Landscape photography is one of the most pleasant kinds of photography. Not only do you have the opportunity to take spectacular images for your home or office, but you can create canvases, large prints and even gifts for people. How to take good landscapes depends on a small number of very key factors. The light you photograph in and your photographic lens are the two key features that capture lovely landscape photos.
How to take landscape photos
First, before I go into detail about these two techniques, let?s scrutinize how to take photos of landscapes. You will need a digital camera that is able to be clipped on to a tripod. Then of course you need a tripod. A tripod is what gives you sharper and clear photographs. We use a tripod for landscape scenes because we would like to be able to hold the camera free from camera movement. Having a camera that is completely immobile facilitates us to get tack sharp photographs in many different kinds of light.
A remote shutter cable is another practical tool that is often a big part of becoming good at your landscape photography methods. A shutter release cable is a little cable with a push button at one end. You can connect the cable into your camera and press the shutter, simply by clicking down a push button on the end of the remote cable. It means you do not have to come into contact with your camera in any way. This increases your probability of gaining even sharper shots.
Lenses for landscape photography
Now that you have your camera, tripod and shutter cable, now what? Now we come to our photographic lens. There are many different types of lenses for photographing landscapes. It can be awkward to choose one if you have not mastered landscapes before. One of the best and sharpest lenses is called a prime lens. This means it does not zoom in and out. It can’t. It stays at a permanent focal length. This is why it is known as a fixed length. As a consequence of this immobility, your panorama photos become sharper and clearer than if you used a zoom lens.
If you want to shoot a big, expansive look to your landscape photos, then I recommend looking at your digital camera manufacturer?s wide angle and ultra wide angle lenses. A wide angle lens is a focal length of about 35mm. An ultra wide angle lens is even wider and can be around 14mm. There are lots of lenses to select from.
Landscape digital camera settings
There is never any perfect camera setting for a landscape image. On the other hand there are some pretty good guidelines to create landscapes. To begin with the goal of landscape photography is to create outstanding, sharp images with superb light. Before we get into lighting, I would like to clarify that a smaller aperture is usually what landscape photographers photograph at. A smaller f stop, such as F22, is what is thought as an ideal aperture for landscape scenes. This is purely because it facilitates our camera to focus suitably into the distance. If you are shooting at an average middle distance of ten to twenty meters away F13 or higher works perfectly well too. You will certainly have to take your lighting into consideration.
The perfect lighting for landscape photography
I have to be honest with you. I am very surprised there is not more written on lighting for landscape photography because it is incredibly vital. I’ve left it till last; because I want to focus your awareness on the most critical aspect of landscape shooting.
The reason why a landscape photo looks so colourful and beautiful is because of the lighting. Without good lighting a landscape photo can look boring and lacking in interest. And no amount of photography gear will answer this problem.
The greatest time of day to take photos of your landscape is in the early morning or late afternoon. This subdued light is called sweet light. You will find that the light is soft and gently vibrant. At these times of day the light, hues and tones give your scene a completely different look to the middle of the day. Working in the mid summer sun can create unwelcome shadows, washed out colours and a general lack of depth. Working in a gentle light gives us back those soft colours, muted tones and gentle skies. There are generally no tough and awful shadows ruining our landscapes.
Photographing landscapes editing techniques
Once you have your fixed lens, camera set up on your tripod, small f-stop and ideal lighting you can shoot off a whole series of pictures to your hearts content! I know I certainly do. Once you have created your lovely landscape shot you can then take it home for editing. Finding the right photo editing techniques for landscapes isn?t that hard. You must first know what you are aiming to attain. Some of us love to turn a landscape photo into a monochrome or sepia shot. Others love to maintain the soft, muted colours that morning can offer. Some of us love to produce different effects altogether to add more drama and impact to capture an almost end of days appearance to our landscape photos.
The main thing is to keep your images sharp, broad and lively. Work to have your photo looking sharp and vibrant. This means you may have to boost the sharpness a little using the smart sharpen tool in Photoshop. For Lightroom fans, open up the Detail panel and increase the sharpening, radius and detail sliders to the right.
Improving the colour vibrancy can do miracles for your landscape photo. You will detect that nearly all landscapes have outstanding colour. That is as a result of increase in particular colours throughout the scene. It is also due to a general increase in colour vibrancy right through the whole photo. Don?t amplify the colour too much; you don?t want dark greens to look fluorescent green or pastel pinks of wildflowers to look hot pink. It will just look out of place. Keep the colours natural looking as possible, but just enhance the presence of colour.
High Dynamic Range
If you have trouble gaining shadows that are too dark and highlights that are way too bright, then try HDR. This is a tremendous landscape editing technique that can really rescue your photos. You take 3 different photos. The first is two stops under exposed. The second is perfectly exposed and the third is two stops over exposed. This will bring natural highlights to your shadows and reduce your highlights to a more natural looking appearance.
Landscape photography ideas
Depending on where you live, you may have many opportunities. In case you are having difficulties for ideas then try these. A seaside scene, waterfalls, a freeway from a bird?s eye vision, a cityscape at dusk, a long open road, mountain range with hanging fog, a pasture with flowers and even a paddock with animals grazing in the background. You can see that there are limitless opportunities for successfully photographing landscapes.
Taking photos of landscapes is dependent on your light, lens and clarity. You don’t have to have an expensive camera to take beautifully stunning landscape photos. You can rely on the methods I have taught you and in no time at all you will be on your way to creating stunning photos.
Amy Renfrey is a professional photography teacher. She shows you how to take stunning photos every single time, even if you have never used a digital camera before. Click here to discover/ how to take better photos every time you press the shutter button.