Landscape Photography Tips and Tutorial
Landscape Photography Tips And Tutorial
Thomas Heaton, a popular You Tuber and a fantastic landscape and travel photographer, goes through about seven helpful tips in this tutorial to help improve your images with landscape photography. Heaton also works with other top-notch photographers on photography workshops in some of the best photo locations around the world.
The first tip that Heaton discusses is about the weather. Obviously the weather affects everything in your viewfinder, so making images with the right kind of weather is a crucial step. He also provides suggestions to several apps he uses for weather on his phone. Read all of the takeaways from the landscape photography tutorial below, or simply watch the video! Don’t forget to check out his You Tube channel HERE and subscribe! Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe to Pro Photo Tips HERE to be notified of more great content!
Watch The Weather for Landscape Photography
Make certain that you check the weather forecasts for the time and area you’ll be going to photograph. What’s worse than showing up at a scouted location, only to be rained out with torrential downpours? There is a point made that you should also shoot with the conditions you are given. So, if there’s a major storm over the mountain range you’ve come to shoot, maybe you’ll be fortunate enough to capture some lightning and moody skies.
Looking to shoot that mountain range with a nice lake reflection? Make sure that the weather forecast shows calm wind so you can have still water for better reflections.
Weather Apps For Your Phone
MWIS– Mountain Weather Information System (App)
Clear outside (App)
YR (App)
Clouds In Your Landscape
Low clouds can move in and kill your scene by drowning out the image. On the contrary, the low clouds can also bring in great stormy moods, if the timing is right.
Middle clouds can afford you with equally dramatic scenes, but can also include nice colors and light.
High clouds are “the Daddy, that can really catch fire,” because when you find the really bright red sky, it’s usually because of the sun reflecting off of high clouds.
Watch the atmospheric pressure, because the lower pressure systems can bring the rain showers, wind, and generally miserable conditions. On the other hand, you can also capture images with great rainbows during the low pressure weather systems.
High pressure on the other hand, means that everything will be still, have some cloud inversions
Timing Your Photography
The very best times to take photos and make beautiful images is during the “Magic Hours” near sunsets and sunrises. If you are looking to get “hero” images, you will have to get up early and stay out late. If it fits within your schedule, try to take your photographs during the early morning and late evening times when the light is the best. If not, again, go with what you have and keep making images.
Just for a little more detail, the best times of day (weather dependent) is during “blue hour” and “golden hour.” For more detailed information on photographing during the “magic hours,” read this more in depth article HERE.
Composition - Ensure Good Composition With Your Landscapes
Thomas then describes the basic tenets of creating good landscape images as well, including not always taking the “popular” images that everyone else is taking. Instead, focus on things that you enjoy and just get out and take photos. The other tips are:
Subject - Find your subject first, then make sure that the subject fits in your frame at the right time of day with the right lighting and weather.
Balance - Make sure that your subject is balanced within the frame, and that it doesn’t sit to far to one side. This will ensure the subject isn’t too “heavy” on one side of the image.
Negative Space - Sometimes you don’t even need a subject and you can make beautiful images using nothing but color, texture and light. Sometimes less is more, so pick out something in the landscape that are attractive to you and hone in on that.
Distractions - Look for anything that will distract the viewer from the subject such as power lines and stray rocks or branches. Then try to recompose your image to remove these distraction from the frame.
Leading Lines - Look for “S curves” or “Z curves” that lead to your subject. These lines help lead the viewer through the image naturally.
Looking for more tips about photography composition? Follow this link here to learn more about composition.
Get The Correct Exposure
Make sure that your exposure is correct for the image. The most important part of getting exposure correct is to ensure that the highlights are not blown out. Shadows can be recovered, but once highlights are blown out, they are not able to be recovered.
If your image has too much contrast, you can use a graduated filter to lower the bright highlights in the sky. Although Thomas doesn’t mention it, I find the best way to keep the highlights from blowing out is to bracket your images. Bracketing is not only easy to do, but you will save money on very expensive graduated filter systems.
Where To Focus In Your Landscape Images
If you have a clear subject in your image, such as a tree, focus on that and keep it simple.
If you don’t have a clear subject in your image, simply focus to infinity to maintain all around focus. If your using auto-focus, set your focus point to the most distant object in your image.
If you have an interesting foreground and an interesting background, focus stack by taking a photo focused on the foreground, another image focused on the middle-ground, and another image focused on the background. You can then blend these images in Photoshop to gain focus throughout the image.
Camera Settings For Daytime Landscape Photography
Assuming your taking your landscape photos in lower light during the morning and evening, you can set your camera’s settings quite easily.
ISO - Set your ISO to 100 (or your camera’s lowest settings)
Aperture - Set your aperture between f/9 and f/11, unless you know the “sweet spot” for your specific lens is different.
Shutter Speed - Let your camera decide on the shutter speed based on your other settings.
If you have movement in your image you want to freeze, such as swaying trees, then your shutter speed should be set to a fast speed to do so.
If you have moving water in your image and you want to highlight the movement, set your shutter speed slower to introduce that “motion blur” into the image.
Camera Gear
Thomas also discusses camera gear in the video. He suggests making your lens choice a priority over your camera, since much of the image quality comes from the lens vs. the camera.
Lenses - Unfortunately, more expensive lenses are usually better than their cheaper counterparts. However, this is certainly not always the case. Rokinon / Samyang lenses are great manual focus lenses that are super easy to focus.
Tripods - Make sure you have a good quality tripod that is sturdy. When shooting landscapes, wind can frequently be a major factor. Check out this review of the best travel tripods under $200 right here.
Ball Heads - Get a good quality ball head for your tripod, and make sure it’s strong enough to keep your camera from slipping down. Check prices on tripod ball heads right here.
L - Bracket - I have L - Brackets attached to two of my three cameras, and never take them off. These are great to quickly turn your camera from landscape to portrait orientation for different compositions. If you need an L- Bracket, check prices here.
Used Gear - Thomas suggests buying quality used gear over cheaper poor quality gear. If you’re looking to maximize your money by buying used gear, check out all of the great deals at Adorama here.
We hope this article and tutorial provides plenty of tips for your landscape photography. Please leave any comments below, and don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. Also, head on over to Heaton’s You Tube channel and subscribe!