As we mentioned in a previous article, landscape photography is one of the most interesting and satisfying genres of photography and aims to convey to the world the sense of beauty they would feel if they stood in the same place as the photographer.
In this article, we mention some additional tips to help you improve your photography skills.
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Set up your camera correctly
Here are the main camera settings in landscape photography:
- Manual camera mode:
You can use the manual camera mode to have full control and adjust the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.
- Aperture around f/8 or greater:
The high aperture keeps the entire landscape in focus without blurry details, while the white balance allows the camera to capture the entire color spectrum. Remember, a balanced environment is important when photographing colorful landscapes, such as sunrise and sunset.
- Shutter speed:
It is equally important when shooting moving landscapes such as running water or if you shoot without using a tripod use a high shutter speed (for example 1/100 or more) to avoid camera shake and therefore blurry photos.
When using a tripod, for a truly unique shot, use a high shutter speed to capture movement in waterfalls, waves, or even star paths.
- Low ISO:
It is recommended to use a low ISO level to avoid noise in your photos, however, if you need more light to carefully balance your exposure, increase the ISO carefully.
- White balance:
Use anything that gives you a good preview (often only Automatic) or set it to "daylight", "shadow" or "blurry"
- Autofocus:
Using the autofocus option could be acceptable in good conditions, however, if autofocus doesn't give you a sharp result, set your camera's lens to manual focus. And manually focus to 100% magnification in live view, with a tripod.
- Make the histogram visible:
After setting the aperture and ISO values, you can use the histogram to check if your image is properly exposed or not. If the histogram is shifted to the far left, it means that the image will be too dark (underexposed). Instead, an overexposed image will have the histogram shifted to the right. Try to keep the histogram centered.
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Use a tripod and remote shutter release
To avoid camera shake, you need to use a tripod and remote shutter release, especially when taking high-speed shutter photography and astrophotography.
Using a tripod will stabilize your camera, and using a remote control will allow you to maximize the sharpness of the image, ensuring that no camera shake occurs by physically touching the shutter button.
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Take photos in RAW format for efficient processing
Take photos in RAW image format, instead of JPEG format, to preserve all image information and help you capture higher-quality images. Otherwise, downloading a JPEG image format will compress the files, resulting in less image data.
By choosing RAW as one of the camera settings, you will be able to edit your photos using editing software to apply some color enhancements, proper white balance, and other necessary digital adjustments until you get the desired results.