Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 8 i Landscape Photography The Complete Manual

Landscape photography shows us places within the world that can capture the beauty and grandeur of unspoiled nature, as well as the more familiar aspects of the man-made world and its presence within the landscape too. From coastal scenes to cityscapes and the rural expanses beyond the city limits, there is an unending array of subjects both great and small waiting to be captured. The aim of this manual is to help you, the budding landscape photographer, into the world of photography; to explore cameras, lenses and accessory options and then to help you get the best out of them. Starting from the basics we’ll guide you though the world of landscape photography and hopefully help you to enjoy using your camera and take better photographs with it. Master your…

The word ‘landscape’ is thought to have entered the English language around the 17th century as the word ‘landskip’ and is derived from the Dutch ‘landschap’. It was originally used as a general term for any work of art. With the passing of time, it eventually became a term to describe a scene as used in poetry and then as a term for real views. In terms of types of landscape photography, there are several main styles. The first is known as representational, also called descriptive style. These types are the most natural looking of all the various types of landscape photography. There are no additional unwanted components or artificial elements. There is also very little in the way of post-processing to sully the final result. Realism is the key.…

Filter systems Think about investing in some filters. A circular polariser is very useful. It can boost the contrast in blue skies and is very useful for reducing or even eliminating reflections in water; just be aware that polarisers work best when the sun is at 90° to you. If you are shooting a scene where there is a large difference in the tonal values between your land and a bright sky, an ND grad will help stop those skies from burning out. Off in the distance Don’t always assume that your landscape has to be shot with the widest lens you have. Sometimes a longer focal length is great for picking out distant details that a wide angle lens could not. Zoom lenses are also a good choice as…

Is there such a thing as the perfect landscape camera? The answer is going to have to be no. It’s hard to imagine that there is a single camera out there that is perfect for one specific purpose. Certainly some cameras are more suited to landscape photography than others and there are a few key factors that are worth mentioning. Sensor size is not necessarily a prime consideration as you are most likely going to demand as much depth of field as possible in your shots anyway. Megapixel size is also not a major concern unless you are going to be producing enormous prints well in excess of A2 sizes. To be honest the idea of a one shot capture of a landscape is being overshadowed by the use of…

“Yes, you should never ‘look’ directly into the sun or very bright sources of illumination of course, but why should you not let your camera do it for you?” If you’ve ever been given any photography advice and had some pearls of wisdom passed down to you, chances are that one of the main ones would have been that you should not shoot into your scene’s main light source or the sun. This advice goes on to say that you should always have the sun at your back or at least over one shoulder. While this is one aspect of working with light that works well enough for a variety of situations, it doesn’t always have to be the case. Yes, you should never ‘look’ directly into the sun or…

What is landscape photography? This is a more complex question than you might at first assume. There are numerous definitions out there that try to sum up what landscape photography actually is. It can range from such matter-of-fact definitions as: “The dominant use of the term is in reference to photography of naturally occurring scenery in open spaces” to a more simple and broader: “Photographs taken outside”. Many regard a landscape to be a representation of a place that has little or preferably no sign of human activity. It is meant to be an untouched and pure depiction of nature. For others the inclusion of man-made objects that range from walls, fields, gardens and structures is just as valid a landscape image as any other. If presented in a suitably…

High Dynamic Range, or HDR, imaging is a technique that has become very popular over the past few years, particularly for landscape photography. It’s actually quite easy to do, and some of the latest cameras will actually do it automatically. You simply shoot three or more copies of the same image at different exposure settings, so that over a series of photos you capture highlight, shadow and mid-tone details. You then combine these shots into one image that compresses the full range of tones so that there are no burned-out highlights or very dark shadows.…

Sunrise goes through particular phases, each with its own unique quality of light. Obviously weather is a factor in every shot you take, but pre-dawn is usually cooler in tone, with lower dynamic range and soft shadows. However, the clouds will normally start lighting up before the sun actually gets to the horizon. The minutes before sunrise are generally more orange/yellow in tone and shadows become more obvious. Then, once the sun is a couple of degrees above the horizon, you get long shadows that reveal detail in the landscape, crisp highlights and a marked increase in contrast.…

If you want to take better landscape photographs, the single most useful accessory you can buy is a good quality tripod. By using a tripod you can completely eliminate camera shake, the number one cause of unsatisfactory photos. A tripod is also essential when using long exposures, powerful telephoto lenses or when shooting in low light conditions. There are many different makes and types of tripod, from cheap budget models costing under £15 up to professional grade tripods made of carbon fibre and magnesium alloy which cost hundreds of pounds. They come in all sizes too, from pocket sized mini tripods suitable for small compact cameras, to heavy studio tripods mounted on castors. The type that you should buy depends on how much you want to spend and what sort…

Filters have been an essential part of photography since its very beginnings. Used creatively they can improve a hard-to-capture scene, add an extra artistic element to an image or just provide a bit of fun. Modern digital photo editing has provided an almost too easy method to add filter effects to an image after it has been taken; some effects are better when applied by actual physical filters fitted to the camera when the photo is taken and this is particularly true with black and white photography. Let’s take a look at some of the different types of filter and how they can help to improve your photos. 1. UV filter This screw-on filter was used originally to block UV light from hitting the film in old cameras. Modern digital…

File format Where your camera allows, always select Raw not Jpeg. Raw is an uncompressed format that gives you much more scope when it comes to the post-processing of your images. You would be surprised how much you can recover a shot that at first glance looks either too overexposed or vice versa. It is fairly common to be able to recover up to 2-stops of exposure information before the image starts to become degraded. Focus It can be all too easy to rely on your camera’s autofocus but try and get yourself into the routine of setting it to manual focus. You may think it is ok to focus on the immediate foreground but that will result in distant objects probably being quite soft. For maximum sharpness with a…

The word panorama means ‘an unbroken view of the whole region surrounding an observer’. In more simple terms, it means a photograph containing a wide view. A vertorama is simply a panorama that is shot in a vertical orientation. It all came about in the 1700s when artists would paint a horizontal image that encircled an entire room. These wide, expansive views are much prized by landscape photographers who strive to capture entire vistas to give the viewer of the final image a sense of the scale of the scene that was visible to them whilst they were there. Conveying all this ‘bigness’ would normally require the use of wide angle lenses. These lenses have short focal lengths of around 14mm to 24mm and can capture an angle of view…

Choosing a camera system, lenses or accessories for landscape photography may seem daunting at first because there is so much choice out there. Manufacturers inundate us with features and gadgets that they tell us make their camera so much better than everyone else’s. Beneath all the marketing babble, there is a wealth of choice available for every budget and skill level. With a little research and keeping a budget in mind, there is some great photography gear to be had out there. The following pages will give you a head start on where to begin and what to keep in mind as you search for your gear. It’s worth noting as well that the cost of the camera is secondary to the skill and creativity of the photographer. An expensive…

It is an accepted fact that if there is one lens that is inextricably linked to landscape photography, it is the wide-angle lens. It is often said that the lens influences the shot, not the camera. That is particularly true of the wide-angle lens in landscape photography. As the name implies, a wide-angle lens captures a very wide field of view. This is ideal for capturing the broad expanse of the scene the photographer is in. It also draws in the viewer of the final image in ways that a zoomed narrow angle image does not. Good wide-angle lenses are also sharp and capture great detail. With the advent of digital cameras and their various sensor systems, pinning down what a wide-angle lens is can be tricky. If we stick…

Although the previous pages deal in the general principles of how ISO, shutter speed and f-stop settings interact with each other. We have another diagram that gives a simple overview of how those individual settings affect the look and quality of your images. We’ve laid out, in a more visual form, the basic effect of wide and narrow apertures, slow or fast shutter speeds and high or low ISO settings. Learning the interplay of these three basic values can appear daunting at first but with practice you will see how one setting affects your image and how the other settings need to work in balanced combination to give you the shots you require. n “We’ve laid out, in a more visual form, the basic effect of wide and narrow apertures,…

Light up the horizon Never discount an overcast sky as an opportunity to photograph a possible sunrise or sunset. To get the perfect shot, you sometimes have to play a waiting game in order to secure the shot you want. A weather app on your phone can be a very useful tool to help guide your choices when going out in search of a great landscape image. Sometimes the clouds may start to break and reveal a glowing horizon, making a very dramatic image. These moments may be fleeting, but they can create gorgeous colours and contrast against the rest of the clouds in the sky. Remove colour and simplify The use of a neutral density filter at dusk can result in some amazing image as we’ve seen. Instead of…

As your photography evolves, you will no doubt be trying out various types of subject matter and getting involved in photo shoots with people, animals, children and the like. You may also be working at larger events, functions, or even weddings, where you are herding people around and generally having to be in charge to get the shots required by your client. Having been in the thick of it, you can be forgiven for occasionally wanting something a little less wearisome. We can’t speak for all photographers, but now and again, we believe it is quite therapeutic to grab your gear, head out and photograph something for yourself, just for the sheer pleasure of it. No moving targets, no groups shots, no shouting to make yourself heard at a function,…