Pine Lake - Photographing Tasmania's Central Highlands
Pine Lake, on Tasmania's Central Plateau, is one of those places where another composition always seems to appear if you give yourself enough time to look. For this image, it wasn't just the old pencil pine across the water that interested me. I wanted the foreground vegetation to have an important role as well, particularly the small bursts of colour leading into the scene. That created a technical problem.
The foreground was quite close to the camera, while the pencil pine sat some distance away. Normally, I'd probably solve that with focus stacking, combining several images focused at different distances to maintain sharpness throughout the frame. This time, I decided not to. Instead, I tried something I rarely do and stopped the lens all the way down to f/20.
Yes, I know.
At apertures like this, diffraction becomes a consideration and it's certainly not a setting I'd routinely recommend. But photography involves compromises, and sometimes the technically imperfect solution is exactly the right one for the photograph in front of you.
In this case, f/20 gave me enough depth of field to hold both the nearby vegetation and distant pencil pine reasonably sharp in a single exposure.
The next challenge was the lake itself. The water was quite choppy, creating a lot of texture through the middle of the composition. It competed with the foreground and made the reflection around the tree feel unnecessarily busy. I wanted the scene to feel quieter.
Adding a 6-stop ND filter allowed me to extend the exposure to 30 seconds. The longer exposure softened the surface of the lake, simplified the reflection, and introduced a little movement into the clouds. Suddenly the composition felt much more balanced.
The landscape itself remained still, while the water and sky became softer elements around it.
Would I suddenly start recommending f/20 for every landscape photograph? Definitely not! Focus stacking often gives greater control when you need extensive depth of field, and avoiding very small apertures can help retain maximum image quality.
But knowing the technical rules doesn't mean you have to be controlled by them.
Sometimes it's worth trying the simple solution first and seeing whether it gives you the photograph you wanted.
After all, nobody has ever asked me what aperture I used before deciding whether they liked a photograph...
Fine Art Print
This image is available as a fine art print
Printed on premium archival papers — lustre, matte, metallic or cotton rag.
📷 Photography Notes
Photography Settings
- Aperture: f/20
- Shutter Speed: 30 seconds
- ISO: 100
- Filter: 6-stop ND
- Technique: Single exposure with extended depth of field
Tips & Techniques
Know the rules, but understand why they exist
Avoiding very small apertures is generally good advice because diffraction can reduce fine detail. That doesn't mean those apertures should never be used.
Consider the simplest solution
Focus stacking would have been one option here, but increasing depth of field in a single exposure produced the result I needed without adding complexity.
Use foreground deliberately
Foreground elements shouldn't be included simply because they're there. Look for shapes, colours and textures that help lead the viewer deeper into the composition.
Simplify distracting water
Choppy water can introduce a lot of visual noise. An ND filter and longer exposure can transform that texture into a quieter element within the photograph.
Experiment
Knowing your usual approach is useful. Knowing when to abandon it is even better. Try settings you wouldn't normally choose and judge the result rather than the rule.
Technical knowledge gives you options, it shouldn't take them away.
Learning concepts like diffraction, depth of field and optimal aperture matters because they help you understand what your camera is doing. But at the end of the day, they are tools for making decisions, not rules that every photograph has to obey.
Sometimes the technically perfect solution is appropriate. But sometimes the simpler, slightly imperfect solution creates exactly the image you wanted.
The important part is understanding the difference and making the choice deliberately.
Workshops & Photography Lessons
If you'd like to better understand aperture, depth of field, filters, long exposures and when to use techniques such as focus stacking, I offer small-group photography workshops and personalised one-on-one photography lessons.
The focus isn't simply on learning which settings you're "supposed" to use. It's about understanding what those settings actually do, then learning how to choose the approach that suits the photograph you're trying to create.
Because once you understand the rules, you can make much better decisions about when to break them.
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