How to Capture the Perfect Landscape

Light, lens and layout. They are the building blocks of good landscape photography. Even if you know the location where you  plan to take a photograph with your digital camera, you are not guaranteed to have the perfect light until you have visited it at the time you plan to shoot it. Scenes can look very different from one hour to the next, especially at sunrise and sunset. Making the effort to get up and get out there there little bit earlier really does pay off. Your choice of lens and how you plan  to compose your shot is just as important. Obviously you don’t want to be lugging all your wordly goods around with you, but  selecting lenses that cover all focal lengths is a must. You will have more creative confidence that way. If you know your  location, you probably have a good idea of how you want to shoot it and what you should take. This will save time when you  are chasing the light.

Being at a location for the best light will lift your landscape shots. If you are chasing the low, golden light at the start  and end of the day, make sure you take a sturdy camera tripod. Using a tripod allows you to shoot long exposures without any camera movement, enabling you to use a smaller aperture. By doing this you can create optimum sharpness from foreground to  background in your frame. Using a remote release is a must for long exposures. You may think that gently pressing the  shutter of your digital camera won’t cause any movement, but you’ll be surprised. Also, to really take your landscape images to the extreme try using an ultra wide-angle lens.

Getting your composition and framing right in-camera is crucial – if it doesn’t look right through the digital camera viewfinder, it won’t look right later on your computer monitor. Visualising the rule of thirds when evaluating a shot is a simple technique to help you achieve well balanced shots. Imagine the landscape in front if you split into a grid of 2 vertical and 2 horizontal lines. Decide which of the 4 intersections you want to place you main subject and compose your shot around this. If this means including a lot of sky, you can also consider fitting a filter.

Tagged with: Camera Movement • Focal Lengths • Landscape Images • Light Lens • Photography • Tripod • Viewfinder • Wide Angle Lens

Filed under: Photography Tips

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