How To Capture The Landscape’s Good Side
A photographer embeds a bit of his or hers personality in each frame, and landscape photography isn't any different. But there are also rules and tips that may help you to improve your photos. Remember that the rules are loose and your way to express yourself always comes first.
(If you have anything to contribute then leave a comment. Photography is a vast knowledge and I appreciate the input.)
Best light during dawn or dusk
The best light is during dawn and dusk. That's when the light is warm, the sun is in the frame and the mood is just beautiful. However, depending on what you want to do with your landscape shots you can shoot any time you want. I've read time after time again that the only time to shoot landscape shots is during dawn or dusk. I shoot mine when I see the moment. But it all depends on your style really and what you want to convey. It's better you capture the image than not just because you were busy waiting for the perfect light.
I love an incredible light however. I can go excited, nearly extatic, from an amazing light, but the moment will always go first. If I only have the crappiest camera with the shittiest light I'll still make the frame with the moment.
Use a tripod
You will not be able to hold the camera steady during low light circumstances without a tripod. Invest in a stable one and use the timer shutter or invest in a remote shutter to shoot the image. This way the image doesn't get influenced by the motion of you pressing down on the shutter button. I do have a remote shutter but I still prefer the timer because it's with me at all times without using up space in my luggage. And with a Canon 5D Mark II I can set it to only two seconds which makes the photographing very convenient. Perfect for the shake to settle down and it's no time to wait for the photograph. Ten seconds can be bothersome but two is nothing. A stable tripod costs a lot though, but in many ways it will be worth it because just by a little wind it's so easy to knock a tripod down. This can cost you the image, but it can also cost you the camera.
Divide the image for depth
Divide the image into foreground (for instance the ground or the beach), the middle ground (for instance the water) and the background (for instance the sky). This creates a sense of depth and will make a huge difference to your landscape photography.
Set the aperture value high
Around 22 should give you a nice sharp overall image. Many lenses are the sharpest around 8 but that's a whole other level of sharpness. Go with as high value as you can get and use a tripod. Unless you are after effects like freezing the flow of water. Since the shutter speed will be quite slow while shooting landscapes you should set the ISO to around 50 or 100 which will cause low amounts of noise in the picture.
Focus in the middle
If you are looking for overall sharpness then always place the focus in the middle of the landscape. If there's a focal point you want to emphasize - place the focus straight onto that one.
Focal point
Is there any elements you can use in the picture as a focal point? For instance a road that swirls into the image, three rocks in the water or maybe a tree? If you create a focal point in the photograph it will be so much stronger than without one. Without it will simply just be flat. Always look for light, lines, symmetry and elements that stand out. An easy way to do this is to look at the landscape - what exactly captures your attention? Make that your focal point.
Get an interesting sky
A clear blue sky is awesome, but it's also just a blue boring sky. If you want drama with your picture, wait for the charismatic clouds to sweep in. As always it depends on what you are going for but a busy sky always creates more of an emotional effect.
Never place the horizont in the middle
Okay, this is a little bit of a lie because sometimes placing the horizont in the absolute middle of the photograph can be amazing, but most of the time look at what is interesting - the ground or the sky? Then compose the image so that the most interesting part uses up more space. If you have a clear blue sky it will just fill you image with blue. If so composite the image so that the most of it is filled with an interesting ground. If you have an incredible texture of clouds before you and the ground is just rocks - shoot the sky mainly. In short, choose what's more interesting - the ground or the sky - and let the most interesting part be the dominant part in the image.
Think detail
Make sure the highlights does't go to bright and cram in as much detail you can. This goes for every photograph though - detail captivates but when it comes to landscape photography the details are a massive part of the image. You can use bracketing to create an HDR image with incredible amounts of detail.
Easy Tips on How To Photograph Incredible Portraits
These are my best tips to help you on how to improve your portrait photography but remember that these aren't rules, concidder them more like guidelines. And if you have any tips to contribute with, then feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions.
High aperture & reduce clutter
When you shoot a portrait you can make the photograph more focused by using a high aperture (small f-stop) like 2.0, 2.5 or 2.8. This will cause the focus to be on the person and in turn blur out the background. This makes the viewer focus on the person and effectively removes clutter from the photo. Also, as a bonus, this will help you shoot in lower light and thus getting sharper images. However, be aware that apertures of 1.2 - 1.8 might give you problems placing the focus correctly since it's so narrow. So if you shoot a portrait and the focus ends up on their nose instead of their eyes (which is where you want to place the focus) it will be extremely distracting.
Always strive to remove clutter from a portrait. The environment can surely be visible and in focus if you want it to but remove cluttered backgrounds from that doesn't contribute to the photo. Make sure the background is what it's supposed to be - a background.
Be aware of your lighting
I prefer to be flexible than having perfect lighting as I've mentioned time after time again on this site. Reason being that I don't want to miss that perfect moment. But this doesn't mean that I always go flexible on the lights. Sometimes I do use studio lights or just create my own little studio. Either way, when it comes to lighting a subject, soft lighting tend to be more flattering and hard light tends to bring out flaws because of its harsch shadows that makes wrinkles and such pop. On that note - never, ever, photograph with a flash on top of your camera straight ahead without a second light source. Pop-up flashes are horrible and you will always benefit more from using natural light, reposition your subject, use a more light sensitive lens or just raise the ISO.
Prepare
Take down notes, plan the shoot and prepare equipment before you meet with the model. If you start messing around with these things during the shoot the model will loose energy and it will look unprofessional. So figure out theme, poses, location, equipment and such before hand. I personally prefer to have the shoot planned out, but more in rough drafts than in detail, so I leave some room for creativity. But I also have a backup plan in case something falls apart.
Get to know them
If they are a music artist - listen to their music and lyrics. An "ordinary" person - call them up and small chat. Get to know them, what makes them passionate, what makes them comfortable, what gives them joy? A portrait isn't about showing a face, it's about portraying a personality.
Natural expression
Most people are uncomfortable in front of a camera and to help them keep their mind of it I suggest that you engage them in something. Gather them around a pillar, between two walls, pose on a chair, chop wood, play some guitar or why not sing to you? Just make sure it's something that fits the person you're shooting and that makes them feel passionate and comfortable.
Corny yourself up
If you are comfortable to be a bit corny and energenic on the set the model will feel comfortable to be so to. So if you want them to scream out hard, then you better be prepared to do it yourself first.
Touch them, don't grope'em
It actually makes a model comfortable if you touch them, but only if you know how to do it. If it gets even the slightest intrusive he/she will be uncomfortable and that's just not good in any aspects. Things you can do is to walk up to them, remove a hair from their face, adjust a collar, something small and it doesn't even have to be real. What you do is that you show that you want them to look good, and touching another person, when done right, always creates a very strong connection and a sense of trust. I cannot go into the details of how to touch here, but a post about this might show up in the future.
It's in the people skills
And finally the most powerful tip to shooting awesome portraits: it's in your people skills. There is one single thing that every great portrait photographer know how to do and that is to make the subject relax and feel comfortable. What your subject feel will shine through. I cannot emphazise that enough. So if the model is feeling uncomfortable then it WILL be visible in the final picture. Work on your people skills and your portraits will come out better no matter what technology you use.
That's all, and if you have any tips to contribute with then drop a comment in the article. And if you have a question I'll make sure to comment back.
Thanks.
The Equipment of Mine
To me it's more important to be flexible and portable than having tack sharp photos. I'm not the kind of photographer that wants to haul with me massive amounts of strobes and even more assistants. I like the personal touch, and I want to keep the handy work for myself. I prefer to be portable, comfortable and flexible.
Sharpness in lenses doesn't bother me much. The digital era in it self offer huge amount of quality and to be viewing photos in 100% inside Photoshop and scrutinizing every pixel is... way to pedantic for my taste. I still need to do this at times when the client requires so, but honestly, it will not make a difference. However, the picture captured will. So I try to pack as light and flexible as I cant to live by point of view: the moment is always more important than the light. Having said this though - if I can create good light and tack sharp photos - I will.
For you who wonders about my equipment it is as follows:
* Canon 5D Mark II: Freaking amazing camera. The live view mode when shooting stills is awesome, the 1080p movie mode rules for footage (even though it's a tad bit bulky to activate) and the auto ISO option is more intelligent than I am. However, I'd like to see a way to set the ISO range for this so I can set it to activate between 50-1600 for instance. Knowing that it'll never go higher than 1600. Meh, the ISO performance is excellent never the less and full frame. Well, what can I say? It's full. Say no more, say no more.
* Canon 24-105mm 4.0/L IS: My allround lens. I've had different lenses but as a portrait/landscape photographer the 24 to 105 is just perfect. Sure, not the sharpest lens in the world and that's a side effect of the zoom ability, but it's still my pick of the litter because of its flexibility. I'd rather capture the perfect image in a bad quality than capturing a crappy image in perfect quality.
* Canon EF 50mm 1.4: I'd say this is my favorite lens. Why you say? Because it's saved my arse more times than I can count. I prefer to keep a more flexible lens attached to my camera, but if I'm in a pickle this will no doubt save me every time. However, 1.4 is to extreme for depth of field. If the focus hits slightly off in the image it will be ruined so I rarely use it. But 2.5 or 2.8 it's just excellent in every way. Don't get me wrong though: the option of 1.4 is invaluable.
* Canon 70-200mm 4.0/L IS: This is my zoom-it-in-and-make-close-ups-when-no-one's-really-noticing-lens. For instance I shoot sports with this. I wish it was 2.8 but the IS helps slightly, at least for my movement. However, used to have a 70-300 IS before and kinda regret exchanging it. But this lens is the one I use when I need perfect sharpness. It is a quality piece of lens, no doubt. And Canon... lay of on the beige. I love the red line though, combining that in a more design aware fashion would be most excellent.
* Kenko Extension Tubes: Awesome purchase. These ones let's me transform my lenses into macro lenses and whenever I need to photograph macro - these are the extensions I pull out. They are cheap and work nicely. I actually combined one of the tubes once with my 1.4 lens and created my first flower macro series of photography - hand held. It was experimenting and pure joy so they are not published on the site.
* Canon 580 EXII speedlight: The master. Good light, strong lighting. I often use this to remote control my 430EX. E-TTL II is excellent and if I can I prefer to use this and THEN under- or overexpose depending on the result I want.
* Canon 430 EX: My slave. Good slave. Excellent to create effects and sometimes even to use as only flash.
* Camdapter handstrap: At www.camdapter.com you can get your own Camdapter hand strap, and no - I'm not getting a dime for this. I've tried the normal strap. I've tried the new and improved Black Rapid Strap and I've tried the Camdapter with the adapter of choice for my tripod and I quickly change back to Camdapter every single time I try to switch. The reason being is that it supports holding the camera perfectly. For me, using no battery grip, it balances the weight so that I don't need to hold it all with my fingers but it will also distribute it to the back of my hand. Thus the camera feels lighter and easier to work with. It feels like a part of me. The Black Rapid Strap is an excellent piece of hardware but it kept slipping on my shoulders which annoyed me and I felt disconnected with my camera.I treasure my camera more than most things in my life and when the Camdapter merges it into my very loins of humanness... I can do nothing else than to let it.
* Polaroid filters: Well... it's just a gotta get it, gotta have it piece of deal. Protect your lens and filter out flare and crap. Jeez! Got it on every lens off course.
* Totally-Rip-Off-Gary-Fong-Lightsphere: I bought a replica of the Gary Fong Lightsphere to soften up my flash, and it works just excellent. However, any golden sphere's or chrome spheres aren't included; it's just diffusing but it's making a heck of a job! I use it indoors almost always and it does soften up perfectly. It depends on the result I want off course, but when I need it - it softens up perfectly. However, you still need to understand light to use it. Get the Joe McNally book I've done a review about.
* Lowepro Toploader Pro 75 AW: The bag of my choice when it comes to just walking about and snap, snap, snapping. Good space, wear it normally with my 5D mark II with attached 24-105 L lens and my 50mm prime 1,4 in the bottom for emergencies. Works pretty well. Also I wanna mention the Think Tank bags. I have one and it sure is excellent - however, it's not a bag I'd like to walk around with since it's hard to get the camera out and when it's just reasonably packed it fills up like a can of anchovies. Seriously, it feels like somethings gonna cut of my hand when I reach for a second memory card. Basically, it's a condom for your photo equipment. But sometimes condoms are good. Protect against a bunch of things.
* Crumpler "something-or-other" bag: I don't remember the exact model name but this is good quality! I have a serious bag fetish which causes me to throw out old bags like one of the gay guys of Fab 5. But this one I just continue loving. This is the bag I use when I wanna bring my whole pack. And it's comfortable to. Sure, it weighs a bit but the more reason to beefcake up.
* Photoshop and Lightroom software: I started out trying to do everything in Lightroom. Doesn't work. So, now, Lightroom is my organizer and pre-photoshop-editor. Awesome for META-tags and RAW processing. (Yes, I shoot only in RAW). But to finish a photograph I almost every time bring it into Photoshop for adjustments. Sometimes it takes an hour but more often it just takes a few minutes. Folks, it's NOT in the Photoshop skills. Photoshop is just a pimped up darkroom. The real photograph is created in your head.
I have a bunch of other equipment to but the above is the one used most frequently. Comment if you want to know more.
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