10 Tips for Landscape Photography

Here's a list of 10 tips for landscape photography which I hope you will find useful.

1. Always take a tripod (a good tripod)
Always bring along a tripod for those landscape shots. Also, make sure your tripod is steady. There's no worse feeling than being in front of that perfect scene with your camera on the tripod and noticing that your system is shaking a little bit because of the windy conditions.

2. Carry a cable release
The timer function on the camera is no substitute for a cable release, BTW. The cable allows you the release the shutter when you want to release the shutter, not 2 sec or 10 sec or 15 sec from when you want to release. The release makes it so you don't have to touch the camera at all which will definitely minimize camera shake.

3. Polarizer and filters
Bring along that polarizer, as well as neutral density filters and graduated neutral density filters. The key to landscape photography is control of light. A polarizer will help take glare off the water and other reflective surfaces like leaves. It also gives some contrast to an otherwise flat, hazy day.

Neutral density filters will evenly stop a specified amount of light from hitting your sensor. Let's say you want to get that nice silky effect on a water fall but the day is sunny. If you

just shot the image without a ND filter, you might not be able to slow down your shutter speed enough without blowing out the highlights.

The grad ND filter is dark on top and clear on bottom and there is a "gradual" transition from the dark to the clear area. Again, these filters come in different strengths. By placing the grad ND filter in front of your lens you decrease the amount of light reaching the sensor from the bright part of the scene (the sky), thereby allowing nice detail from the foreground to show through without blowing out the highlights.

4. Use a hyperfocal distance chart
Hyperfocal distance is the distance from the end of your lens you should focus at to get the maximum depth of field and still have infinity in focus (for a given f stop and focal distance combination). Always carry this sheet with you in your camera bag.

5. Know the weather conditions before going.
Unless you own a sealed camera like the Nikon F5/D1 or Canon 1D/1V series, you'll want to protect your equipment from rain (e.g. using things like a plastic bag and an umbrella).

6. Landscape = wide-angle lens
This tip is a personal preference, but I think many will agree with this statement.

7. Foreground, midground, and background
Remember the 3 elements of a good landscape:

foreground, midground and background. Try to have something in these positions. This is just a rule of thumb ... and you know what they say about rules.

8. If possible, try to avoid shooting in the mid-day
There’s lots of harsh light and unflattering shadows around mid-day, so try to avoid taking your shots during that period if possible.

9. Histogram function
If you have a histogram function on your digital camera, use it! The LCD often gives inaccurate representation of the exposures. Personally, I rely on my histogram, not the little image of the scene I just shot to tell me my proper exposure. As a rule of thumb in digital, shoot for the highlights (as opposed to for the shadows, suggested for film). I'd rather have a slightly underexposed shot than an overexposed one in digital. Underexposed shots are much more easily corrected than an overexposed one.

10. Digital camera metering
Some people will use a digital camera first to see what kind of metering is needed to get the proper exposure, because there is instant feed back. Then they will set up their film camera with the same settings. This is a great idea which I use regularly.

Gary Hendricks
http://www.basic-digital-photography.com

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