Source:www.jimippolito.com
Does everything have to be in focus? Yes, if everything in the scene is important.

When taking pictures of scenery you want to portray the depth and breath of the landscape, both near and far, so the viewer can feel as if he or she is looking "into" the scene.

Two elements are necessary to achieve this effect, the use of a wide angle setting on your digital camera's lens, and
by employing as small a lens opening, or "F stop," as possible.

This combination will result in the greatest amount of "depth of field" as possible, which means that both nearby and distant objects will be in sharp focus. Now your camera can capture, more accurately, what your eyes see when viewing the actual scene.

As always, your results may vary depending on many factors such as how wide your digital lens will go, the quality of the lens as well as the camera as a whole, how much light is available to allow the lens to close down to a small opening, and so forth.

This effect is the opposite of "selective focus," which was discussed in the previous posting.

Again, as in most things photographic, there are several ways to achieve this, but your digital camera makes it easy.

All you have to do is use the "Landscape" setting, which is usually indicated by an icon that shows either a small and large mountain or a person standing in front of a mountain, and you're good to go. The message conveyed is that you want to photograph both near and distant objects simultaneously.

Use as wide a lens setting as possible to cover the area you want, and keep in mind that the wider you go the sharper the picture will be, if all goes right.

Cameras that do not have a "Landscape" setting but have a "Manual" setting can achieve this effect. Again, use a wide angle lens setting, and choose as small a lens opening as possible without causing underexposure, remembering that the higher the number the smaller the lens opening. Chances are though if your camera has a Manual setting it will also have Landscape.

If your camera has neither, start saving for a better camera.

This picture, which I took a few weeks ago at Red Rock Canyon, is in perfect focus from the fence post a few inches in front of the lens, to the mountains many miles away. Because of bandwidth restrictions this photo has greatly reduced resolution and does not show the effect to its best advantage.

A quick word on wide angle lens settings:

Most small, inexpensive, consumer digital cameras have a lens with a 35mm equivalent range of about 38-75mm, or 35-105mm, which is ok for average photography.

I used a prosumer camera that goes down to 24mm and that's very wide, more than double the normal lens setting, so don't expect this kind of expansiveness unless you have a lens like that.

For those who wish to learn about depth of field in depth click here.