Landscape photography is a lot of fun. It’s also hard work, so it’s important to get the most out of your efforts by using the right equipment and techniques. If you want to capture beautiful landscapes but don’t know where to start, this guide will show you how!
Find the best locations
While there are many things to consider when choosing a location, the most important is that it is interesting and not too busy. You should also choose a time of day that will make for good light and weather conditions, as these can have a big impact on what kind of photos you get. If you’re going to be walking or driving somewhere, think about how accessible it is from your current location.
Pick the right equipment
- Use a tripod
- Use a remote shutter release
- Use a wide angle lens
- Use a sturdy tripod
- Use a good quality lens (it doesn’t matter if it’s expensive)
- Your camera doesn’t matter!
Time-lapse photography tips
Use a tripod. Time-lapses are notoriously shaky in the beginning, and you don’t want your camera to move around too much when you’re trying to create an artistic effect.
Use a remote shutter release (or have someone hold it) and set your camera to continuous shooting mode. With these settings, the camera will take a picture every time you press down on your shutter button as opposed to having to wait until after each shot has been taken before pressing again. This is crucial for capturing things like clouds moving across the sky or moving water; things that require some room for error because they’re not going in a straight line but rather at various angles across the frame of reference.
Set your exposure time as long as possible without causing any “star trails” from Earth’s rotation around its axis: 15 seconds or higher should do fine here! You can always adjust this later if necessary, but I find that anything shorter than 10 seconds causes unwanted blurriness when playing back through individual frames later on computer software such as Adobe Lightroom CC 2019 (which is what I use).
Use ready-made filters
Polarizing filters are the most common type of filter and one of the most useful. They reduce glare from water and glass, darken blue skies, and increase color saturation. A UV filter protects your lens from scratches. Neutral density filters reduce light by various amounts (most commonly 3 or 4 stops), allowing you to use a slower shutter speed than normal without overexposing your image. This can be useful for increasing depth-of-field or for capturing motion blur in moving water or clouds on a bright day. Graduated neutral density filters allow you to selectively darken one half of an image while keeping the other half unaffected—this is useful if you want to capture an evenly lit scene with more detail in some areas than others (like when photographing landscapes). They’re also great for balancing flash exposures outdoors because they allow you to balance between foreground highlights and background shadow details when shooting into direct sunlight during daylight hours! Warming & cooling filters are used with black & white film photography to give images warmer tones (such as orange) or cooler tones (such as blue).
Use your smartphone settings
Now that you have your camera settings under control, it’s time to take control of your smartphone! Use the self-timer function on your phone to avoid shaking hands while photographing flowers and animals, or use burst mode if you want to quickly capture a sequence of images. The panorama function is also an excellent way to capture a scene in one photograph if there’s not enough space on your memory card. Finally, HDR (high dynamic range) photography allows you to merge multiple exposures into one image and will make sure you don’t miss any detail when shooting scenes with contrasting light levels.
Set up your tripod
Setting up your tripod is crucial. The best way to ensure that you have a steady shot is to use a tripod, but even if you don’t have one, you can still take great landscape photos by setting up your camera in the right way. First of all, make sure that you are using the right height for your camera. Too high or too low and it won’t look as good as if it were at eye level with whatever’s in front of it. Secondly, make sure that your tripod is stable; if it wobbles or moves around when you touch it then there’s no point having one at all! Thirdly, use a remote shutter release cable so that pressing the button doesn’t cause any movement from vibrations from pressing on top of the camera itself rather than away from it where there might be better control over how much force is used (and therefore less chance for shaking).
Landscape photography is hard work, but worth it when you get the shot.
While landscape photography may seem like a hobby for the lazy, it is anything but. In order to get the perfect shot, you need to do your research and be willing to put in the time and effort. You’ll need patience as well—sometimes it takes years before you find exactly what you are looking for in an image.
Finally, don’t be afraid of getting dirty! If there is one thing I have learned while on location shooting landscapes it is that sometimes things need adjusting when they shouldn’t be necessary: changing lenses/filters/ISO settings on-the-fly can lead to unwanted marks on your sensor which will require extensive post processing work afterwards if not done properly at capture time.
Free, hi res photos of landscapes
Here are 10 of our favorite free, hi res photos of landscapes (风景, пейзаж):
- Photo by Jaime Reimer from Pexels
- Photo by Tatiana Syrikova from Pexels
- Photo by Francesco Ungaro from Pexels
- Photo by Ezra Comeau from Pexels
- Photo by Pietro De Grandi from Unsplash
- Photo by Luca Bravo from Unsplash
- Photo by Silas Baisch from Unsplash
- Photo by Krivec Ales from Pexels
- Photo by Lukas Hartmann from Pexels
- Photo by Luca Micheli from Unsplash
Find more photos of landscapes here:
Conclusion
The landscape is a beautiful part of the world that can be captured in many ways. By looking at different types of landscapes and learning how to take photos with different types of cameras, you can find your own personal style by experimenting with new techniques. The most important thing is how much fun you’re having while photographing these scenes!
