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General Landscape Advice
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Hi Everyone,
I was down on the Dingle Peninsula the other week and was absolutely amazed at how beautiful the place is but I was a little bit annoyed that I couldn’t transfer the abundant beauty into a photo. I really don’t have much of an idea of how to take a good landscape shot and more often than not if I get a good photo it’s by chance rather than design. I know it’s a broad category but if anybody knows some basic tips for landscape photography I’d appreciate your input. What’s the first things people look for when taking a landscape shot?
Thanks.
Hey there
I’m not the best landscape potographer .. and I’m sure you would get a range of advice .. but what I suggest .. is that you post a couple of your images here and then members will help you identify where you need to improve . For me, that approach makes more sense to learn as i go – rather than a list of rules to start off trying to apply .. !
Get stuck in and enjoy the process of improving as you go :D
L
I struggled at first then Mick451 & Hauke pointed out my failings but one statement by Hauke stood out. “If something doesn’t add to the image, leave it out”. In other words, make sure there’s something of interest – If there’s nothing in the top of the image, pan down until there is, same for the foreground and for the middleground lower your perspective if there isn’t anything there to lessen the amount of area it takes up.
You’d do well to remember it but as Lorraine says too, start posting and many will give you advice.
Alan
Thanks for the tip Alan (and Hauke by proxy), that’s so obvious but now that I think about it I think that it could be my biggest problem – I haven’t really been looking at what’s in the landscape but just looking at it as one whole thing (if that makes sense).
I did post some photos in my introduction thread and also one in a landscape thread but I haven’t received any comments on them – should I have just posted them here (I posted the ones in the landscape thread because I thought I’d receive more comments than here). I also wanted more general advice though because I really had no clue as to what I was shooting (quite literally as it turns out).
Here’s a photo I took in Marlay Park please let me know what worked (if anything) and what didn’t. Also, I’ve been posting the images as their medium sizes so they don’t take up too long to load and just including a link to the full-size image – should I just post the full-size to begin with?
Ok – here goes :)
The difficulty for me is interest – as its a wood – there is little chance to isolate something of interest, I see a pathway which you could consider making a feature or interest in the shot
the attention must be grabbed by something – light for instance – this looks like it was taken too late to catch the best light – which for good landscape is crucial .. very early morning (which is the main reason i suck at landscape :) ) or evening light
Last point here.. change your perspective – this images appear to be taken at eye level, which is how we all see, so its not peaking interest of the viewer.. but if you can get low, or change perspective somehow – you can draw people in
Hope this helps you!
L
LoGill wrote:
Ok – here goes :)
The difficulty for me is interest – as its a wood – there is little chance to isolate something of interest, I see a pathway which you could consider making a feature or interest in the shot
the attention must be grabbed by something – light for instance – this looks like it was taken too late to catch the best light – which for good landscape is crucial .. very early morning (which is the main reason i suck at landscape :) ) or evening light
Last point here.. change your perspective – this images appear to be taken at eye level, which is how we all see, so its not peaking interest of the viewer.. but if you can get low, or change perspective somehow – you can draw people in
Hope this helps you!
L
Thanks a lot – after what Alan said I was wondering whether this would’ve been a better shot had I tried to make the path a feature (I couldn’t really see anything else) so I’m glad at least I’m starting to focus on these things (hopefully it’ll last longer than 24hrs).
Also, thanks for another two excellent tips – I think I may have to settle for evening light if I want to take more landscape photos :).
Few general things that spring to mind:
Nature:
Good Light
Eye Grabbing Landscape & FeaturesEquipment:
Wide Angle Lens
Tripod
Neutral Density Grad Filter(s)Technical:
Well balanced exposure
Good Composition
Foreground InterestThe one thing you’ll fight with the most when landscaping is balancing your exposure… bright sky, darker foregrounds, bright sun… hard to get your exposure right when you’ve all these factors fighting against you. If you can get your exposure balanced up properly then everything else will fall into place.
In your shot above you’ve got an extremley bright sky and you’re in a shady wooded area. The camera will struggle with exposure here. Bracketing shots might have been the way to go here ie. taking multiple exposures of the same scene and later blending them to get the best of each.
Something similar where I was fighting against bright sun/sky and dark wood area… I bracketed and blended later in post processing… the results were… well OKish… I’m not far off a beginner myself… but I managed to retain some detail in the trees.
J
Have a look at the National Geographic Landscape Guide: it has a lot of simple, sensible advice:
This is a hard one to answer in a few sentences.
My general advice to you is
1. Do your planning
2. Never be put off by the weather
3. Get out there and practice
4. Keep it simpleThere is a wealth of tips and suggestions on my website if you are interested in reading more about landscape photography (see the articles section). This month it is all about rapidly changing light and how it can dramtically change a landscape.
for what its worth, I have found landscape difficult in cork/kerry also. I think part of the difficulty is the shape of the landscape, there are mountains but few obvious peaks for example. That makes it difficult to fill the top corners of the image for example. Also the landscape colours are quite subtle, and as mentioned above this can be difficult to balance against a bright sky. An additonal difficulty is that nicest scenery is often found from the vantage point of a hiking route, but this will usually be seen during the day when the sun is brighter….. I don’t have answers, but these are the sort of problems I’ve encountered in this region.
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