[Guide] How to get fantastic landscape photographs [Guide]

If you've been following for me any amount of time on here you may have noticed my landscape photography, Its one of my forms of photography that i do and i still have a bucket load to learn about this.

[What is a landscape photograph?]

A landscape photograph is a type of photography where, Well its photography of landscapes. Landscape photography is probably the most well known type of photography around,  Even computers come with landscape photographs that are used as the default desktop wallpapers.

[Inspiration] 

As with all photography you need to take inspiration by looking at other photographs, Look around while walking your dog, Look at the billboards and the big prints they put on buildings, It only adds to what defines a landscape photograph.

[Equipment]

In short, You don't need any special equipment to do landscape photography, You can do it on your phone, On a cheap digicam from 15 years ago, or on a 5DS Mark III, It really doesn't matter.

But most established landscape photographers use the following equipment:

1 - ND Filters, An ND Filter is a photographic filter that blocks out a certain amount of light, Measured in stops. You can also get variable ND Filters which can block out the light completely for a super long exposure.

2 - Polarizing filter, Polarization of light is basically where light can oscillate in 2 directions, The effect of a polarizing filter is the same as a pair of sunglasses with polarization lenses in them, They can block out glare and deepen the blue of the sky because the sun emits polarized light, There's lots of cool things you can do with these filters, One of them is even the ability to see mechanical stress in plastic but that's a guide for another day.

NOTE: Remove a polarizing filter if you plan to take a photo of an LCD monitor, They emit polarized light and will get cancelled out by the filter on the camera.

NOTE: Screwing 2 polarization filters together will create a form of ND filter due to destructive interference of the light waves.

3 - Dynamic range, DR is the range between the darkest part of a photo and the brightest part, The term is also used in music recording and basically means the same thing, Most landscape photographers use a camera with a higher DR to capture more in the shadows while not blowing out the highlights.

NOTE: Bracket 3 shots take 1 shot on -1 EV take the next on 0 EV and the last +1 EV, You can merge these together in photoshop to create a HDR image.

4 - The camera, Most landscape photographers use cameras by Nikon or Canon, Cameras with higher megapixel count (e.g the 5DS MK III) More established photographers use Hasselblad, Don't let this discourage you, You can take landscape photographs on a phone camera.

5 - Lenses, Landscape photographers use wider angle lenses (e.g 10-15mm or 16-24mm) because they can more in the shot and fix the distortion in post, Longer lenses are rarely used unless you really want to photograph something in the distance.

6 - Tripod, You need to use a tripod that you don't care much about, As you will get mud on it while doing landscape photography.

NOTE: Tripods are banned in some fields and views as they do destroy the ground.

[Picking the right time]

Part of getting a good landscape shot is picking the right time to take the photo, There are many online tools to help you choose the right time to get a specific shot.

Photographers refer to Twilight as Golden and Blue hours. 

The golden hour occurs when the sun is setting for the night and the blue hour occurs in the morning when the sun is coming up for the day.

[Picking the right place]

There are also online tools that can help you pick a good area for landscape photography, You want to look out for empty fields or ones with trees or lakes.

[Night-Time]

Night-time landscape photography is often done with astrophotography by taking seconds worth of exposures every few minutes and blending them together in photoshop.

Most often you will need a long exposure for night-time so bring a tripod.

NOTE: Swinging around lights can create an interesting effect, You can also use a pixel stick.

- Copyright OliSnaps, 2018.