Tips

Little T

Hey all, I've not really done that many landscpae photos but hoping to try and get some nice ones this weekend. I am going to be going to uncles property (serveral hundred acres of woods, 2 lakes, nice area). I am using a 40d and my tammy, will also be borrowing a tripod and 70-200 from a friend. What types of settings would you recommened for open range landscape photos.. Like f8.0 or so?

Also if i was to do some long exposer low light dusk/dawn shots do you need to do anything special or just meter it to the light set exposer time and click? (sorry if i sound like a moron but i kinda am lol, have never done extended exposer shots.)


And sadly i do not have a ND filter which i think would prolly help me for extended exposer shots (correct?)

Cygnus Studios

A lot depends on personal taste. I personally like early morning and late day shots when the sun is not so harsh. I also like lower stops, F14 to F16 if the light allows. Really stretches the depth.
I don't use polarizors, so someone else will have to help with that.
Tripods are a must for longer exposures. If there is still a good bit of light, move down to F22 for those long shots. Just watch for the wind. Blurry trees and grass don't look all that great.

schmoo

I'm moving this post to Techniques because I think it's better suited for that forum.

Our stickies are often overlooked, but maybe some of these topics will help?

Good luck!

Scott_Quier

My thoughts on this - FWIW - as I don't do a lot of landscape photography:

• Use a decent aperture - something in the range of f/8 to f/16 to increase your DOF
• Early morning or just before sunset - you can get some very interesting light/shadows. Well worth the effort to get up before the sun.
• If you will have much in the way of green vegetation, you may get enhanced results if you also use a good polorizer. This will help to reduce light reflections off leaves, etc and thus enhance contast in the image.
• If the scene supports the concept, consider flipping your camera to portrait orientation and take a number of overlapping exposures to later stitch together to create a nice pano. When doing this,
  • Shoot manual mode
  • Select any WB other than AWB to make the color matching easier. Using AWB, the camera may set the WB of each individual image to a different WB
  • Select an aperture to deliver a good DOF
• For the longer exposures - set the camera to manual mode and dial in settings that cause the camera to indicate a good exposure. Take a shot and check out the histogram. Make adjustement to the exposure settings to move that histogram to the right without blowing out the highlights. See Expose (to the) Right for more on this.
• Of course, use a tripod and take you time.
• A very important tip --- Have fun!
• Last and most importantly, post up some of the results - we would love to see them.

Little T

Thanks everyone, also thanks schmoo for moving it to a place where it belongs .

Scott - Some great tips there i will try and put them to use this weekend. Also i have never shot RAW so will have to maybe try that this weekend and then when get back find software to process it with.

I REALLY want to try and get some pano shots, yet again another technique I have not tried and will attempt (but most likely just make a fool of myself yay!)

I will have to post pictures for you all when i get back but wont be till later in the week next week. (Darn school slowing down my fun time!)

Scott_Quier

Little T wrote:

Thanks everyone, also thanks schmoo for moving it to a place where it belongs .

Scott - Some great tips there i will try and put them to use this weekend. Also i have never shot RAW so will have to maybe try that this weekend and then when get back find software to process it with.

I REALLY want to try and get some pano shots, yet again another technique I have not tried and will attempt (but most likely just make a fool of myself yay!)

I will have to post pictures for you all when i get back but wont be till later in the week next week. (Darn school slowing down my fun time!)

I don't know about how great the tips might be. Try them and see if they work for you.

As for shooting RAW - yup that's the way to go. As for software - you have DPP. You can start with that if you have nothing else and limited budget. Install it off your CD and then go to the Canon site and update it. If I remember correctly, you can do some global edits of the image with that and generate some quite good JPG files.

I have a friend who is working hard to drive Lightroom into my head. I think he's finally made some progress - I'm really starting to like it. LR might be a good option for you as well.

Little T

Scott_Quier wrote:

I don't know about how great the tips might be. Try them and see if they work for you.

As for shooting RAW - yup that's the way to go. As for software - you have DPP. You can start with that if you have nothing else and limited budget. Install it off your CD and then go to the Canon site and update it. If I remember correctly, you can do some global edits of the image with that and generate some quite good JPG files.

I have a friend who is working hard to drive Lightroom into my head. I think he's finally made some progress - I'm really starting to like it. LR might be a good option for you as well.

Thanks, I think my friend might have lightroom (so i will have to kidnap his laptop!!) but between our scheduals we just never have time to work on stuff together. But at least i have dgrin to help me!

Little T

I just want to say thanks again for the tips guys, i gave it all a shot this weekend not sure how well they turned out but when i get time to later this week I will edit the photos and get them up.

catspaw

Little T wrote:

Thanks, I think my friend might have lightroom (so i will have to kidnap his laptop!!) but between our scheduals we just never have time to work on stuff together. But at least i have dgrin to help me!

psssst! you can try Lightroom on a free 30-day trial (full version too at that). Just download it from the Adobe website.