Camera skills Get sharper results from your lenses

Even pro-quality primes and zooms will give you duff results if you don’t take care of the details

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To increase the depth of field – the amount of front-to-back sharpness – focus the lens a third of the way into the scene. You can also use a ‘hyperfocal focus’ smartphone app to work out the precise focus distance for maximum sharpness. The narrowest aperture of a lens will give you the most depth of field, but there is a trade-off: softer detail. A compromise is to use an f-number that’s slightly lower; use DoF Preview (often a button near the lens) to check that the scene is still sharp. Check that all the tripod and head locks are firmly tightened. If the legs are a little wobbly, consider lowering the centre of gravity by hanging a heavy bag from the centre column so that it’s almost touching the ground. Even the action of pressing the shutter release button on a tripod-mounted camera can be enough to soften the image. So trip the shutter remotely by using a cable release, a wireless trigger or a smartphone app.