To get great landscapes, you need more than just a pretty world. You might be in a scenic location, but that doesn’t mean it’ll always translate well to a 2D image.
Landscape photography advice can be contradictory, at times. Sometimes landscapes will look great at a certain time of day or year, but drab at others. Sometimes it’ll look better with a long lens, and other times, it’s better to use a wide lens. Take this article — and any future or past articles on this topic — with a grain of salt.
Be willing to experiment.
The Tips
1. Shoot during the golden hour
During most of the day, the sun is high, creating short shadows. Landscapes lose their contours and details that shadows otherwise would create. Daylight sun also travel a shorter distance, and the light is white or colorless (depending on how technical you want to get). This makes for a flat, stark landscape.
However, at the golden hour, when the sun is low in the sky, the shadows get longer. The light travels through more humidity and pollution that’s hangs low to the ground, and that’s what create the warm yellow, red and pink hues.
Both shadow and warm light transform a plain, ordinary scene to a jaw-dropping landscape photograph.
Magic.
The golden hour occurs an hour before sunset and an hour after sunrise. In summertimes, the peak golden hours are between 5:30AM and 6:30AM and 7:30 PM and 8:30PM, +/- 30minutes, depending on your latitude.
#2 Circular Polarizing Filters
What they do for you:
- Increase the vibrancy of blues and greens — the sky and foliage, in particular
- Cuts reflections and glare, useful for photographing water features. Can be used on glass in urban settings, for cityscapes
There are two types of polarizing filters: linear and circular. Either will work fine for landscapes, however if you plan to photograph water features a lot, like beaches, forest streams, and lakes, a circular polarizer will be more beneficial for you.
Here’s why: a circular polarizer can be rotated so you can adjust for the direction of the glare, reducing or negating it outright.
Lens Rental, which is a reputable camera and lens rental company, did a test on polarizer filters ranging in prices, and found that there was no discernible difference in the ability to filter polarized light. (full article)
However! It’s well established that the quality of filters can affect the quality of your images. If filters have low optical clarity, your images could appear to be slightly hazy or not sharp. Rinky dinky cheap plastic filters no bueno.
So, when buying filters, avoid the bargain-barrel ones. The following are brands that photographers trust:
- Tiffen
- Hoya
- Lee
- Cokin
- B+W
- Formatt Hitech Limited
#3 Subject matter
A landscape can be improved when you make an effort to incorporate a specific element or focal point. It gives the viewer’s eyes something to latch on, instead of wandering all over the image.
The following 6 elements are highly successful.
Foreground Objects
Negative Space (also known as minimalism)
Leading lines and S shapes
Movement
Dramatic weather
Unexpected perspective
#4 Use the right tools
When people think of landscape photography, they often assume wide lens are used. Because you want lens capable of photographing all-encompassing landscapes, right?
While wide lens definitely should be used in landscapes, they shouldn’t be the only type of lens.
For instance, this was photographed with a zoom.
When you photograph during the golden hour, you’ll also be dealing with rapidly declining light. This time of day is notoriously difficult to hand-hold a camera.
Grab a good, sturdy tripod, preferably in carbon fiber — they’re less likely to vibrate in windy conditions.
#5 Go chase weather
Go outside, especially in bad weather. (related post)
You’ll get shots that no one else is getting.
Did you like this post? Pin it!
