Best 6 tips for better landscape photography - photographycinema

     Hello everyone. Welcome to photographycinema. It's nice to meeting you again. Today in this blog post we see some best tips to improve your landscape photography.

    These are the common and basic tips to shoot a better landscape photos. Landscape photos are an art. It requires more creativity to do but, if you don't know, don't worry by the end you get some quality information about landscape photography.

     This post will surely worth your time.

Table of contents :-

• Camera gear
• Camera settings
• Composition
• Planning
• Lightning
• Post processing

Let's see one by one in detail.

Landscape photography#1 camera gear

     Talking about any jonure i feel the lens is matter more, not that the camera do not matter, but the lens is matter more.

     For landscape photography i recommend two lenses

1. Wide angle lens

Wide angle lens

2. Telephoto zoom lens

Telephoto zoom lens

   

     A wide angle is for you get that wider field of view which allows you to capture of the more landscape. The best lens is 14 to 24mm f/2.8. I use full frame camera so that effective focal length is 14mm, but if you using a crop lens or camera i will recommend to get a lens about 10 to 11mm wide, so the effective focal length is around 15 to 16mm.

     The reason for using a telephoto lens in landscape photography is you get zoom in and capture the smaller details off a wider landscape. I use 70-200 mm for landscape photography to get those tighter shot.

     One more gear apart from cameras and lenses that is very important in landscape photography is a tripod.

Tripod

     When you are into a landscape photography, you are going to shoot in different conditions so, a good tripod is must have.

     Don't invest in a cheap quality tripod because a tripod is something that going to hold and support your camera gear and accordingly if anything happens it's going to cost you more than a good quality tripod.

Landscape photography#2 camera settings

     For landscape photography i use two camera modes.

1. Aperture priority
2. Manual mode

     Let's talk about manual mode first!

   

     The first i decide is what aperture do i want to use. Most of the times i want everything in focus so, i shoot at f/8 or f/10.

     For this particular image i shot two different images at f/10 and f/2.8 with the focus on the tree and i like f/2.8 because the grass is not in focus and personally it adds a bit of depth to the tree.

Smaller the aperture more pronounced will be the sunstar.

There are two issues with using smaller aperture.

1.  If you have dust on the sensor it becomes more visible as you use smaller aperture.
2. After certain point which is known as the sweet spot of lens, the sharpness of the lens trends to reduce.

     Now, if you want to know the sweet spot of your lens just research a bit on the internet and you will get all the information.

     So, technically if f/16 you're getting more depth of field, the image won't be as sharp as it would be at f/10 or f/8.

      The other two things is shutter speed and iso. What to decide first? It depends on the situation. If there is some kind of motion and the motion is important then adjust the shutter speed accordingly.

     While adjusting the exposure don't relay on the display always relay on the histogram. The histogram is going to giving an accurate representation of the exposure you are about to capture.

     Make sure you don't overexposure the highlights, because if you do that you can't recover them in Post processing.

Landscape photography#3composition

Composition

     All the basic composition rules like symmetry, rule of thirds, leading lines everything is applicable in landscape photography. The intention behind good composition should be to keep it as simple as you can. So that the viewers understand what is the main subject and it is also pleasing to the eyes.

If you want a brief and tips for better composition, here i recommend this blog article below-

BASIC RULES OF CAMERA COMPOSITION

Foreground element

     One tip to make your composition much more interesting is to use foreground element. A foreground element adds more depth to the images, but make sure it's not distracting.

Symmetry composition

Leading lines composition

     Once you start studying and analysing the composition of the images, you will develop a sense of good composition.

Landscape photography#4 planning

    When it comes to landscape photography you dealing with nature and obviously you cannot control the climate, but what you can do is plan before you go to shoot.

     The question is what and how should you plan for landscape photography. Well! That depends on the kind of images you are looking for. The most important thing is wheather. 

     I check cloud cover if i want to shoot the stars i will prefer a low cloud clover percentage and we shoot mostly during low moon days, wind also plays an important role. If you want to shoot clam locations you would prefer a less windy locations. On the other hand if you want a movement in the clouds for a time lapse or long exposure you would prefer stronger winds.

Google maps

        You can use Google maps to for doing a bit of research about a particular location.

     It doesn't matter how much you plan things are always not going to workout 100% the way  you have planned, but the probability of getting a good image increases when you spend extra effects and planning your shoots.

Landscape photography#5 lighting

     Most important thing about a photograph is light. In landscape photography mostly get dealing with natural lights. If the light is good it can make an ordinary location look extraordinary if the light is not, vice versa.

     Generally, i didn't prefer shooting much when the light is too harsh, if the cloud percentage is high and it's a overcast day the light will be softer and probably i shoot the whole day.

Example of golden hour

     My favourite time of shooting is golden hour and blue hour, these are the times where you use lot more colours and get those dramatic images. In case of sunrise the blue hour happens first and then the golden hour, in case of sunset is the exact opposite.

Wheather report

     What i would recommend is research about the timing of sunrise and sunset of particular location and reach that location one hour before. This way you get more time to explore the location and finalise a good composition.

     Once you happy with the composition then you have to wait for the perfect light and take the image. Most of the times the best light will only be there for few minutes or even few seconds. Since you have taken all the efforts before shooting, you are going to get a great shot.

Landscape photography#6 post processing

     I have seen a lot of beginners over editing the images to make the images look dramatic. The problem with that is the images loose the natural feel.

     One of the areas which you have to pay attention while editing landscape images is the border that separates the highlights and shadows. If you over edit the images you will see some artificial looking lines which is known as halo. That something you have to avoid.

     So the goal behind post processing the images is to make the images to look better but also natural at the same time.

     I would give you some good professional photo editing apps that you might like.

TOP 5 PROFESSIONAL PHOTO EDITING APPS

     So that's all viewers. I hope this blog post will help you to upgrade your photography skills and talents. If you have any questions or doubts contact us by the contact page or comment below.

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     Try these tips and share with us how it helps to you.

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