In our article today we will talk about how to choose the right aperture when shooting a landscape. Well, along the way, we’ll try to rid you of some templates, as well as expand the so-called creative framework.
For some reason, among beginning photographers, and even among more experienced photography masters, there is often an opinion that everything in a landscape, down to the smallest detail, must be perfectly sharp. Therefore, they believe, landscapes should be photographed at the narrowest aperture possible.
Most likely, it seems to us, all this came from an analysis of the work of the wonderful American photographer Ansel Adams, who created his simply stunning black and white landscapes with an almost closed aperture (he founded the so-called “F/64 Group”, known in his time community of photographers). But there is no need to get hung up on the work of one, albeit brilliant, master, and accept his style, his manners as the only correct and inviolable ones.
In order to shoot a perfectly sharp landscape with modern camera equipment, there is no need to clamp the lens aperture to the minimum possible value. This is especially true for wide-angle lenses. You shouldn’t do this beyond 9-14 for FF and 5-8 for crop matrices. For almost any modern lens, the area of maximum possible sharpness is located just a few stops from the largest aperture opening. Take, for example, a lens such as Tamron 28-75/2.8. It gives the sharpest image when shooting at an aperture of 5-5.6. And the Canon 70-300 / f 4.0-5.6 shoots sharper at an aperture of 7.1 - 9.
If you close the aperture hole even more, this may negatively affect the quality of the resulting image. And first of all, what we strive for so much - sharpness - will deteriorate. Plus, when shooting at a very narrow aperture, aberrations increase significantly.
Canon EOS 6D, Tamron SP AF LD Di SP 70-200 F/2.8; F/2.8, 175 mm
But, nevertheless, personal practice, personal experience Always more important than any theories. That's why every time you buy a new lens, we recommend experimenting with it by shooting at different apertures, and then evaluating the resulting images when viewing them at full size. After such experiments, you will feel great about your lens under different shooting conditions and when different meaning diaphragm.
Shooting a landscape with an open aperture
Many photographers shoot with a wide open aperture. And, moreover, they film in the most different genres: portrait, still life, and, of course, landscape. They do this in order to, using various creative and technical techniques, achieve the desired effect, the desired psychological impact at the viewer.
For example, if not all the details in a photograph are shown equally sharply, not each of them is drawn and clearly readable, then this gives the overall picture a sense of volume, a kind of depth of space. A tonal perspective is created.
One of the most important disadvantages of HDR images is their unnaturalness. Well, for example, the brightness of dimly lit objects in such pictures is exactly the same, or even higher in brightness, than their bright areas. For example, the sky.
Even the human eye and all of its vision are structured in such a way that we do not perceive all the elements of what is in front of us equally sharply, with the same contrast. A person clearly and sharply sees only what is in his sight. at the moment Interesting. This is what it focuses on optical system human eye. For example, when looking at a sign on a store that interests us, we see it sharply and clearly, but we perceive people passing a little further away, the numbers of buses or trolleybuses at a stop near this store, much less sharply and with less contrast.
It is this property of human vision that a photographer needs to learn to convey in his photographs. It is necessary to force the viewer to see the world as the photographer himself wants to see it.
Well, for example, you can take pictures with clearly readable out-of-focus areas. Or carefully fit out-of-focus areas into fog, clouds, or just haze above the ground.
You can create simply wonderful landscapes by shooting at a fully open aperture. By the way, a fully open aperture creates a pleasant and gentle vignetting in the image - the image is slightly shaded at the edges of the frame.
The photographer also should not forget that, given the approximate equidistance from the shooting point of all objects falling within the frame, when shooting with a long-focus lens, even with a wide open aperture, all these objects will be approximately equally sharp.
Shooting a landscape with a closed aperture
In some cases, for example, when shooting landscapes with moving water (rivers, streams, waterfalls, etc.) at fairly long shutter speeds, in order to increase the shutter opening time to several seconds, and sometimes even minutes, it becomes necessary to minimize Reduce light sensitivity (ISO value) and close the aperture to the limit.
Canon EOS 40D, Sigma DC HSM 10-20 F/4-5.6, F/9.0, F/22, 10 mm, 15s, ISO 100
Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF 17-40 F/4.0, F/22, 24 mm, 30s, ISO 100
Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF 17-40 F/4.0, F/18, 24 mm, 15s, ISO 100
The main task of the photographer in this case is to learn how to correctly navigate the current situation, and in order to get an interesting picture, to choose the right photography technique that would most accurately correspond to the current situation and the scene being photographed.
In normal, everyday work, it is logical for a photographer to use the aperture value that creates the sharpest image. Well, in some cases, of course, the diaphragm needs to be slightly tightened. This is done in order to convey sharply all objects on all levels of the image.
At least sometimes, occasionally, as an experience, try shooting different scenes, including landscapes, with a wide open (or close to it) aperture. This will give you the opportunity to understand and feel your lens, and find interesting creative moves, unusual compositional solutions for your photographs. And in general, you, as a photographer, will significantly improve your skills. An example is the shooting of moving water, which we talked about a little higher today. To achieve a pronounced effect of water flow, you need to increase the shutter speed, lower the light sensitivity and close the aperture almost completely. Well, what if you don’t clamp the diaphragm, but leave it open? Try it! Good luck to you!
Based on materials from the site:
A lot has been written about landscape photography. I don’t want to repeat myself, so here I will describe the main points and focus on the problems that I directly encounter when shooting.
A very short guide to landscape photography:
- Monitor the aperture often, you need to close it tightly to F/5.6-F/16.0
- Keep an eye on the horizon; the horizon should “cut” the frame harmoniously. Carefully and thoughtfully arrange lines and proportions in the frame
- Follow light sources (sun)
- Enjoy the result
As you can see, there is nothing complicated about landscape photography. But the problem is that to get a high-quality photo, you need to work hard:
- The landscape implies that you will need to find it. Finding a good landscape is not always easy. Very often when you find nice landscape, you don't have a camera with you.
- It is best to shoot in the morning and evening, when there is no “hard” (strong) sun. Shooting in strong and hot sunlight is very difficult.
- Since it is best to shoot in the morning and evening, and even with closed apertures, you need a tripod. A tripod means extra costs and extra weight during transportation.
- To catch good shots, you need an internal sense of harmony, which can either be innate or developed over a long time of photographing.
Masters landscape photography have in their arsenal a very large stock of skills and developments, it is useless to describe them, since every little detail in the trick will be useful only in one case out of a hundred, and the person himself must choose exactly how he needs to shoot in a given situation.
Setting up your camera for landscape photography
- Landscapes are almost always shot with a closed aperture: F5.6-F36.0. The easiest way to do this is in aperture priority mode.
- The ISO value must be set to the minimum: ISO 50, 100, 200,
- Color saturation setting - maximum
- Focusing is best - manual, preferably focusing at infinity (on the farthest object)
Theory is great, but in practical shooting all the simplicity disappears. Firstly, when photographing landscapes, a very serious problem is the effect of overexposure or underexposure of areas in the photo. The most common example is a photo of black earth and white sky. In this case: either the sky will have details, and the ground will be completely black (dark, without details), or the ground will be normally exposed, but the sky will be greatly brightened (overexposed). This has to do with the dynamic range of the camera. A gradient filter helps to solve this problem, which compensates for the difference in the “glow” of the earth and sky. Very often, it is enough to make a correction in order to “save” the frame a little. It can be very useful for landscapes.
Secondly: landscapes are shot with closed (covered) apertures. On digital SLR cameras, with closed apertures, every speck of dust on the matrix will be visible. This is very annoying, frustrating and greatly spoils the photo. For example, already at F11 “blots” appear on the matrix (they can be seen in the examples for this article). On F14, fine dust is already quite visible. You can fight this disease with the help of, or by lowering the aperture number. It's funny, but ordinary digital cameras (point-and-shoot cameras) and film cameras are less susceptible to this disease. On the other hand, soap dishes suffer greatly from diffraction on closed apertures.
Thirdly: often, very visually difficult to compose a shot, so that the lines fit perfectly into the frame. The horizon line is trying to tilt. When I shoot handheld, thoughtfully and carefully, and then look at the footage on the computer, the horizon often “falls” a couple of degrees. For some subjects, even 5 degrees is already an unacceptable error. To overcome the littered horizon, I turn on the “grid” in the viewfinder. The grid displays lines, dividing the frame into 9 or 12 segments, which allows you to immediately see the symmetry in the frame, as well as position the horizon evenly. Almost all Nikon central control systems support a reticle. Some cameras have a virtual horizon (for example), which allows you to control the lines. Well, if there are any problems with lines at all, then you can crop the image by rotating the area in Adobe Photoshop or other editors.
Fourth: for landscapes, most often Need a very wide viewing angle, for this they use wide-angle and . All “ultra-wide” lenses have distortion (curvature of geometry). Distortion can greatly spoil the picture, or it can give it something unusual (such as the fish-eye effect). Still, the less distortion, the better. Unfortunately, all ultra-wide-angle lenses have this disadvantage. Distortion can be overcome using graphic editors; some cameras have built-in distortion correction for a number of lenses (for example,). Or, you can shoot with a longer lens without distortion. Photos of the sky were taken with fifty dollars, this lens does not have distortion.
Personal experience:
If I shoot without a tripod, I use S (priority) mode. I usually set it to a value from 1/80 to 1/200, and I know that the aperture when shooting will be (in good lighting) very closed, which is what is needed for landscapes. In low light, I will still get a fairly sharp shot without blur when shooting handheld. When I use a tripod, I work in mode A or M (aperture priority or manual mode). With a tripod, long shots with closed apertures are not scary. I rarely photograph landscapes, so that’s where my experience ends.
I am often asked, but what is the best aperture for landscape? There is no single answer. Sometimes, to shoot handheld in the evening, F2.8, ISO 800 is enough. And sometimes, to “freeze” a waterfall, you need F/36.0 ISO 100. By the way, at closed apertures, almost all lenses (including the kit one) give a very sharp image, so that there is no point in chasing a specialized landscape lens for home purposes.
Landscape photography becomes much more difficult if you need to photograph a person against the backdrop of nature. In this case, focusing on infinity will not always help. When photographing people in nature, I also recommend monitoring the placement of objects in the frame, and in some cases, it is better to place the person not in the central area of the picture.
Conclusions:
Shooting a landscape is not difficult, it is difficult to find good place. The most important thing in a landscape is the harmony of combinations of lines, shapes, light and shadow. To correctly compose (select) a photograph, you just need to go and experiment. In practice, experience comes very quickly.
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Greetings, dear readers! In touch with you, Timur Mustaev. Some amateur photographers consider landscape one of the most basic genres of photography. To some extent, I share their point of view: go wherever you like, and shoot whatever comes into your head.
Plus, unlike studio shooting, which requires considerable financial costs, nature will not disappear and will not require anything in return except careful treatment of it, and the situation changes depending on the time of year, giving scope for imagination.
But is the landscape really that simple? Let's figure it out together.
Let's start the debriefing, perhaps, with a definition of this genre and its place in human reality.
Landscape in photography
Scenery is a genre in which nature is the center of the image.
This trend originated in the era of the absence of cameras, when famous and not so famous artists went out into the open air and conveyed what they had seen with the help of brushes and paints.
That is why understanding the meaning of this genre should be learned from realist artists.
Paintings, like nothing else, allow you to experience all the beauty of nature; they are inextricably linked with the inner world of a person, with his feelings, mood and love for life in general.
And in photography, a landscape is not a thoroughly accurate redrawing of this or that corner of nature, but one’s own perception of the world.
Modern landscape photography is quite versatile. Exhibitions of such materials instill in the viewer an artistic taste and develop imagination by drawing associative parallels between real life and pictures.
The relationship between photographic art and life gave rise to a new direction - the urban landscape, in which the dominant element is not nature, but the brainchild of society - the city with its numerous streets, architectural objects, squares, as well as the endless flow of cars and pedestrians.
The urban and classical landscape captivates even the most stingy photographers! And there is an explanation for this: by shooting in this genre you can get excellent shots without using expensive equipment.
All you need is desire, patience, a tripod, an SLR camera, and some skills in using it.
Shooting in this genre, as in any other genre, is, first of all, a creative process, accompanied by your own vision of what is happening, but, oddly enough, there are many rules, the observance of which will save you from failure.
Landscape photography
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine: in front of you are stretched out spaces of unprecedented beauty and it seems that as soon as you press the shutter, the most beautiful image that the world has never seen will appear on the camera display...
Capture this episode in your memory and open your eyes, your fantasy will remain a fantasy, and you will never learn how to photograph a landscape if you neglect the rules listed below.
- Maximum sharpness. Many photographers practice shooting landscapes with an open aperture, however, “many” is not an indicator of good work.
A classic technique for landscape photography is focusing on the entire image (shooting with a closed aperture).
Usually it is enough to make simple camera settings to get a sharp and moderately exposed photo: the slider is around f/11-16, but you can trust the automatic if you shoot at . However, to avoid movement, it is better to shoot landscapes using or.
- Having meaning. For any photo, it is important to have a semantic center of the composition, so that, as they say, the eye has something to catch on to. The center of attention can be anything: an interesting shaped building, a tree, a mountain, a ship in the middle of a sea, etc.
- Rule of thirds in the overall composition of the frame. The location of the semantic center relative to all elements and details of the image is as important as the presence of sharpness.
The reference says: a photo looks most advantageous when the objects being photographed are conventionally separated by lines that divide the image into three parts, both lengthwise and crosswise.
- Thoughtful foreground. Place the semantic centers on the front part of the photo, leaving “air space” in front, this way you will be able to create the effect of lightness and convey depth.
- Dominant element. The secret of successful nature photography has been revealed - either the sky or the foreground should dominate the picture.
If your photos don't fit this description, they'll likely be considered boring and ordinary.
If it happens that the sky during the photo shoot is uninteresting and monochromatic, move the horizon line to the upper third, so you will not allow it to prevail over the rest.
But if it seems that the airspace is about to explode or collapse on the ground with streams of lava, give it 2/3 of the frame and you will see how much the plot of what is happening can change.
- Lines. There are endless ways to capture the beauty of nature to its fullest. One of them is the technique of including active lines in the composition. With the help of lines, you can redirect the viewer’s gaze from one semantic point of the photo to another, while creating a certain enclosure of space.
Lines not only create patterns in a photo, but also add volume. This also applies to the horizon line, beyond which you constantly need an eye and an eye.
- Movement. Many people consider landscape photographs to be calm and passive. But this is not necessarily the case! You can add life to a photo with the help of water or wind, for example, use a DSLR camera to capture the violence of the ocean or a flowing waterfall, the blowing of the wind or the falling of leaves from a tree, the flight of birds or the movement of people.
The influence of weather and time on the quality of landscape photography
The Golden Rule of Landscape: “The scene and subject matter can change dramatically overnight, depending on weather conditions and the time of year.”
It is a mistake to believe that best time for natural shots - a sunny day.
In cloudy weather, in terms of lighting effects, it’s a pleasure to shoot: hail, sleet and thunderstorms can fill any landscape with an ominous, mysterious mood.
However, there is a side effect - the possibility of getting your feet wet, getting sick and saying goodbye to your DSLR forever, since moisture can have a devastating effect on all electronics.
To avoid this, plan your day in advance, take your preparations seriously: think about what to wear and what to wrap your camera in. For these purposes, it is best to purchase a waterproof case or at least one that protects the lens from drops getting on the lens.
Shooting in the rain doesn't have to be - it's just one way to achieve artistic images.
This creates a very soft diffused light, giving the pictures a lightness and a special sleepy look.
A forest covered in fog will look much more mysterious and attractive than on a sunny day.
Although if the shooting takes place in summer or autumn period, light shining through foliage can create an interesting look at an open aperture.
During sunset, using , you can photograph no less interesting landscapes, especially if the foreground is slightly backlit.
To avoid bunnies, use a lens hood or. This filter is simply irreplaceable in landscape photography.
Night photography in technically, the most difficult. Taking pictures of nature in full nature is pointless due to the lack of light. Therefore, you need to go where there are artificial light sources - the city.
In this case, it’s not worth using the flash continuously, raise the value to 800-1600 and go towards the city landscape!
A brief educational program on the topic of landscape photography has reached its point of no return! I hope this article was at least somewhat instructive and useful. I think that I have conveyed to you the meaning of how to photograph a landscape correctly in order to achieve the desired results.
If you are an aspiring photographer who wants to achieve positive success in photography, then everything is in your hands. The best place to start is with the concept of your DSLR camera. And one of the video courses below can become an assistant. Most beginning photographers, after studying this course, began to treat differently SLR camera. The course will help you reveal everything important functions and DSLR settings, which is very important at the initial stage.
My first MIRROR- for owners of a CANON DSLR.
Digital SLR for a beginner 2.0- for owners of a NIKON DSLR.
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All the best to you, Timur Mustaev.
At first glance, landscape photography is a very simple type of photography. It seems that all you have to do is go outside with your camera, choose a worthy subject and press the shutter button. However, when you see your first shots, you may be disappointed. Below you will learn what to pay attention to when photographing a landscape and how to get great photos.
Landscape Lens
Let's start with the fact that there are no lenses designed exclusively for landscape photography. The image taken with a long-focus lens has less geometric distortion, but, unfortunately, also a smaller viewing angle. Short-focus (wide-angle) optics are suitable when you need to get a larger viewing angle, depth of perspective, or build a panoramic image. At the same time, the geometric distortions of perspective inherent in such lenses can be used as an artistic effect. For landscape photography, you can purchase wide-angle lenses with a fixed focal length, such as 14 or 18 mm. An alternative and cheaper option would be to purchase a zoom lens (10-20mm, 12-24mm, 18-35mm). Finally, you can also use a kit lens (18-55mm), which gives you more flexibility in choosing your subject and is an excellent choice for a beginning photographer.
It should be noted that lenses designed for narrow format cameras have a scale of focal lengths in terms of angle of view for a standard 35 mm film frame. Therefore, to evaluate the viewing angle of the lens for your digital camera, it is necessary to take into account its crop factor.
Light filters
In addition to the lens, you will need filters for landscape photography. They will significantly improve your photos. For landscape photography, it is best to use gradient and polarizing filters.
A gradient filter, the top part of which is dark and the bottom part is completely transparent. A gradient filter allows you to dim the brightness of a whitened, featureless sky or emphasize its texture in cloudy weather.
A polarizing filter is used in cases where you need to highlight the blue sky, clouds against its background, or especially emphasize reflections in water.
When choosing filters, it is important to consider that their use on ultra-wide-angle lenses (18 mm or less) can lead to the undesirable effect of uneven illumination of the frame and vignetting.
Composition
Before you start shooting, you need to remember the basic rules for constructing a composition. Try not to place the horizon line exactly in the middle of the frame. It is advisable to build the composition in such a way that it is closer to the top or bottom third of the frame. Avoid a central arrangement of objects that you focus on. Since ancient times, the rules have been well known according to which an object located near the point of the “golden section” has the most harmonious perception. Mentally dividing the frame into three equal parts, two vertical and two horizontal lines, compose your frame so that the accentuated object is in the area of one of their intersection points. If there are several such objects, never place them on the same line.
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When shooting a landscape, divide the frame into three well-defined plans - foreground, middle and background. With this composition, your photo will acquire the necessary volume.
Light
Watch the lighting. The most favorable time for shooting is before 10 a.m. and after 5 p.m. (in autumn and winter, these boundaries naturally narrow). At this time, the lighting is softest and most even. Use a polarizing filter to expose clear, cloudless sky. With it, you can achieve a deep and soft gradient: from light smoky to deep, velvety shades (Photo 1).
Using a gradient filter, reduce the brightness of an overcast, colorless sky and bring out the texture of the clouds. This will give your photo additional volume. When including fragments of blue sky in a cloud break, the effect of the gradient filter on them will be equivalent to the effect of a polarizing filter (Photo 2).
Try not to overload your frame with unnecessary details. Sometimes the simplest composition can add volume to a frame. For example, in this frame (Photo 3), with the help of people, it was possible to revive the composition, and with the help of just one detail - a stone in the foreground, arranged near the point of the “golden ratio” - to achieve volume.
Feel free to experiment with metering, especially in difficult lighting conditions. In landscape photography, maximum depth of field is very important, so when shooting handheld, it is preferable to set the aperture to F8–11, and if you have a tripod, you can reduce it to F22.
Panoramas
Finally, practice taking panoramas. Here you should follow several rules. All future frames of your panorama should be at the same scale of the subject, so don't focus closer or farther from it. The aperture value should be left constant. The shots need to be taken with some overlap on each other. Otherwise, due to the lack of information at the edges of the frames, the panorama stitching program will not be able to assemble the final image. You can use your camera's bracketing feature to avoid exposure errors.
As an example (Photo 4), we can give a panorama assembled from two frames with a relative aperture of F8 and a lens focal length of 28 mm. The lens was focused at infinity, and the shutter speed on all frames was 1/125 of a second.
Artem Kashkanov, 2020
Landscape is probably the most popular genre that amateur photographers use to get acquainted with artistic photography. There are many reasons for this.
Firstly, this genre is the most accessible. Unlike staged studio photography, in which you need to at least pay for renting a photo studio, nature will not escape you. If the photo is unsuccessful, then you can go to the same place again, but, for example, at a different time of day or in different weather.
Secondly, the landscape is not very demanding on the level of photographic equipment. Of course, it will be difficult to take high-quality photographs of a landscape with a cheap compact device or smartphone, but an amateur DSLR, mirrorless camera or more or less advanced compact camera is able to provide an acceptable result.
Thirdly, a landscape does not require haste, unlike, say, a reportage. It gives you the opportunity to experiment with camera settings and shooting point, try, and finally give up automatic mode in favor of manual. To some extent, this is filming “for the soul,” and some people find the filming process more enjoyable than watching the footage.
Based on this, one may get the opinion that landscape is a very simple genre, the lot of dummies and housewives (one “pretentious” wedding photographer put it this way, I won’t name the name). In my opinion, only those who have not tried to delve into the subtleties can argue this way landscape composition, limiting your creativity to views from the window of a house or car. How then to explain the fact that out of millions of landscape photographs published on the Internet, only a few evoke a feeling of admiration? So, the genre is not so simple...
Rule of thirds
The first place to start mastering landscape photography is the basics of composition. The simplest rule that works in most cases is the “parallel of thirds.” We mentally divide the frame into 3 parts horizontally and 3 parts vertically and try to link key objects to the intersections of lines - visual centers:
For many cameras, you can enable the display of such a grid on the screen. Try to “pull” large key objects to these lines, and small ones to their intersections (visual centers).
If there is only one main object in the frame, try to place it as close as possible to one of the visual centers, and so that more space remains in the direction where the object is “looking”:
Skyline
The horizon line is present in almost any landscape photograph. The question arises - how should it be positioned?
Firstly, the horizon in a landscape photograph should be horizontal (sorry for the tautology). Some cameras have a very convenient “electronic level” function, which allows you to maintain the horizontal even when the horizon is hidden behind trees, hills, and buildings.
Secondly, the horizon can run along the lower or upper line of thirds.
Example 1.
This is a composition with an “upper” horizon. It is used when the foreground is primary in the composition. In this case, it is the mirror of a pond and a bizarrely curved line of aquatic vegetation.
If the foreground is nothing special (for example, it is a monotonous field or meadow), while there is more interesting in the background, for example, a beautiful sky, it is advisable to shift the horizon to the level of the lower third and give most of frame to the sky. Here are a couple of examples of landscapes with a “lower horizon”:
However, there are situations when you have to deviate from the golden ratio rule. Rarely, but they do happen. For example, both the top and the photographs are equally beautiful and expressive. In this case, it is quite justified to place the horizon in the middle of the frame:
It happens that there may be no horizon line in the frame at all! This usually happens when shooting in fog:
There is no horizon line in this photo. To be precise, this photo cannot be called fully landscape. It's something like minimalism. Beauty is in simplicity. But this “simplicity” must be carefully verified so that there is nothing superfluous. Objects are located according to the rule of thirds, or simply symmetrically to each other relative to the center.
The absence of a horizon can be used very effectively in minimalist photographs. Required condition- the presence of internal dynamics (that is, the photograph should direct the viewer’s attention in the direction intended by the author) and reducing objects to a minimum (there may even be only one object, but it must be positioned so that it is off-center, but the photograph does not lose balance) . In general, I think there will be a separate article about minimalism.
Key
The second one is very important feature photography is its tonal (color) solution. Since color affects the psyche, the tonal solution is one of the main components of the mood of the photo. The tonal solution can be of several types.
1. High key shot
High key helps convey lightness, calmness, and tranquility. You can use b/w or discreet but pleasant tones. When taking pictures like this, I recommend using positive exposure compensation of about 1EV, this will enhance the effect, but make sure that the light tones do not fall into whiteness.
2. Shot in dark colors (low key)
These are mainly night shots. To be fair, it is worth noting that photographing nature at night is a fool’s errand. The foreground will be completely black, and the background will have a fairly dark sky. For night shooting you need to go to the city with its lanterns and glowing windows.
3. High contrast
This is the case when the picture simultaneously contains both dark and light tones, ranging from absolutely black to absolutely white. The main problem in implementing this tonal solution is the transmission of halftones. The dynamic range of the camera is often not enough to correctly convey both highlights and shadows (the given example is no exception), so a significant part of the image field may be occupied by black or white areas (loss of information). But if you still manage to reduce these losses to a minimum, sometimes you can get some pretty spectacular pictures.
To obtain this image, the HDR technique was used - you can (and should!) learn more about it. The HDR technique is often used by landscape photographers, but unfortunately, it is not always successful. Use it wisely and with a sense of proportion.
Perspective
When we stand on a railroad track and look into the distance, we see that parallel rails converge on the horizon to one point. This is what perspective is. In relation to photography, this concept can be formulated as follows: perspective is the ratio of the angular sizes of identical objects located at different distances from us.
Perspective is one of the most important techniques for creating volume in a frame, and there are different types of perspective.
1. Linear perspective
This is exactly the effect of parallel lines converging to a point. Moreover, they can converge in different ways, depending on the shooting point and the viewing angle of the lens. Wide-angle lenses provide a pronounced linear perspective, sometimes even excessive.
The above photo was taken with an ultra wide angle lens (14mm at full frame). Due to the pronounced effect of perspective, it seems to pull the viewer inside.
Let's look at another example, a photograph taken with a 40 mm lens:
This photo taken with focal length 35-40-50 mm, it looks more “pictorial” and its perception is close to what we see with our own eyes.
Sometimes telephoto lenses (150-300 mm or more) are also used for landscape photography. At the same time, the photographs completely lack the effect of perspective and may create a feeling of excessive constriction. However, under certain circumstances, using a telephoto lens you can take very interesting shots of the city and nature.
A photograph taken with a telephoto lens (600 mm) has virtually no perspective and looks like an appliqué, this is its highlight:
Since the telephoto camera has virtually no geometric perspective, you should usetonal perspective.That is, when the separation of plans is observed due to the difference in their illumination (or visibility).
Lighting
The original definition of photography is “light painting.” Beautiful light turns a simple image of an object into a work of art. Oddly enough, the role of lighting is often undeservedly forgotten. And completely in vain.
In landscape photography, we only have one light source - the sun, and we need to adapt to it. Let's consider the characteristic features of lighting in different times days.
1. MORNING
It is rightly believed that the most best conditions illumination occurs in the early morning immediately after sunrise. The sun does not shine very brightly through the veil of morning fog and gives a very gentle and warm light. The fog itself, being a light diffuser, provides us great opportunities on the use of tonal perspective.
Fog works wonders! Notice how perfectly it conveys the volume and depth of the image. And the backlight, generating diverging rays, gives the picture a special chic. Now imagine what a photo taken in the same place, but on a bright sunny day, will look like? Absolutely right - nothing special! Ordinary trees, ordinary grass. We've seen this thousands of times! And with morning light and fog, you can take very interesting pictures almost anywhere!
What to do if the sun is low and there is no fog (for example in the evening)? Use backlight.
Backlight can be used very successfully when there is something in the foreground that will be backlit (with the overall dark tone of the photo). For example leaves or flowers. However, when using backlighting we encounter two obstacles.
1. Camera dynamic range. As you can see, in the above photo with the stacks there was not enough of it and the sky turned white.
There is one little secret to reduce glare from oncoming sunlight - let the sun pass through the foliage, leaving only a narrow hole between the leaves for sunlight to pass through. This will allow the camera not to “blind”, and therefore, convey halftones in the shadows much better.
We've dealt with backlighting, and now let's look at some examples of what good things can be seen in the morning hours. This is definitely heaven.
Very often on a summer morning in good weather there are very beautiful cirrus clouds in the sky, backlit by the sun. But to shoot them you need: 1. a wide-angle lens, 2. a polarizing filter is very desirable, which increases the contrast of the sky. (read more about what a polarizer does). The first photo was taken just after dawn. The second - after 1 hour. No processing was done in Photoshop. Notice how beautiful and unusual the clouds look when illuminated by the low sun (first frame). The second one looks more ordinary - almost the same as taken on a sunny day.
2. DAY
A sunny day is actually the worst time for artistic landscape photography. The only thing that can make a “daytime” landscape interesting is, first of all, a beautiful place combined with a well-thought-out composition. If morning photographs are more like paintings, then daytime photographs are more like “postcards”. Yes, they are nice to look at, but they are unlikely to “hook us to the quick.”
Cloudy day - also not best option, because the light is uninteresting. It takes a lot of effort to capture something truly worthwhile. Most photographs come out without mood - the same postcards, but too “neutral”. In this case, the situation can only be saved by the exceptional beauty of the landscape.
The sky plays a very important role in the artistic value of a photograph during daytime shooting. It is very difficult to photograph a normal landscape if the sky is completely clear or covered with a monotonous veil of clouds. Photographs in which clouds (cirrus or cumulus) play some role in the composition look much more interesting.
As already mentioned, a polarizing filter is used to make the sky more expressive. Cirrus clouds are interesting because they usually occur at some interval, which can be advantageously used as a basis for realizing the rhythm and dynamics of the image.
It should also be mentioned that a lot of interesting things can be seen in unstable weather, when dark thunderclouds can be present at the same time and the sun is shining. And if you're lucky, you can see absolutely terrible, but very beautiful phenomena such as, for example, atmospheric fronts.
If you notice that something is wrong with the weather, don’t rush to hide!It is quite possible that “Armageddon” will be very beautiful!:) By the way, this phenomenon is very fleeting - no more than 1-2 minutes. Therefore, try to take a good shooting point in advance (and one that has somewhere to hide from the rain:)
3. EVENING, SUNSET
The main thing that is most often photographed in the evening is sunsets. Absolutely everyone takes them off and many times! But for some reason, most sunset pictures sent to photo sites receive a very average rating.) . And no wonder! Spectators have already seen so many sunsets that it is difficult to surprise them with anything.
So, in order to capture a quality sunset (from an artistic point of view), you need to carefully consider the idea of the photo. Point-and-click photography is doomed to fail because it's a cliché idea. So, the main components of success:
- Colors and shapes. Keep in mind that sunsets have very interesting color combinations when the weather changes. Sometimes oddly shaped clouds appear on the horizon. The color of the sky is usually very beautiful and unusual.
- Dynamics. Avoid static subjects at all costs. Remember, the idea itself is terribly hackneyed, so look for something that can give the photo a “zest.”
Since there is very little light in the evening, the ground tends to be very dark. That's why sunsets are most often filmed over water.
Another example.
This was already taken after sunset. Beauty is in simplicity! There is only one object in the picture, but it is well located relative to the background (which, by the way, forms a diagonal) and the “golden ratio”. The color scheme of the image played a big role (again, the contrast between the cold tones in the upper left corner (LUC) with the warm ones in the lower right corner (LNU).
But let's not focus on sunsets, but turn our gaze in the other direction and I'm sure that we can see something quite worthy there.
But for such filming you already need a tripod. Pictures taken closer to night are distinguished by a special and sometimes very pronounced mood, which is due to the predominance of cold tones. For originality, I recommend placing small objects in the frame that somehow contrast with the overall tonality.
4. NIGHT
Night photography is one of the most difficult in terms of technicality. As already mentioned, it is useless to photograph nature at night. Since there are no natural light sources (the moon doesn’t count - it’s too weak). Therefore, for night shooting you need to go where there is artificial light. A tripod is required. General recommendations are:
- Concise photographs look better
- Don't overuse long shutter speeds. It is still night and the photo should be in a dark tone.
- If you want to do tinting in Photoshop, use cool tones to draw the general plan, and closer to warm ones for light key objects.
- Some photographs in b/w look more interesting than in color. Keep this in mind.
Examples:
The combination of fog and light in night shots always looks very advantageous. You can read more about night photography in the article "".
So...
Landscape photography is not as simple as many people imagine.Everything that has been said here is nothing more than my subjective opinion. I'm sure that after some time I will want to change a lot. But for now, this is my current view of landscape as a genre of artistic photography - so simple at first glance and so complex if you dig deeper!:)If you have any questions or suggestions, please send them to email, I will be glad to answer.
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