A lot has been written about landscaping. I do not want to repeat myself, because I will describe the main points here and focus on the problems that I directly encounter when shooting.
Landscape photo
A very brief guide to photographing landscapes:
- Watch the diaphragm, often, you need to close it tightly to F / 5.6-F / 16.0
- Keep track of the horizon, the horizon should harmoniously “cut” the frame. Carefully and thoughtfully compose lines and proportions in the frame
- Watch out for light sources (the sun)
- Enjoy the result
Landscape photo
As you can see, there is nothing complicated in shooting the landscape. But the problem is to get a high-quality picture, you need to work hard:
- Landscape implies that you will need to find it. Finding a pretty landscape is not always easy. Very often, when you find a good landscape, there is no camera with you.
- It is best to shoot in the morning and evening, when there is no “hard” (strong) sun. Shooting in strong and hot sunlight is very difficult.
- Since it is best to shoot in the morning and evening, and even with closed apertures, you need a tripod. A tripod means extra expenses and extra weight during transportation.
- To catch good shots, you need an internal sense of harmony, which can either be innate or acquired over a long time photographing.
Landscape photo
Masters of landscape photography have in their arsenal a very large stock of skills and best practices, it is useless to describe them, since every little thing in cunning will be useful only in one out of a hundred cases, and the person himself must choose how he needs to be removed in a particular situation.
Landscape. The horizon line divides the photo off-center. The sky takes two-thirds of the picture.
Setting up the camera for landscape photography
- Almost always, the landscape is shot on a closed aperture: F5.6-F36.0. The easiest way to do this is in aperture priority mode.
- The ISO value must be set to the minimum: ISO 50, 100, 200, lo1
- Color Saturation Adjustment - Maximum
- Focusing is best of all - manual, focusing preferably at infinity (on the farthest object)
Landscape photo
Theory is great, but with practical shooting, all the simplicity vanishes. First, when shooting landscapes, a very serious problem is the effect of overexposure or overexposure of areas in the photo... The most common example is a photo of black earth and white sky. In this case: either the sky will be with details, and the earth will be completely black (dark, without details), or the earth will be normally exposed, but the sky will be strongly lightened (overexposed). This is due to the dynamic range of the camera. A gradient filter helps to solve this problem, which compensates for the difference in the “glow” of the earth and sky. Very often, it is enough to make an amendment exposure in order to "save" the frame a little. For a landscape, it can be very useful polarizing filter.
Landscapes are easy to shoot not on the phone due to the fact that on many phones the lens has a focus on hyperfocal distance
Second: landscapes are shot on closed (covered) apertures... On digital-SLR cameras with closed apertures, every speck of dust on the matrix will be visible. This is very unnerving, frustrating and ruining the photo. For example, already on F11 "blots" appear on the matrix (they can be seen in the examples for this article). On the F14, fine dust is already quite visible. You can fight this ailment with the help matrix cleaning, or by lowering the aperture value. It's funny, but ordinary digital cameras (soap dishes) and film cameras are less prone to this ailment. But, soap dishes suffer greatly from diffraction by closed diaphragms.
Landscape photo
Thirdly: often, by eye it is very it’s difficult to compose a frame, so that the lines fit perfectly into the frame. The horizon line strives to bend. When I shoot hand-held, thoughtfully and attentively, and then look at the footage on the computer, the horizon often "falls" by a couple of degrees. For some plots, even 5 degrees is already an unacceptable error. To overcome the littered horizon, I turn on the "grid" in the viewfinder. The grid draws lines, dividing the frame into 9 or 12 segments, which allows you to immediately see the symmetry in the frame, as well as position the horizon evenly. Almost all Nikon CZKs support the grid. Some cameras have a virtual horizon (for example, D300s), which allows you to control the line. Well, if there are problems with lines at all, then you can crop the image with rotation of the plot in Adobe Photoshop or other editors.
Field. Landscape.
Fourth: for landscapes, most often, need a very wide viewing angle, for this use wide-angle and super wide angle lenses... All “super-widths” have distortion (geometry curvature). Distortion can spoil the picture very much, or it can make it unusual (like, for example, the fish-eye effect). However, the less distortion, the better. Unfortunately, all ultra-wide-angle lenses have this disadvantage. Distortion can be corrected using graphic editors, some cameras have built-in distortion correction for a number of lenses (for example, Nikon D5100) Or, you can shoot with a longer telephoto lens without distortion. Photos of the sky taken at fifty dollars Nikon 50mm F1.8D AF, this lens does not have distortion.
The mountains. Landscape.
Personal experience:
If I shoot without a tripod, I use S mode (priority excerpts) I usually set the value from 1/80 to 1/200, while I know that the aperture will be very closed when shooting (in good light), which is necessary for the landscape. In poor lighting conditions, I’ll still get a fairly sharp shot without blur, taking it off hand. When I use a tripod, I work in A or M mode (aperture priority or manual mode). With a tripod, long excerpts on closed diaphragms. I rarely shoot landscapes, because this is where my experience ends.
Fog in the mountains
I am often asked, but what is the best aperture for landscape? There is no single answer. Sometimes, to shoot handheld in the evening, F2.8, ISO 800 is enough. And sometimes, to “freeze” the waterfall, you need F / 36.0 ISO 100. By the way, at closed apertures, almost all lenses (and whale ones) give a very sharp image, so that, chasing a specialized landscape lens for home purposes - it makes no sense.
The clouds.
Landscape photography is very complicated if you need to shoot a person against the background of nature. In this case, focusing on infinity will not always help. When shooting people in nature, I also recommend monitoring the placement of objects in the frame, and in some cases, it is better to place the person not in the central area of the image.
Landscape with man
Conclusions:
Shooting a landscape is not difficult, it is difficult to find a good location. In a landscape, the most important thing is the harmony of combinations of lines, shapes, light and shadow. To correctly compose (select) a picture, you just need to go and experiment. In practice, experience comes very quickly.
Do not forget to press the buttons ↓↓↓ social networks ↓↓↓ - it is important for site. Thanks for attention. Arkady Shapoval.
Great tips! Everything is clear and intelligible. Without any clever words)
Thanks Arkady for advice
Your opinion is interesting. Which of the Soviet manual widths for landscape shooting will be more interesting (and it makes sense to buy) on the Canon 550D than the existing Canon efs 15-85mm. (3.5-5.6).
Thank you
The most annoying thing, when you turn in Photoshop, you have to crop the frame by will (the more the horizon is littered, the more cropping). So thinking once, you get rid of a lot of extra work. The slope of the sea looks especially bad in the photo. Many thanks to the author for his work!
Good day Arkady! I did not find a suitable topic, so I leave the question here. What specific infrared filter is suitable for the canon 600D? And for nikon 5100? What is the principle of choosing them? Thanks!
And yet, did I understand correctly that removing one infrared filter can get different photos after processing in Photoshop?
Please tell me on the D3100 camera with a whale lens how to set infinity I'm a newbie. Thanks in advance.
Andrey, focus on the center point on the horizon and then put the lens in the manual focus position. After you can mark this position with a marker. But do not twist the lens all the way, in whales often near the stop a flight for infinity
… ”It's funny, but conventional digital cameras (soap dishes) and film cameras are less susceptible to this ailment. On the other hand, soap dishes suffer from diffraction at closed apertures. ”...
Maybe the second sentence meant mirrors, not soap dishes?
Roman, excuse me again, but I can’t find the manual focus position on the d3100 with an 18-55 lens. Maybe this position is not on this lens. Thanks!
Andrey, on the left of the lens itself, there is a switch with positions “A” and “M”. A - automatic, M - manual.
Sorry for the stupid question, but is it possible to shoot a landscape with a 35mm fix, or does the flu prevent it?
“Almost all Nikon CLCs support the grid. Some cameras have a virtual horizon (like the D300s) that allows you to control the lines. ”
I can’t find it in my D3100, isn’t it in it?
“Sometimes F2.8, ISO 800 is enough to shoot handheld in the evening. And sometimes, to freeze the waterfall, you need F / 36.0 ISO 100.”
as I understand it, to freeze an object in the photo, you need to make a shorter shutter speed, and not cover the aperture?
For d3100 in Live View mode, press the Info button several times to display the grid. Here, by freezing, I mean to make the lines smooth, for example, http://wedding-photographer.tv/gallerys/nature/content/nature_travel_80_large.html
Arkady Shapoval, a pood of a photo on the link says EXIF “18,0 sec at f / 16”, that is, 18 seconds of exposure influenced the freezing), and not the closed diaphragm. Do not think there what, I'm a beginner, I'm learning, and I'm trying to figure out any contradictions.
F / 16 on this lens is the most closed aperture, which allows you to take a long exposure. Just be careful.
Arkady, when shooting a landscape at a minimum aperture, a value of 13 or more with a lens of 50mm 1.8 there is a problem of a bluish spot with fuzzy edges in the center of the frame. Found a description of such a problem on the Internet. See below. You recommend aperture values of 5,6 or higher, what to do in a spot situation? need to change the lens?
when using a * istD digital camera, I was puzzled by the fact that the central part of the frame appeared to be illuminated when shooting under certain lighting conditions. If there is a lot of light in the field of the frame, then with a minimum aperture of 32, an intense spot of a blue hue with blurred edges appears in the center of the frame. It is especially noticeable against the background of dark objects. When you open the diaphragm, the spot of illumination loses its intensity and increases in size. However, even with the aperture fully open, blue light is present in the form of a veil over the entire frame area, which is very easy to check using Photoshop. How can this be explained?
The manifestation of central flare when shooting with a digital SLR camera depends on the optical design of the lens used. This phenomenon will occur with those lenses in which the surface of the optical element located in front of the diaphragm has a negative curvature (concave). In this case, the light reflected from the polished surface of the primary matrix filter is rejected back into the lens and, reflected from the inner surface of the optical element in front of the diaphragm, is focused in the form of a narrow beam onto the matrix. Those. about the same thing happens here as in mirror-lens systems with a main spherical mirror (for example, in telescopes with the Maksutov optical system). This is very apparent with 50 / 1.4. The radius of curvature of the optical element of this lens, located in front of the diaphragm, is such that the rejected beam of rays focuses directly on the matrix plane exactly in the center and appears in photographs as a bright spot, the intensity of which depends on the value of the aperture. Therefore, manufacturers of digital SLR cameras, including PENTAX, are developing special DA-series lenses that are optimized for working with digital cameras. When calculating these lenses, not only the dimensions of the matrix are taken into account, but also all the features associated with the projection of the image on the matrix.
Many landscapes are not bad, but there are some where even the elementary laws of composition are violated. Let read for beginners http://fotogora.ru/?page_id=724
Arkady, thank you very much for the article. Please answer the question: why, when shooting a landscape, do you recommend focusing on infinity rather than hyperfocal distance, which will give the maximum depth of field? Thanks.
Arkady, thank you very much for the article. Please answer the question: why, when shooting a landscape, do you recommend focusing on infinity rather than hyperfocal distance, which will give the maximum depth of field? Thanks.
Sorry, I forgot to write the name in the message, I had to repeat it.
Good question, join in.
Learn materiel, or formulate your thoughts correctly. Hyperfocal distance implies focusing on infinity and is the minimum distance to objects in the photo that become sharp.
Hyperfocal distance and focusing on infinity, in fact, are two different things. Or do you focus on the table, for example 1.5 meters, or on the most distant object. I read somewhere that Hyperfocal gives a moderately sharp picture in the entire influenza zone, and when shooting a landscape, the pros focus on the most distant object, take a photo, and then focus on a third or closer, take a photo, and stick the photos together, and only then we get a big flu and great sharpness.
OK!
Hello everyone. All these subtleties of professional photographers is good, but in general, why bother with this. To get a good picture when photographing a landscape, for example on a Nikon camera, select P mode and make aperture 11, capture 30 percent of the sky in the lens and about 70 percent of the earth, take a picture. That's all. Flatten the horizon by eye or use a tripod. The 18-105 mm lens will be just right.
And here's how to shoot a highly detailed landscape - a panorama:
http://foto-olimp.ucoz.ru/publ/iskusstvo_fotografii/sekrety_fotosemki/130_megapikselej_ljubitelskoj_zerkalki_ili_snimaem_panoramu/2-1-0-4
The only resource in Runet, where:
1. Examples of photos are presented without processing, which is very good!
2. The author focuses specifically on beginners - softly, without bluff and harshness. Which is even better.
Arkady, thanks for what you are doing. I'm sure this blog helped a lot of people go from “horror” to “very yes” in photography.
Thank you!
Thank you for the article. I have had a Nikon D3100 for half a year, but I use the “Auto” mode the old fashioned way. Yesterday I found a beautiful landscape and I don’t want to spoil it with the proposed auto settings, but here I realized that landscape photography is not so scary! Tomorrow I will take a picture and I will definitely share what happened.
did you get a photo? landscape ??? Divider like a beginner to a beginner! )))
in the lens (whale) how will it be seen that you are focused on infinity ... there is an icon, or what sign ... or rely only on your eyes ???
if not auto mode, then the red dot
By the way, when shooting a landscape, it is important to choose the desired aspect ratio ... this can significantly affect the perception ... as for me, it is better to immediately choose the most successful aspect ratio, than then suffer with cropping, etc.
fine