Top Landscape Photography Tips

Tips for Landscape Photography

Landscape Photography Tips 1: Check your Settings

A small aperture will produce image sharpness, a slow shutter speed will result in a correct exposure level, and the lowest possible ISO settings will guarantee a noiseless image. That being said, a lot of your final image will depend on your camera's sensor resolution and size, as well as the lenses you choose to use.

It's not just the settings that you need to get right... make sure you have the entire shot in focus and always (yes, always!) use a tripod and shutter release.

Landscape Photography Tips 2: Take Photos During the Golden Hours of the Day

For intense, saturated colors take your pictures in the early morning or late afternoon. The so called golden hours produce the most photogenic natural light of the day. Once the sun breaks over the horizon in the morning, directly lit subjects are bathed in rich, golden light. Long shadows rake across the landscape, revealing wonderful textures which add depth to previously flat scenes.

To give yourself the best chance of shooting spectacular sunsets, scout our your site about an hour beforehand and use the time to set up. You'll find that sunsets often appear redder and more intense than sunrises because the smoke, dust and humidity that have built up during the day filter out more blue light.

The presence of broken clouds make a big difference because they reflect color while adding texture and depth to the sky. If cloud cover is good, experiment with shooting in Portrait mode and make the glowing afterglow of the sunset the main focus of your image. Dazzling!

Landscape Photography Tips 3: Consider using Filters

For those averse to the early hours, consider using filters if you want to capture a landscape in all its daylight splendour. Polarising and graduated filters are particularly useful for landscape photography.

Non-polarised light vibrates in all directions and has the effect of weakening color saturation in bright light. A polariser corrects this by filtering only light vibrating in one direction - perfect for making vivid colors in the landscape appear even more saturated.

The use of filters can create glorious effects, not easily faked or replicated with digital editing. It has the power to elevate a beautiful shot above the multitude of other landscape images out there.

To use a polarising filter, simply rotate it until the colors appear deeper. It can also be used to effectively remove unwanted glare or reflections. Remember, if you're using an autofocus SLR, you'll need a circular polariser rather than a linear one.

Landscape Photography Tips 4: Shoot in Thirds

When shooting landscapes, it's generally best to divide the image in thirds; either 1/3 foreground and 2/3 sky, or vice versa.

Landscape Photography Tips 5: Include Foreground Interest

One of the single most important things you can do to add both interest and impact to your landscape photographs is the inclusion of foreground details, especially when the picture is of a distant scene. In many cases a seemingly insignificant object in the foreground can be used to provide a sense of depth and distance, for example a rock, long grasses, a stone wall, or a field gate. Searching for foreground interest should become part of the process of choosing a suitable viewpoint - always look behind you as well as ahead, in case there is something you can use in this way.

Landscape Photography Tips 6: Shoot Silhouettes

Silhouettes make for impressive landscape shots at dusk. Look for subjects to photograph that have simple, strong, graphic shapes, for example dead trees against the sky. In shooting silhouettes, ensure that subjects don't overlap or merge into another or you'll end up with odd-looking black shapes in your images. It's best to focus on one main subject and keep its outline distinct. For best results, take a standard meter reading of the scene as the sun's brightness may fool the meter into underexposing the foreground. Alternatively, take a spot reading from the brightest part of the sky and bracket your exposures.

Landscape Photography Tips 7: Exclude the Sky

When taking landscape photographs it seems quite natural to include the sky in the image. However, excluding the sky can sometimes greatly improve a photograph. When the sky is bleak and pale, such as on an overcast winter's day, it won't have any visual interest. In fact, expanses of white in your photographs detract from the impact of the landscape.

Before pressing the shutter, consider how much the sky is contributing to the image: unless it looks interesting or contains important details above the horizon, it's often better to leave it out. Just keep in mind that there are instances where an image can be enormously improved by including billowing white clouds, so always use your creative eye!

Landscape Photography Tips 8: Establish a Sense of Scale

It's sometimes difficult to fathom a real sense of scale in a landscape unless a conscious effort is made to indicate it. Try to find something to suggest it. One of the most striking ways to establish a sense of scale is to include a human figure, but any other figure that people know the approximate size of can be effective, such as a tree or a barn. The key is to show the object in true proportion to the landscape in which it is placed. A good technique is to isolate a small area of landscape with a long-focus lens.

Landscape Photography Tips 9: Use a Lead-In

One of the most captivating features a landscape image can have is the ability to draw the viewer's eye into a scene with a path or road that leads away from the camera. A similar effect can be created by using any strong line, such as a line of trees, a fence, or the furrows in a ploughed field. This does not only create a beautiful sense of depth and distance, but creates the effect of actually being in that place and walking into it. For pleasing results, use a wide-angle lens so that the beginning of the lead-in is close to the camera. Alternatively, use longer focal lengths if the scene is more distant.

Landscape Photography Tips 10: Convey Movement in Water

When shooting waterfalls, streams or the ocean, a slow shutter speed records the moving water with a lovely ethereal, smoky quality. A tripod is essential and it's important to include some static elements, such as rocks or foliage to contrast with the flowing water.

Landscape Photography Tips 11: Don't forget Seascapes

Water and sky have a stunning affinity. The changing sky reflected in the ocean creates a ever-changing interplay between color, tone, light and shade. Seascapes are often at their most captivating and even dramatic when the lighting conditions are unsatisfactory for other styles of photography. Look out for overcast days as the reflective qualities of water can be used to raise the contrast of an otherwise bleak scene. Dark, stormy skies over the sea make for truly awesome images.

Landscape Photography Tips 12: Get the Best out of your Favorite Locations

Find a few locations that you can go back to again and again at different times of day and in different seasons to create the best possible images. Look for mountains, waterfalls, or any stunning scenery. You will be surprised how much your images will improve when you get to know a location well. Remember, the more time and effort you put into photography, the more you will get out of it.

Landscape Photography Tips 13: Master Post-processing

The sky is the limit when it comes to post-processing, of course, but here is a recipe that works for some professional photographers:

Open the image using Photoshop RAW, and then open them into photoshop in 16-bit TIF format. Adjust contrast and saturation levels. Do some post sharpening, as well as selective dodging and burning. Remember to save the TIF file before sharpening, as sharpening can be quite destructive, and then sharpen and save for web in jpeg format. To save you loads of time in front of the computer, try to get as much as possible right in-camera!

Landscape Photography Tips 14: Get Inspired!

Get inspiration from looking at landscape photography books by professional landscape photographers. Also make sure to frequent your favortite photographers' websites to keep up to date with their latest work.

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