10 Landscape Photography Tips and Tricks for the Beginner
OCTOBER 20TH, 2014
I aim to produce images which inspire people. I believe that by simplifying our lives, we can appreciate the very few things that truly bring happiness. Therefore my images portray a more simplistic style. They aim to simplify the complicated mess that a landscape can be and focus on trying to capture space, light and textures.
Here are some tips to help you incorporate simplicity into your landscape photography, and take better photos:
1. Shoot close to sunrise and sunset to achieve more balanced exposures. Shooting during the harsh daylight produces very contrasty light and it is difficult to capture details in both the shadow and highlight areas. If there’s one thing you take away from this guide it should be this!
2. Compose an image to exclude more and include less; remove any element that does not add to the image. Simplicity is the key!
3. Shoot in RAW format for maximum quality if any post production editing will be performed later. This is really a big deal.
4. Switch to manual focus and focus one-third of the way into a scene. Do not use the smallest aperture of the lens (i.e. f/22). Instead use at least 2-3 stops up from the smallest opening in order to achieve sharper images.
5. Use a remote cable release or the self timer in addition to a tripod to increase sharpness. This makes such a big difference, especially when long exposures are required! To increase sharpness even further, engage the camera’s mirror lock-up feature if it comes with one.
6. Use Live View in conjunction with full magnification to manually focus. Thank god for Live View!
7. Shoot waterfalls under overcast conditions to allow the shutter to remain open for longer in order to achieve that nice silky water movement that you see so often and wonder how it is done! Alternatively, shoot in shutter priority mode (Tv) and dial in a shutter speed of at least 1/15 seconds or better still use an ND filter to achieve the same effect.
8. To achieve turquoise blue water, shoot when the sun is directly positioned overhead; i.e. around midday.
9. Compose a scene with naturally occurring lead-in lines in the foreground and use them to guide the viewer to the main subject. An interesting but not dominant foreground will also give the image depth.
10. Shoot at the lowest possible ISO (i.e. 100) to produce the best quality images. Using a tripod will be a big advantage!
Ricado Da Cunha is a professional photographer, and winner of the 2014 AIPP Australian Landscape Photographer of the Year Award.
