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Thank you for subscribing to my website. My aim is to provide you with ongoing tips and information that you may find useful on your journey to becoming a better Landscape Photographer. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions about taking photos or camera equipment, I’m always happy to help.
Tip #1 – Getting Of Auto
A big step to becoming a better landscape photographer, or any type of photographer for that matter, is to get away from automatic modes. It doesn’t matter if you use full auto mode, the shutter or aperture priority. Try to move away from relying on them before you create a bad habit.
Auto modes are great for those who just want to point and shoot, but for those who want to be a better landscape photographer, you need to have full control of your camera to create the images you’ll truly be happy with. Photographs are meant to be printed, and if you know what you’re doing when you capture a photo, you’ll get a much better result when it comes to creating a large print to place on your wall. It’s all about quality.
Using manual mode will also give you a better understanding of how your camera works. For most, this will be difficult in the beginning, but it is definitely worth persevering, as the results will be worth it in the end. Besides becoming more in tune with the function of your camera and how it works, you will start to become more creative with your image creation. You will be able to change the entire look and feel of your photos with this newfound knowledge.
Tip #2 – Keep Pushing That Shutter
There is so much photography information on the Internet right now that it’s kind of crazy. You really can find anything out about photography that you want to.
There are tons of websites, blogs and eBooks
that
Getting out there as much as you can to practice your craft is by far, one of the most important ways to grow and improve. Sometimes it’s cold, wet and uninviting, but you will get some of your best shots on those types of days.
Don’t get buried in a pile of books and other stuff. Yes, you will learn from blogs and tutorials; I know I sure have. But believe me when I say that getting out there on a regular basis will help you grow like you wouldn’t believe.
My advice is to read an article or view a video tutorial every week and then give yourself some time to process that information. Then, go and implement it. There’s no point learning it and not using it.
So take what you learn and apply it to what you already know. People say knowledge is power. The real power is in the implementation of that knowledge.
Tip #3 – Choosing The Right Aperture
Settings your aperture is a very important step when getting your camera ready to take that well planned shot.
If you’re starting out and don’t really understand how to do this, you’ll keep getting poor results. It is important to know that your lens has a sweet spot, meaning a certain aperture where it is at its sharpest.
A simple guide to follow is to know that your sharpest aperture is around 3 stops from your widest aperture available from your lens; i.e., a lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 would most likely be at its sharpest at f/8.
If you’re looking for the sharpest possible image, this would be your choice of aperture. But when it comes to shooting landscapes, sometimes we have to give up a little sharpness in order to have a greater depth of field.
My starting point with
I may move to f/8 but only if I want something in my foreground to be very sharp and there is not a lot in my background to worry about.
Tip #4 – Understanding Your Shutter Speed
Continuing with our topic of understanding the fundamentals, we find ourselves discussing another important setting. Shutter speed has the ability to completely change your images.
Whereas aperture and ISO have a lot to do with the overall quality of your image, changing your shutting speed can dramatically change the look and feel of the image. Try
to capture a moving wave at the beach. Try 1/500th of a second and see how it looks.
Then, try 1/5th of a second. It will look dramatically different. Then, take it to the extreme and try a 5 min. shutter speed. Again, it is so different from the previous two settings. Slowing down your shutter speed to these speeds is not possible while holding your camera with your hands, so you’ll have to use a tripod to try these techniques.
Go on and get out there and start to play around with your shutter speed and see what you can come up with!
Tip #5 – It’s All About Depth Of Field
Understanding depth of field is another basic fundamental that you need to wrap your head around. Most people think you can only adjust your depth of field by adjusting your aperture. For example, f/2.8 has a very shallow depth of field and f/16 will get almost everything in your shot into focus.
The truth is that by simply changing the type of lens that you are using, you can alter your depth of field. Wide angle zoom lenses naturally have a huge amount of depth of field, even at f/5.6. Whereas a 50mm prime lens will have a shallower depth of field at the same aperture. You can also affect your depth of field, depending on how far above the ground you are.
The closer you get to the ground, the shallower your depth of field will become. You can also affect your depth of field by adjusting the distance between you and your subject. The bottom line is that you need to spend some time playing around with depth of field so that you become comfortable with it and know how to obtain your desired results.
Tip #6 – It’s Time To Shoot RAW
If you‘re not already shooting RAW, I’m guessing it’s because you really don’t know why you should. It comes down to one simple thing. Do you want your image quality to be the best it can be?
I bet you‘re nodding your head up and down. Of course you do! Who would knowingly make the decision to create poor quality images? When your camera takes a photo, the light hits the sensor, the information is captured, and then it goes to the processor.
The processor will make a bunch of decisions on your behalf and then compresses your file and omits what it thinks is no longer needed. In essence, it creates a JPEG.
Tip #7 – Make Your Photos Sing In Post
So, you’ve captured a great photo and want to make it sing! Now it’s time to take that image file and put it through some post-production. Which software you use is a personal preference and for the most part, mine is Adobe Photoshop. If you’re a novice and image post-production is all very new to you, Adobe Lightroom might be a better place to start.
Now I can hear a bunch of you saying “I don’t need Photoshop, that’s cheating” or something to that effect. The truth of the matter is, capturing the image is 50% of the job; learning and implementing post-production is the other 50% of the job. If you go back to the grandfather of landscape photography, Ansel Adams, he spent days on each image in the darkroom.
Photoshop and other similar programs are our digital darkrooms, so don’t be afraid of it and accept that this is how you turn great photos into amazing photos! Start off with just trying to do simple adjustments and later on, you can start to get into some more creative stuff if you want to. Go to YouTube to watch some great tutorials on getting started with Adobe Lightroom.
Tip #8 – Plan Your Shoot
If your shoot is more important than you think. Just showing up to your location doesn’t always cut it. Whether you’re an amateur or a pro, planning can be the difference that separates you from the masses.
It’s really not that hard to do, but it seems a little boring for most, and I’m guessing that’s why they choose to wing it when they go to a new location. Don’t get me wrong, I have captured some great shots over the years by just turning up to see what I could find.
But without a doubt, after planning my next trip to the same location, taking a bunch of things into consideration, I definitely captured better shots.
Tip #9 – Leading Lines
Leading lines and patterns in the landscape are great tools to help you create beautiful compositions in your photos. This is one of my personal favourite ways to draw the viewer into the image.
You can use these lines or patterns to grab the viewer’s attention at one point and lead them through the image to another point. It’s a great tool to use to tell your story.
After spending some time trying to put this technique to use, it will become second nature, and you will automatically look for these lines and patterns every time you head out to shoot.
Tip #10 – Choose The Right Filters
Leading lines and patterns in the landscape are great tools to help you create beautiful compositions in your photos. This is one of my personal favourite ways to draw the viewer into the image.
You can use these lines or patterns to grab the viewer’s attention at one point and lead them through the image to another point. It’s a great tool to use to tell your story.
After spending some time trying to put this technique to use, it will become second nature, and you will automatically look for these lines and patterns every time you head out to shoot.
Bonus Tip #1 – It’s All About The Light
Photography is all about one thing, the light. We as photographers can’t create a photograph without light. We can’t create amazing photographs without amazing light.
I think it’s safe to say that the most amazing landscape photos that you might see in magazines, books or on websites like Facebook, Instagram, 500px, etc.
That’s when we get that beautiful light that we dream of as landscape photographers. The sun is so low in the sky that it creates all of those beautiful pastel warm tones and this is how we get the colourful clouds too. To go out at midday just isn’t the same. You get harsh light and much cooler tones and you normally get a lot more people around too.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if you can’t take photos at midday. Put me on a tropical island with palm trees, white sand, and turquoise water and midday would be the perfect time to shoot it. Shooting a rain forest at sunset would be ridiculous. So no matter what you‘re shooting, make sure you shoot it in the right light for the scene.
Bonus Tip #2 – Get Your Camera On A Tripod
Next, to your camera, your tripod is one of your most important pieces of equipment, only if you want super sharp images, that is. The main goal of taking a photo is to create a print from that photo.
Nowadays, people seem to just leave their photos sitting on a hard drive, but for those that make prints, they want sharp prints. If you don’t have a tripod, you should buy one as soon as possible.
The best time of the day to take beautiful landscape photos is usually early in the morning or late in the afternoon.
It’s almost impossible to hold your camera by hand at f/11 at that time of day and get a clean sharp image. No matter how steady you think you are, you’ll never be as steady as a sturdy tripod.
Long exposure photography is impossible without a tripod. You’ll be able to shoot with shutter speeds of 2 sec. – 4 mins and longer.
Do yourself a favour and get a good tripod. You’ll thank me later for sure.
Bonus Tip #3 – Shoot Quality Not Quantity
I used to be the one running around taking hundreds of photos every time I went out for a shoot. I only felt productive if I had tons of photos to load up onto my hard drive.
I took on average 400 photos of a single sunrise and I was lucky if I had a more than a couple of keepers. Nowadays, I’m way more selective.
I take my time selecting my composition. I wait for the right light and conditions. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Spray and Pray”.
It refers to taking a whole lot of photos and praying that there’s a good one in there. My advice is to take a step back and think about the photo that you’re trying to capture.
If it doesn’t work out, come back the next day. There’s nothing worse than trying to sort out 400- 500 very average photos.
It’s much nicer when you have 20 well-thought- out and well-captured images to choose from.
Bonus Tip #4 – Take Photos For You
When you head out to take some photos, think about this. Why did you start taking photos? What was it about shooting the landscapes around you? Remember that you do it because you enjoy it.
Take photos for you! Not for your Facebook fans or Instagram followers. It’s all about you and what makes you tick. It’s about what makes you get out of bed at 4 a.m. and drive to the beach to capture a beautiful sunrise when most people are still in bed.
Stay true to who you are, what you love about photography, and what you love to photograph. If you do, you’ll be a happier photographer in the long run. And if others love what you do, that’s awesome too!
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"This website is a place where you can come and view the world through my eyes. I have been to many places and witnessed some amazing landscapes and it gives me joy to share them with you. I hope you enjoy these viewing these images just as much as I have enjoyed capturing them". - Danny Irvine
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