10 Landscape Photography Tips for Beginners (Part 1)
I don't need to tell you about the rewards of landscape photography, so I won't. Let's talk about the frustrations instead. For a beginning landscape photographer, one of the greatest frustrations is looking through all those shots you took and finding flat, uninteresting images that don't convey the emotions you felt when you saw those sweeping vistas. Feeling is what makes a great landscape shot work, and I'm going to give you a few tips to help you create landscape images that connect to your viewers, rather than just a bunch of snapshots.
1. Find a focal point.
This is one of the points I find myself making repeatedly when I'm discussing any type of photography. I believe that landscape photography is where it's forgotten about most often. After all, the entire landscape is what we want our viewers to see, right?
Right, but the problem is that you're trying to show your viewers that landscape using a 2-dimensional image. In order to give them the feeling of "being there", you have to find something to help draw them in. That's what the rules of composition are all about, and one of your first jobs is to find a point to use as a basis for those rules.
Look for something in the scene that you can apply the Rule of Thirds, the Golden Section, leading lines, sub-framing or another element of composition to and start building your image there. Keep in mind that you need to "pull" your viewers in.
2. Learn where to focus.
You've probably already figured out that, to maintian viewer interest, you're going to want maximum sharpness from the foreground to the background in most landscape shots. If you're like most novices, you probably assume that using the narrowest aperture you can is going to take care of that for you. Unfortunately, that isn't the case.
Where you focus matters, because of a little thing called hyperfocal distance. Put simply, it's the distance from the lens where it should be focused to provide the maximum depth of field. It's slightly more complicated than that and it varies with focal length, aperture size and lens quality. You should familiarize yourself with it. PT+ members have access to full turorials on the subject.
Don't panic; you don't need to go retake your math classes and make cheat sheets right away. There's a rule of thumb that works pretty well with most lenses. At a small aperture setting, try focusing on a point about 1/3 of the distance between you and the horizon. This will get you in the ball park and you should see a definite improvement.
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3. Smaller apertures aren't always better.
While we're discussing depth of field and sharpness, let's talk about optimum aperture size. The smallest aperture setting isn't always the best choice for overall sharpness. There's an effect known as diffraction present in all lenses that causes some areas to lose sharpness. That effect is more pronounced at extremely small aperture settings and especially in low-end (kit) lenses.
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Although many setups will provide higher f-stop settings, f/22 is usually the high end for avoiding visible effects of diffraction and f/18 will probably give you great overall sharpness if you follow the rule above. If you don't have objects in the foreground to keep in focus, you can probably open up to f/11 or f/16 and get good results. This is assuming you're using a wide-angle to normal lens, which is usually the case for a landscae shot.
4. Don't split the shot.
One of the best ways to disconnect viewers from a shot is to split it into 2 images with a centered horizon or an object that divides the frame. It's an easy thing to do in a landscape shot and not always easy to avoid.
While you're framing up the scene, take a moment to consider any elements that might break the continuity of vision from front to back and side to side. If your eyes don't flow smoothly through the scene, recompose.
5. Don't get hung up on the horizontal.
Landscape orientation is a misleading term. While a horizontal setup is arguably the most common for a landscape shot, it isn't always the best choice. The elements of the scene and the rules of composition will determine which format is best, and you need to be willing to look at a scene both ways. In fact, it's often a good idea to shoot it both ways.
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Later, when you're getting those shots ready for printing, you may be surprised to find that portait orientation works better than you realized in the field. Of course, that's only going to happen if you took the vertical shot to begin with.
Alright, that's a lot to absorb, and the best learning comes in small doses. I'm going to let you practice these techniques and pick up the thread here in my next article. When you're ready for the next 5 tips, you'll find them here. Don't forget that these tips are guidelines, not rules and you should feel free to throw them out when the situation calls for it.
Above all, have fun shooting until next time!
