject distance, aperture and focal length.  Back home post processing I was impressed with the results and noticed a difference.

South Downs Landscape Photography Practice

That day was hot and I had run out of water I have now invested in a larger water bottle for these landscape photography walks during the summer months.  I love walking along the south downs, its a good place to practice your landscape photography as so many subjects and different compositions will constantly be presenting themselves.  It requires alot of energy not least due to the walking but the constant bending over and adjusting the tripod.

If you like any of these images check out my south downs landscape portfolio as hosted on Shutterstock where you can download full resolution images.