Shooting That Perfect Landscape

Landscape photography is one of the hardest photographic disciplines to get right. As far as the technicalities of camera settings are concerned, though, there isn’t too much to the basic technique. To be sure of getting a sharp shot with the whole scene focus, (see the photo to the right) you can drop the camera into aperture priority mode and select a small aperture.

Remember that a small aperture means a large F-Number. In a digital compact, the max available will be something around the following; f5/6; in a digital SLR f/11 or f/16 are good bets. The added benefit of a small aperture is that most lenses will produce sharper results with less distortion at smaller aperture. Remember that small aperture often means a slow shutter speed, so the primary weapon in most landscape photographer’s armoury is a tripod.

The second aspect to remember is that you want to get as much crisp detail as possible, so make sure your camera is set to its lowest ISO setting. Again, this will tend to mean slow shutter speeds, but low ISO will produce less noise in your photo and maximum detail. In fact landscape shots are one of the areas where it’s a real help to have a DSLR and a decent lens, this is because DSLR’s capture detail better.

You’ll find one of the luxuries of photographing a landscape is that you don’t need to hurry. So you’ll have plenty of time to find that perfect result.

You must also consider that the timing of the day has to be right. The conventional wisdom in landscape photography is that you should suffer for your art: They say the few minutes before dawn and after dawn are the most flattering. This is because the light is at its softest. You’ll also find that if the sky is brilliantly sunny and clear you can get a style of photo which is called "Super Vibrant" this is best in the middle of the afternoon.

You’ll notice that if you shoot in the middle of the day you can enhance the vibrancy of a clear sunny sky by using a polarise filter. Polarised filters give you that effect of deepening your colours and also giving you a more vibrant photo. After great time of the day to shot landscape is when the sun is getting lower, this will give you the effect of dramatic skies and also you’ll get mist into the equation, all this helps for your perfect landscape photo.