landscape photography assignment

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4 free landscape photography guides and assignments to improve your shot.

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Diving into the world of photography is both an art and a journey. While reading is crucial, the real magic happens when you’re out in the field, camera in hand.

To guide you towards improving your landscape photography, we’ve curated four free guides that offer valuable insights, coupled with hands-on assignments to transform your learning into practice. Let’s get started!

1. Landscape Photography with your Smartphone

Key takeaways.

A common misconception is that smartphone photography requires no skill. However, it can be harder to take a great photograph with a smartphone because you have fewer tools to work with. The essence of a good photograph lies in the thought process of the photographer, not the equipment.

Great photography can be achieved with a smartphone, but it requires the photographer to push their thought processes further and delve deeper into their skillset. Learn to pre-visualize your landscape photographs when using a smartphone and understand the relationship between capturing and post-processing.

Try this Assignment

Choose a landscape scene that you find appealing. Using only your smartphone, capture the scene, keeping in mind the limitations and strengths of your device.

After capturing your shot, use a post-processing app (like Snapseed, as mentioned in the guide) to enhance and finalize your image.

Remember to focus on composition, story, and how you can use post-processing to overcome any limitations you faced while capturing the shot. Write down and explain the thought process behind each decision you made during post-processing.

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2. 7 Easy Tactics for Better Coastal Landscape Photography

It can be important to shoot during the Golden Hour or Blue Hour. These times of day offer changing lighting conditions that can enhance the overall mood and feel of the photograph. Get accustomed to shooting from before sunrise or until after sunset to capture the best lighting conditions.

While the sky, especially during Golden or Blue hours, can be captivating, it’s essential not to neglect the foreground. Scouting a location can reveal interesting foreground elements that can add depth and interest to the composition, making the photograph more engaging.

While coastal landscapes are often celebrated for their vibrant colors, there’s a unique charm in black and white photography. You should play with your images in post-production and explore the effects of black and white. Sometimes, intending to shoot in black and white can lead to even more compelling results.

Choose a coastal location and plan to visit during the Golden Hour or Blue Hour.

Focus on capturing the changing lighting conditions, ensuring you pay attention to both the sky and the foreground.

After capturing your shots, select one image and convert it to black and white in post-production. Explain your choices in composition, lighting, and post-processing.

3. Landscape Photography: A Short Guide

One of the challenges in landscape photography is translating the three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional medium. Our brains perceive depth based on the information our eyes provide, but a photograph is inherently flat. To create the illusion of depth in a photograph, we have to use compositional techniques. To capture the vastness of landscapes, we have to learn how to “create” the information that the brain seeks, primarily through composition.

The choice of lens can significantly affect the outcome of a landscape photograph. A wide-angle lens can create a sense of expansive space, while a telephoto lens can bring subjects closer, creating a sense of intimacy. Understanding the effects of different focal lengths and how they can push or pull subjects is crucial for landscape photography

A common mistake for beginners is not having a focal point in their landscape photographs. Regardless of how spectacular a scene might be, it’s essential to have an element in the composition that captures the viewer’s attention. Without a focal point, the viewer’s eyes might wander aimlessly around the image. Objects that stand out due to their shape, color, or pattern can serve as effective focal points.

Choose a landscape scene that offers depth, such as a path leading into the distance, a series of mountains, or a river winding through a valley.

Using the compositional techniques discussed in the guide, capture the scene in a way that maximizes the illusion of depth. Experiment with different lens choices to see how they affect the perception of depth.

Be sure to analyze your shots and identify the techniques you used to create depth. Write a brief explanation of your compositional choices.

4. Essential Equipment for Landscape Photography

While any camera can be used for landscape photography, certain features can enhance the technical quality of shots. Factors affecting image quality include sensor size, megapixel count, and dynamic range. A larger sensor generally results in better image quality due to its ability to capture more light. Additionally, having a camera that shoots in raw format and offers full manual control is beneficial. For those using interchangeable lens cameras, starting with a kit lens is fine, but eventually, you might consider wider lenses for expansive views or medium telephoto zooms for subject isolation.

This is especially true for long exposures and HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. Long exposures can create dramatic effects, such as turning running water into silky ribbons. HDR, on the other hand, involves combining multiple shots of varying brightness to achieve a single image with details in both the darkest and lightest areas. A sturdy and durable tripod will help to ensure stability and protect the camera.

ND (Neutral Density) filters decrease the amount of light entering the camera, allowing for creative manipulation of exposure. Graduated ND filters are half-dark and help balance the brightness of the sky with the ground. Circular polarizers reduce reflections and glare, adding contrast to the sky and sometimes allowing the camera to see through water

Choose a landscape scene that offers a mix of bright skies and darker grounds.

Using an ND filter, capture the scene with a long exposure to create a dramatic effect, especially if there’s moving water.

Next, using a graduated ND filter, try to balance the brightness of the sky with the ground.

Finally, use a circular polarizer to reduce reflections and enhance the sky’s contrast.

Take a look at each photo you have captured with each filter, and note the differences and the impact of each filter on the final image.

Further Resources

Are you ready to push your creativity and stretch your skills in landscape photography? A great resource is the Landscape Photography Creativity Prompts from our friends at Photzy! These 5 creativity prompts include over 20 assignments for you to dive into and get out into the field. Read all about these prompts here.

About the Author: Sandra Hunter

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The Ultimate Landscape Photography Guide For Beginners

Ready To Master Landscape Photography?

Have you ever seen breathtaking landscape photography in a magazine and wondered, “ How did they get that shot?! ” Or have you found yourself scrolling endlessly through amazing Instagram images thinking, “ M an, I wish I could take shots like that. “

That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You want to know how to create breathtaking photos that inspire other people .

Nikon D7000 | ISO 100 | 26 mm | f/11 | 1/500 sec

In the past, only seasoned professionals had the experience and money to travel the world and afford the photography equipment needed to create such artwork. Limitations like using camera film and gaining access to a dark room also made it more difficult to get started in the craft. But today, anyone with a DSLR camera and a laptop can become the next Ansel Adams if they know what they’re doing.

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So if the only thing holding you back from getting started with landscape photography is learning how to use your camera and post processing your photos, let’s jump start your creative journey now!

Quick Links

• Essential Camera Equipment

Landscape Photography Settings

Understanding exposure settings.

• How To Choose The Right Camera Settings Every Time
• Composition Techniques
• Best Times Of Day For Landscape Photography
• How To Plan A Photo Shoot
• Laws & Regulations About Outdoor Photography

Main Types Of Landscape Photography

• How To Edit Your Photos
• Best Places To Share Your Photos Online

How To Make Money With Landscape Photography

• Visual Recap [Infographic]

Essential Landscape Photography Equipment

First, let’s dispel the myth that you need the most expensive camera gear to create stunning landscape images. Not true!

In fact, you can take gorgeous pictures with the cheapest DSLR camera. It’s about how you use your camera that counts. We’ll show you how to do that shortly. But first, let’s discover the landscape photography gear you need to take stunning shots.

DSLR Camera

Duh. But seriously, this is your beginning point. All the lenses you buy will depend on the brand of camera you have and whether it’s a cropped sensor or full frame camera . But don’t sweat this. You can’t go wrong with the big names like Nikon, Canon, Sony, etc.

What to look for in a DSLR camera :

• Large sensor for capturing as much image data as possible (At least 15 Megapixels)
• Large ISO range (at least up to 6400)
• Fast continuous shooting speed (5 frames per second or greater)
• Large monitor size for previewing your image files (tilting LCD touchscreen preferred)
• Lots of Auto Focus points to get clear crisp shots every time

What’s the best affordable camera for landscape photography?

That depends on what type of landscape photography you want to take. While you could spend a ton of cash on expensive gear, if you’re a beginner starting out, you may want to look at an entry level DSLR camera. They will do just about everything you want and you won’t need to spend a lot of money. And if you learn to use it right, it could end up being the best camera for landscape photography you’ll ever own.

Best Entry Level DSLR Cameras

Your camera may or may not come with a kit lens. If so, great. But it won’t serve you well in every landscape shooting scenario you’ll want to practice. Here are the main types of lenses you’ll need.

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 Lens : Lightweight, superior Auto Focus performance

Types of lenses used in landscape photography:

• Wide Angle Zoom Lens
• Wide Angle Prime Lens
• Ultra wide Angle Fisheye Lens
• Telephoto Zoom Lens

Most landscape photographers start out with a good wide angle lens to capture sweeping landscape views like mountain ranges or beach settings. But I would recommend looking into some of the other ones mentioned above.

What to look for in a good lens:

• Lightweight and compact size (when possible)
• Excellent optics
• Low maximum aperture (f/1.8, f/2.8, f/3.5)
• Vibration reduction

Nikon D500 | ISO 400 | 16 mm | f/11 | 1/160 sec

What’s the best lens for landscape photography?

In short, the best lens is the one that will best help you photograph what’s in front of you. When you buy a DSLR, it usually comes with a kit lens that is sometimes called a walkaround lens. That’s because it’s usually a standard zoom lens that has a nice range from wide angle to telephoto.

The next lens you might want to consider is a wide angle zoom lens. This will have a wider maximum field of view which is great for capturing big scenes like mountain ranges, beaches, fields, etc.

Best Wide Angle Zoom Lenses

Every landscape photographer needs steady tripod to get sharp photos . A tripod will minimize or eliminate camera shake that will otherwise cause your photos to be blurry. You don’t need an expensive one.

What to look for in a tripod:

• Lightweight
• Compact when folded
• Camera mount that is quick and easy to lock in and release

My favorite all purpose tripod is the Zomei Z668 tripod . It’s lightweight, has a fluid ball head and a detachable monopod. Can’t go wrong with this one!

Camera Filters

UV Filter: A simple low cost UV filter will protect your camera lens from long-term exposure to harmful UV rays. But it will save you a ton of money in case you accidentally crack your lens. Better to replace a $10 UV filter instead of an expensive lens.

Circular Polarizing Filter: This filter will allow you to cut down glare coming from water or the sky or anything with a shiny or reflective surface. This will help you get a more even exposure in your image. Plus, a polarizer will add a pop of additional color to your pictures.

Neutral Density Filters

ND and Grad ND Filters are a landscape photographer’s best friend. They act like sunglasses for your camera to help you take long exposure shots and create a more balanced exposure. With these filters, you’ll be able to make moving water look smooth and milky. Passing clouds will blur into beautiful trails in the sky. And you’ll be able to capture fireworks and lightning with ease.

  Need help choosing the right ND filter?

Check out our comprehensive guide to choosing the best neutral density filter .

Remote Shutter Release

Wireless Remote Control for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras

In addition to using a tripod, having a remote shutter release handy will further reduce the risk of camera shake. Whether you use a wired or wireless remote shutter release , you wont run the risk of bumping or moving your camera by pressing the shutter with your finger.

Cleaning Accessories

Your camera body and lenses will get dirty. Using some basic cleaning accessories will keep them free of smudges and dust that can ruin your beautiful images. Spend just a little money on a dust blower, microfiber cloth, cleaning solution and a lens pen. Or just get all these things in one convenient camera cleaning kit .

Altura Photo Professional Cleaning Kit

Memory Cards

Since modern day DSLRs crank out 20+ Megapixel files for each image, you need plenty of memory storage loaded in your camera. One of the most important features to look for when buying memory is the speed at which data can be created and reviewed. This is called the read/write speed. Standard memory cards have around 90 MB/second speeds. Newer XQD cards have read/write speeds over 400 MB/second.

SanDisk 128GB Extreme SDXC UHS-I Card

Camera Backpack

A good camera backpack is essential for any landscape photographer. Depending on what you want to shoot, you may be carrying a lot of photography gear. So you want to make sure you’ve got a hiking camera backpack that can accommodate everything you need.

Lowepro ProTactic 450 AW Camera Backpack

What to look for in a camera backpack:

• Space enough for 1-2 cameras and 2-3 lenses
• Laptop compartment so you can process images while you travel
• Easy top and side access to your camera gear
• Comfortable enough for all-day travel
• Built-in rain cover

Here’s where the magic happens. It’s time to learn how to use your DSLR for landscape photography. Here are the settings you need to learn before you start shooting.

Is it better to shoot in Raw or JPEG?

RAW is a format that captures the most amount of data your camera will allow. The files are large. But this provides you with more information to work with when post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop. There’s no pre-processing of a RAW file before it leaves your camera.

JPEG on the other hand, is a more compressed image file. While you might think it’s good to have a smaller file size, the name of the game in photography is to have more image data to use. JPEG files also get a little pre-processing in camera like a color and contrast boost. That’s not good if you want maximum control over your image files when it’s time to start editing them.

Make sure to change the file capture settings in your camera to RAW before you start shooting.

Focus Options

The two main options for focusing on your subject are Manual Focus and Auto Focus . While you might want more control over your focus, I wouldn’t start in Manual Focus. You’ll have time to experiment with that as you improve your photography skills.

There are other settings you’ll be more focused on (see what I did there?) at first. So I recommend letting your camera’s built-in auto focus capabilities help you get sharp pictures as you’re learning how to use your DSLR.

Image Review Settings

The most important setting I would change in your camera from its default is in your image review settings. After you’ve taken a picture and press Play in order to view it, cycle through the view options to turn on the histogram view.

A histogram shows you a graphical representation of the tonal values in your image . It shows you the amount of tones for each level of brightness in your photo.

DSLR cameras and editing software like Lightroom display tonal brightness information in a range from blacks to shadows to midtones to highlights and finally to whites.

Turning on the histogram view will help you quickly determine if the picture you just took is properly exposed.  Here’s an image exposure comparison. As you can see from the histograms, the image data is more centered on the properly exposed photo. While the data is pushed to the left and right respectively for the underexposed and overexposed photos.

A photographer’s unique ability is to memorialize both the physical and emotional elements of a moment in time. Just like an artist works with paint, a photographer works with light.

How does a DSLR camera take pictures?

Your camera has a sensor that capturers light. And that sensor is hidden behind your camera’s shutter, which act like curtains keeping a room dark. When the shutter opens, light is revealed, or exposed, to the sensor, capturing the scene in front of your lens. That exposure data is simultaneously recorded as an image on your camera’s memory card.

Taking beautiful landscape photography pictures comes down to capturing a scene that is properly exposed.

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</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <p><strong>Please include attribution to SchubertPhotography.com with this graphic.</strong></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <p><a href=’https://www.schubertphotography.com/landscape-photography-guide-beginners’><img src=’https://www.schubertphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Schubert-Photography-Exposure-Triangle-1.jpg’ alt=’Schubert Photography Exposure Triangle’ width=’600px’ border=’0′ /></a></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <p>

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is the amount of time your camera’s shutter remains open when you press the shutter release button. It’s the first piece in the Exposure Triangle that determines how much light your sensor is exposed to with each shot you take.

Think of the shutter as your camera’s eyelids.

Nikon D500 | ISO 100 | 80 mm | f/9 | 1/200 sec

Imagine this. You start with your eyes closed for a minute on a bright sunny day. Then you quickly open and shut them as fast as you can while looking up at a tree. What do you see? Maybe a faint visual imprint of the tree’s outline?

Next, you open your eyes for about 10 seconds while still looking up at the tree. After you close your eyes this time, what do you see? Probably a much more defined tree made of light. You can count individual branches and see the tree in your mind very clearly.

This is the same way a camera shutter and sensor interact. The shorter the time period the shutter is open, generally the darker the shot will be. The longer the shutter is open, the brighter your photo will be.

A camera’s aperture operates in much the same way your eye’s iris works. In the example above, if you looked skyward on a sunny day, your iris would automatically start to contract leaving your pupil looking much smaller. And if you get out of bed in the middle of the night without turning on any lights, your iris would open wide to let what little available ambient light into your pupil so you could see better in the dark. This is the same with your DSLR camera.

Nikon D7000 | ISO 100 | 70 mm | f/5 | 1/160 sec

So with landscape photography, which depth of field do you normally want?

Well, that depends on what you’re photographing. If you’re trying to get everything in focus from foreground to background , you’ll want to use a smaller aperture (higher f-stop number) like f/11 – f/22. But if you’re trying to isolate the petals of a flower, you’ll want to use a wider aperture (lower f-stop number) like f/5.6 – f/1.8.

Here’s a handy aperture chart to help you visualize how f-stops affect your picture.

ISO is the measure of your camera sensor’s sensitivity to light. The lower the number the finer the noise, or grain, in your photo. The higher the number, the more noise you’ll see in your images.

Nikon D7000 | ISO 320 | 11 mm | f/2.8 | 30 sec

Not all scenes are well lit and will require you to bump up your ISO in order to take a good exposure. Bright sunny days may allow you to set your ISO at the lowest number, usually 100 ISO. Whereas shooting just after sunset or at night when it’s dark may require an ISO level of 800 to 1600 or more.

How To Choose The Best Camera Settings For Landscape Photography Every Time

It’s one thing to understand the elements in the Exposure Triangle. But it’s another to know when to use them. This is what makes it so hard for most beginners to start using Manual Mode confidently. So let’s make this easy!

The fastest way to decide what camera settings you need for anything you want to photograph:

Step 1 : Decide what is most important about your scene. The one or two things you can’t compromise.

Example 1 : You want to make a waterfall look smooth and milky white. So you cannot compromise on setting a slow shutter speed of 4 seconds or longer. In this case aperture and ISO can be flexible.

Example 2 : You’re shooting a twilight scene and need the most light possible with no noise or grain in your image. So you cannot compromise your aperture setting because it needs to be as wide open as possible, or the lowest f-stop number. And you cannot compromise on ISO because you don’t want noise in your image. In this case shutter speed can be flexible.

Example 3 : You’re shooting a wide angle shot of a mountain scene on a sunny day, and you want everything from foreground to background to be clear and crisp. So you cannot compromise on setting your aperture to at least f/8 or above. In this case your shutter speed and ISO can be flexible.

Step 2: Adjust the other non-critical exposure elements to achieve the optimal exposure for your image.

These two steps will make it so much easier for you to get out of Auto and start using Manual Mode!

Landscape Photography Composition Techniques

Nikon D7000 | ISO 100 | 56 mm | f/10 | 1/125 sec

Once you start getting used to working in Manual Mode, the next landscape photography skill to practice is composition. It’s tempting to take your camera out and just start pointing and shooting.

But if you study pictures from photographers who inspire you , you’ll start to realize there’s something special about the way they line up their shots. Something that makes them look more professional. Something that draws you in. That something is photo composition.

And landscape photography composition is all about leading your viewer’s eyes through the frame.

I wrote a detailed post about landscape photography composition techniques . Here’s a summary of those tips.

10 Landscape Photography Composition Tips

• Rule Of Thirds – Create more interest by placing your subject off center using a grid overlay that splits your image into thirds horizontally and vertically.
• Foreground Interest – Place something interesting in your foreground, especially when you have a lot of wide open space in your background.
• Leading Lines – Any line that draws your viewer’s eyes through the frame. Think meandering rivers or long roads that lead to the horizon.
• Level Horizon – It’s an easy one to skip, but make sure your horizon line is level. Or you’ll run the risk of making the viewer seasick. You can use a tripod to help you with this. Or you can easily fix this in post processing.
• Frame Within A Frame – Just like it sounds. Use elements like tree branches or curved arches to frame your subject inside your image’s frame.
• Patterns & Textures – The human eye is drawn to that which is different. So repeating patterns like a row of trees or the rough texture of a rusted ship’s hull make for a much more interesting composition.
• Negative Space – This is the space that surrounds the main subject of your photo. It can be the vast desert surrounding a herd of camels or the ocean waves keeping a sailboat afloat.
• Fill The Frame With What’s Important – If you’re shooting something interesting like the flower of a lily pad, get closer or zoom in to fill your frame with it.
• Be Aware Of What You Don’t Want In Your Frame – It can be easy to get caught up in the moment on a photo shoot. But don’t forget to look around you every once in a while to make sure you’re not getting things in your pictures you could easily avoid like power lines or people.
• Change Perspectives – Move around. Zoom in. Change from shooting horizontal to vertical. Shoot from above. Shoot from below. Just change your point of view to keep things interesting!

The Best Times To Take Pictures Outside

Nikon D7000 | ISO 400 | 18 mm | f/22 | 1/10 sec

Since photography is the art of capturing light, you need to know when the best times and worst times are to take photos. Of course that depends a lot on what you’re trying to photograph and whether it’s Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter. Light will be very different throughout the year based on the angle of the sun to the earth.

But here are some general rules for when to take landscape photos.

Golden Hour

Golden Hour is the time just after sunrise and just before sunset when the sun is low in the sky and casts a golden hue on everything it touches. The light during golden hour is very diffused, meaning it is spread much more evenly. This is what makes everything look magical.

Nikon D500 | ISO 100 | 18 mm | f/10 | 1/4 sec

Golden hour is when the earth becomes one big light box , instead of the middle of the day when the sun casts more direct light that casts harsh shadows on everything.

It’s the opposite of Blue Hour, which is just before sunrise and just after sunset. Blue Hour, as the name suggests, is when the sky casts a blue hue on everything outdoors.

Golden Hour can be great for taking pictures of outdoor landscapes like:

• Architecture

Now you might have heard that the worst time of day to take pictures is the middle of the day. But again, it all depends on what kind of subject you’re shooting and what the weather is like.

A cloudy day at noon has vastly different lighting conditions than a bright sunny day at noon. Clouds diffuse light and act like a giant light box. This evens out the light on your subject and makes it much more pleasing most times.

Nikon D500 | ISO 100 | 60 mm | f/8 | 1/320 sec

What kind of pictures are best to take during the middle of the day?

• Macro photography
• Forest photography
• Aerial (Drone) photography

How To Plan A Landscape Photography Photo Shoot

Sure, photographers get lucky sometimes. But the best way to take amazing pictures is to plan your photo shoots ahead of time.

Location Scouting

Knowing what and where you want to photograph will help you pack the right photography gear. No need to carry a lot of extra weight unnecessarily. So scout your locations ahead of time.

7 Ways To Plan Ahead For An Outdoor Photo Shoot

• Instagram – Get inspiration from Instagram for the types of outdoor pictures you want to take.
• Google – Search Google for “ best places for landscape photography in [your region, state, city, town, etc.] “
• Pinterest – Search Pinterest for location ideas.
• Flickr – Search Flickr for recent photos taken from potential locations you want to photograph. Flickr is also great for finding unique spots and angles other photographers have used to get awesome shots.
• TPE App – Use The Photographer’s Ephemeris mobile app to determine where the sun will be at any given location and at any given time. This is a really quick and easy way to find out when Golden Hour, sunrise or sunset will be at your intended location, without having to physically go there and check it out ahead of time.
• Moon Calendar App – Use the Moon Calendar mobile app to figure out when the moon will rise and set on any given night. It also lets you easily see which phase the moon will be on each evening. This is a great companion app whether you want to take pictures of the moon or you’re trying to find a night where the moon won’t be shining so you can take pictures of the Milky Way.
• On-Site Visit – Physically visit the location I want to shoot. Take time to walk around and make note of interesting subjects, perspectives, angles and foreground interests.

Laws & Regulations About Taking Photos In Public

Before you head out to build your portfolio of amazing landscape photos, be sure to check for any local laws and regulations that apply to photography in public places. While many public spaces are fine to photograph, there are others that require special permission or releases to be able to sell or use your images for commercial purposes.

Some things to consider when taking pictures in public spaces

Property & Model Releases – If you’re taking photos that include recognizable property or people, you’ll need to have them sign a release before you sell those photos or use them commercially. Even if it’s only a portion of the person or property. If they, or someone else, can say “ Hey, that’s me in that photo! ” or “ That’s my house! ,” you’ll need to have a release signed. The easiest way to do this is by using the Releases mobile app . You can quickly create, sign and send releases using standard templates from Snapwire, ASMP, Getty Images and Shutterstock. They can even sign on the spot with their finger!

Check Before You Photograph – Here’s a great list of locations with known image restrictions you should check before photographing with the intent to use your work commercially.

Nikon D7000 | ISO 100 | 135 mm | f/11 | 1/320 sec

Landscape photography includes many different styles of outdoor pictures. So if this is a niche your interested in, there’s practically no end to the fun you can have trying out various genres.

Experiment With These Common Styles Of Landscape Photography

Rural – Think country, hills, meadows, fields, lakes, rivers and plenty of other locations off the beaten path.

Forest – This can be anything from your local woods to tropical rain forests, cloud forests, deciduous and evergreen forests. Plus all the wildlife you’d normally find like deer, bears, birds and all manner of woodland creatures.

Mountain – Pictures of mountains from afar are the first thing that come to mind. But mountains are where you’ll find waterfalls, boulders, snow and plenty of sure-footed wildlife and majestic birds like eagles and hawks.

Seascape – On the water or near the water. Sail boats, fishing vessels, crashing waves, sandy beaches, lighthouses, piers, rocks and cliffs. And of course fish, breaching whales, soaring seagulls, and other water based animals.

Abstract – This style is all about capturing shapes and patterns in the outdoors. Cascading hills of rice paddies. Meandering lines formed by windblown desert sands. Silhouettes of craggy oak tree branches.

Macro – This is a fascinating style of landscape photography that gets up close and personal with the outdoor and natural world. Fun things to try photographing are insects, flowers, animals, food and any interesting texture or pattern found in nature or an urban setting.

Urban – Cities and towns have their own place in the landscape photography world. Great subjects include city skylines, graffiti covered walls, urban parks, light trails from moving traffic, subways and even abandoned buildings.

Architectural – This style presents almost endless possibilities for creativity. Buildings, homes and other structures can be found in urban settings as well as rural and remote locations. Ideas for subjects to photograph include commercial buildings, churches, temples, mosques, museums, castles, homes, bridges, lighthouses, clock towers, statues and monuments.

Night Sky – Pictures of the night sky are some of the most awe inspiring images. Modern DSLRs make it easy to take long exposures, allowing your camera to capture more stars and other heavenly bodies that even your naked eyes can see. Some wonderful elements to capture in the night sky include stars, the moon, the Milky Way, constellations, meteor showers, comets, a lunar eclipse, planets and star trails.

Seasonal – The changing of the seasons can be a beautiful thing to capture in pictures. Reflections in a puddle after a Spring rain. A heard of buffalo grazing in a field during the Summer months. A path in the woods covered in fallen Fall folliage. Snow covered mountains. These are just a few seasonal photography ideas.

Specialized Landscape Photography Techniques

Long Exposure – Setting your shutter speed to longer times can open up a whole new world of photographic possibilities. Turn clouds into beautiful motion blurs in the sky. Make flowing waterfalls look milky and dreamlike. Capture lightning or fireworks in their full glory.

Light Painting – Another form of long exposure photography, light painting involves using artificial light to either brighten a dark night scene or create your own patterns and shapes with light trails. All you need is a light source like a flashlight or your mobile phone and your DSLR camera and a tripod to make magical light paintings.

Timelapse – Timelapse photography is a wonderful way to show the passage of time using many individual images. The end result looks like a video, even though the processed file is made up of hundreds or thousands of photos. You’ll need a good intervalometer and a tripod for this type of photography.

Panorama – In order to get a wider view that what your camera’s sensor captures, panoramic photography can be achieved by stitching together more than one overlapping image using Lightroom or Photoshop. This type of photography is perfect for sweeping landscapes in both natural and urban settings.

Drone & Aerial – This is a fun, and sometimes expensive, type of photography that involves using a drone or an airplane to capture aerial photos of the earth from above. Drone photography has become wildly popular in recent years as drone prices have dropped and technology and built-in camera quality has improved.

Editing Landscape Photos

Your DSLR camera is capable of capturing large image files. And those files contain lots of luscious editable data. If you’re shooting in RAW (like you should be) you’ll need software in order to process those data files and then publish them, either digitally or in print.

How To Edit Your Landscape Photos

Lightroom makes it very easy to edit your landscape photography pictures. There’s a natural workflow that’s built into the panel on the right side of the Develop Module. Think of it as a waterfall. Just start at the top and work your way down. Let’s take a look.

1. Crop & Straighten

The first step in post processing is to crop and straighten your image. If you didn’t frame your image exactly the way you intended in the field, this is where you can quickly adjust that.

Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough to help you crop your photos in Lightroom like a professional .

2. Adjust Light & Color

Next, drop down to the Basic panel to adjust the light and color of your image. Again, start from the top of this list and work your way down.

• White Balance

3. Brushes And Gradients

If you have places in your photo you want to make adjustments that won’t affect the rest of the image, you’ll want to use an Adjustment Brush .

And if you have a sky that’s too bright or a section where you want to add a gradual change of light or tone, use the Gradient Tool .

Here’s how I changed the exposure of the sky in a photo I took in Grand Cayman. 

4. Sharpness And Noise Reduction

Lightroom defaults to adding a little bit of sharpness to your images upon import. But if you want to adjust that, drop down to the Detail panel.

If your image has grain (or noise) because you used a high ISO, move the Luminance slider under the Noise Reduction section to remove it or at least lessen the effect.

5. Dehaze And Vignette

Next, if you have an area of haze, such as sun rays, fog or water glare, use the Dehaze slider to reduce it.

Here’s an example of making my subject clearer by removing the cloudiness of water I was shooting through when photographing a starfish.

If you want to draw your viewer’s attention even more towards your subject, use the Vignette slider to add subtle dark edges at the corners of your image. Just be sure not to overdo it here. Adding the effect is fine, but not so much that it becomes obvious or distracting.

6. Select & Export Your Photos

Once you’re finished processing your images, it’s now time to export them. You can export them as final versions of your image ready to share, or you can refine your edits even further by exporting them to Photoshop . This could be very helpful if you want to dodge and burn your photos to create more depth and realism. If you have multiple images to export, select all of them at once and choose Export .

How select multiple photos in Lightroom Classic.

How select multiple photos in lightroom cc., sharing your landscape photos with the world.

Now that you’ve captured some beautiful landscape photography images, it’s time to share them! Today, there are more places than ever to get your work noticed.

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Jim Schubert (@schubertjim) on May 27, 2017 at 6:53am PDT

Best Online Photo Sharing Sites & Portfolio Websites

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Jim Schubert (@schubertjim) on Apr 24, 2018 at 8:27am PDT

Best Practices For Sharing Your Landscape Photography On Social Media

Before you jump right into becoming the most popular kid in school, consider a few best practices for sharing your pictures on social media.

• Export Sizes & Shapes : Thieves are everywhere! Don’t ever share a full resolution photo online, unless you want it stolen and possibly used or sold without your permission. Each social media platform has their own ideal post size. Make sure you resize your photo appropriately before you share it.
• Add Watermarks : One extra step you can take to help ensure your photos aren’t used without your permission is to add a watermark to it. You can do this in Lightroom or Photoshop pretty easily. It doesn’t have to be large or distracting. Something inconspicuous with a 50% opacity or less will do just fine.
• Copyright Your Images : This may be taking it to another level. But you may also consider getting a formal copyright for your images before sharing them online. This will give you an extra level of protection and better grounds to take legal action if necessary.

Now that you’ve started to practice taking beautiful landscape pictures, you might consider making money with your new hobby. Even if it’s just something you do on the side, you’d be surprised how easy it is to sell your photos.

7 Ways To Sell Your Photos Online And Offline:

• Adobe Stock
• Bigstock Photo
• Shutterstock
• Portfolio Websites : Just like the stock photo websites above, you can also sell your images through your own portfolio account like SmugMug or 500px.
• Pitch Media Outlets : Google some magazines and online media outlets who regularly feature pictures similar to yours. Then send them an email or message through their website asking to do special assignments for them.
• Local Shops : Approach local gift, art and tourist shops to ask if you could sell your prints through their store.
• Art Festivals : There’s a pretty big circuit of traveling art shows out there. Do some research and see if you can get linked into one where you can sell your photo prints.
• Become An Online Influencer : Build an Instagram or Pinterest following with your photos and attract brands who want you to help them advertise.
• Contract For Local Businesses : Approach local businesses about doing photo shoots for their brand. This is especially useful if you’re proficient in drone or architecture photography, because not everyone takes those kinds of pictures. Any kind of business from real estate companies to bike shops to law firms could use your special photography skills.

[Infographic] The Ultimate Landscape Photography Guide For Beginners

If you made it this far down the page, congrats! You’re likely going to find great happiness and success as a landscape photographer. Whether you want to make it a profession or just a weekend hobby, you’re now one step closer to taking beautiful pictures that will inspire others to get outside and make the most of what the natural world has to offer.

Here’s a handy Landscape Photography Guide For Beginners Infographic you can refer back to anytime for a quick recap of what you’ve learned.

Happy shooting!

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Landscape Photography: The Ultimate Guide with Pro Tips

• Usnea Lebendig

Last updated:

• February 23, 2024
• See comments

These days most of us take our cameras just about anywhere we go, and landscape photos are a dime a dozen, but if you want your landscape photos to stand out from the crowd, there are certain landscape photography tips and techniques you’ll have to keep in mind.

Planning for Landscape Photography

When it comes to landscape photography, there needs to be some planning that goes into location and gear selection. If you are traveling specifically to capture photos natural world, take some time to learn everything you can about the location. You may stumble across some beautiful views by chance.

However, you’ll maximize your own efforts by checking things like weather forecasts, parking locations, vantage points, sunset or sunrise time, etc. It’s also good to remember that bad weather may not always be a deal-breaker for many photographers. However, you’ll want to make sure you have your rainproof cover packed for the trip. The menacing clouds of an overcast day can add a level of drama to your images that can really make them stand out to the viewer. And that brings us to plan out what gear to pack.

Camera Equipment and Accessories for Landscape Photography

A very popular question indeed. What photography gear and equipment does a landscape photographer have in their camera bag to capture stunning landscape photos? Opinions will vary, and specific gear will change based on your needs. I will mention the items that are great to have on hand.

Digital Camera and Lenses

To start off, a digital camera that can shoot in RAW and can capture a bigger dynamic range makes for a good camera for shooting landscape pictures.

As for the camera lens, a wide-angle lens makes for an ideal combination. A 16-35mm lens, for one, is a good choice if you are shooting with a full-frame camera.

Tripod or Monopod

Tripods and monopods can be essential to many situations. Every landscape photographer would use one because it more or less cuts out the element of image shake while exposure is made. Taking longer exposure shots is nearly impossible without having some stabilization device. Personally, I really like shooting and traveling with my Dolica Proline tripod since it only weighs about 2.5 lbs and packs into a fairly compact space.

For those with even tighter weight or size restrictions, a Gorillapod can be a great option. Some models even support up to 11 pounds, which can be great when you have a heavier telephoto lens on your camera.

Using a tripod will not only ensure your photos avoid unintentional blur, but they’ll also allow you to experiment with different settings on the exact same scene (vital for HDR photography ).

Taking the time to set up a tripod also gives you the added impetus to think in terms of composition and perspective.

Lens Filters

No landscape photographer would leave home without his trusted set of filters. Filters give you the option to tweak the light further.

ND filters are like putting a pair of sunglasses over your lens. They reduce the amount of light that hits the sensor, allowing you to take long exposure shots in brighter lighting conditions. ND filters come with a varying amount of light-stopping power and are interchangeable depending on your needs.

Neutral density suggests that the filter stops all wavelengths of light equally and does not render any color cast. ND filters come in different light stopping powers. An ND 2 is the same thing as a 0.3 ND (there are two terminologies in use). They will both reduce one stop of light, allowing you to balance an exposure where there is about one stop of difference in light between the foreground and the sky. Similarly, an ND 4 is the same thing as an ND 0.6, both reducing two stops of light.

Graduated ND Filter

A graduated neutral density filter (Grad ND) e.g. helps you to balance the exposure. A typical sunrise scene will have a blown-out sky and a dark foreground. With a Grad ND filter, you would be able to hold back the bright sky and therefore balance the exposure.

Circular Polarizer

A circular polarizer is yet another trusty piece of glass filter that helps you to cut down glare and haze, making colors look more saturated. These filters can be compared with your polarizing sunglasses except that you put them on your lenses. They are useful when you are shooting brooks, waterfalls , lush green vegetation drenched in dew, sweeping vistas against a backdrop of sky, and so on.

Remote Shutter Release

Use an intervalometer or a remote to trigger the camera shutter. An inbuilt camera timer can also be used, but it’s a little frustrating. Wait for 2 – 5 seconds before pressing the button on the remote or intervalometer, which gives some time for the camera to settle, which avoids camera shake.

Remote shutter releases are available in wired and remote versions and are very cheap. They prevent accidentally shaking your camera when you press the shutter release. Most cable releases include a locking feature that keeps the button or plunger depressed during extremely long exposure photography.

Camera Settings for Landscape Photos

Using simple camera settings will ensure you capture a beautiful, sharp landscape photograph. What’s the point of spending considerable time and effort to travel to a remote site, investing in high-tech cameras, several super-sharp lenses, a stout tripod, and countless gadgets to capture stunning landscapes, and then getting blurry images through a lack of proper shooting techniques?

With landscape photography, a few extra moments will ensure you capture an image you’ll enjoy for many years. However, there is no single camera setting that will work in all situations for making great landscape photographs.

Use Higher Apertures

Use an aperture of f/8 or higher for everything to be in focus. Use an aperture of f/11 or above when shooting sun or lights directly. It creates a nice start burst effect, and the starburst effect depends upon the number of blades used to construct the lens. This can be found in the lens specification. Do not go to the extreme end of the aperture above f/16 to f/22 as the lens starts diffracting. The larger your f-stop (e.g. f/22), the smaller your aperture will be, allowing less light to enter the camera.

Usually, a smaller aperture (higher f-stop) is used in landscape photography to get the maximum depth of field, but with most lenses, there’s a maximum point beyond which things begin getting slightly softer. That being said, every lens is sharpest at a different aperture, and knowing the qualities of your lenses can make a big difference, but either way, sticking between f7.1 and f16 will give you the best results.

Some professional photographers prefer to shoot at the smallest aperture they can get away with without inducing lens diffraction. It is recommended because the smaller the aperture, the more of the frame is in focus.

A smaller ISO (100 or 200) is ideal. Higher ISO numbers will induce digital noise and additional work in terms of cleaning the image up.

Always aim for the lowest ISO your lighting and camera can handle (another reason to use a tripod). Low ISO will give you rich and high image quality landscapes free from noise . You can go with ISO 100 for the least amount of noise. 

If you find yourself in a situation where using a tripod isn’t possible, try increasing ISO to 400 or more. This will reduce the camera shake for handheld shots. Adjust the ISO settings based on your desired result and available light.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed depends on the effect that you want. Some creative results warrant that you use a longer exposure to get some motion blur going, using a slow shutter speed.

Maximize the Depth of Field

The depth of field should be maximized in an effort to ensure that both the foreground and background of the photo are in focus. It may become more difficult in dimmer lighting conditions as your final images appear too dark. Shooting during a beautiful sunset may require a longer shutter speed as the natural lighting fades away. Again, this is where camera stabilization is going to come in handy.

Shoot Landscapes in RAW

Shooting in RAW will give the maximum amount of wiggle room when it comes to post-processing your photos. RAW files contain much more tonal and color information than JPEGS, allowing you far more control over the final output of your photo.

Always focus on the more interesting foreground element, which is a third distance away in the frame, so that everything will be in focus when using autofocus. Use of lens manual exposure is recommended using the live view so that you can see what is in focus.

Focusing a third of the way into a scene will maximize your depth of field (i.e. get more of your scene in focus). If you’re using a fairly modern camera, you can use live view to ensure you nail the focus you’re looking for.

With DSLR cameras, the image is captured when the mirror flips up out of the light’s path just before the shutter opens then it flips back down after the shutter closes. This causes minute vibrations that can destroy an image’s sharpness. Sharpness can be improved by locking up the mirror prior to taking the exposure.

Mirror lock-up involves flipping the mirror up well before the shutter opens, allowing the vibrations to die down before exposing the sensor. This requires an extra push of the shutter button, the second push resulting in the actual opening of the shutter. Use a cable release to eliminate vibrations introduced by your finger pressing the shutter release button.

Your camera’s self-timer gives a delay between pressing the shutter release and the shutter’s firing. The self-timer is also used to reduce camera shake when taking photographs in low light or with long telephoto lenses. The timer’s delay gives the photographer time to steady the camera before the shutter fires.

Clean Sensor

It’s an inescapable reality of digital photography that dust will eventually plague your images. Although it’s easy to remove these spots with Photoshop, it is much better to avoid them when the image is created.

To see if you have dust spots, simply attach a relatively long lens to the camera, focus the lens manually to infinity, stop it down to its smallest aperture, then take a shot of a featureless sky. Dust will show on your images as fuzzy spots.

The camera sensor which records the image is protected by a low-pass filter. This is where the dust accumulates. In-camera cleaning is performed by vibrating this low-pass filter by selecting the Clean Image Sensor option in the Setup menu. The filter can be cleaned at any time using the Clean Now option, or cleaning can be performed automatically when the camera is turned on or off. If dust cannot be fully removed using the menu-based option, it must be cleaned manually.

Techniques for Capturing Tack Sharp Landscape Images

• Use a solid tripod. Your tripod can be made even more stable against wind gusts by hanging a weighted pouch between the legs.
• Turn off vibration reduction features within the camera or lens. Your tripod will stabilize the camera, but the image will be degraded because the VR feature continues to look for vibrations.
• All lenses have a “sweet spot” which produces the sharpest image. This usually is one or two stops from the maximum aperture. So instead of shooting with your lens wide open, pull it back a stop or two, and you will get a little more clarity. If in doubt, shoot landscapes at f/16.
• If you’re using a zoom lens, don’t use its longest length.
• Smoothly trigger the shutter. Any vibration which takes place just prior to or during the time the shutter is open will degrade the image. Using a cable release, locking up the mirror, or using the camera’s built-in self-timer will help reduce camera vibration.

12 Pro Tips for Better Landscape Photography

Landscape photography is one of the toughest genres of all types of photography. Once the moment is passed, it can’t be faked and re-created, unlike portrait photography, so paying attention to the changing light and drama in your landscape and nature photography is very important.

Here are a few tips that can significantly improve your landscape photography.

1. Choosing a Location

Need ideas for locations to visit and photograph? Take up hiking, visit local parks, state forests, and other natural areas. Join hiking clubs and naturalist groups to take frequent field trips to observe nature. You may discover new locations for photography close to home by participating in one of these groups.

2. Consider Photographing Your Favorite Landscape During Different Seasons

Spring scenery provides the perfect opportunity to photograph many shades of green and pastels from fresh flowers while everything is still new and unblemished.

Summer is a great time to photograph the scenery of botanical gardens, dramatic sunsets, and sunrises. With longer hours of daylight during summer months, you have plenty of time to compose a variety of compositions and angles.

Fall or autumn scenery is all about color. Bright sunlight reflects light off leaves and reduces vibrancy, but photographing fall foliage on a partly cloudy or overcast day will make those fall colors pop.

Winter scenery is best photographed right after it snows .

3. Shoot During the Right Time of the Day

Shoot an hour before and after the sunset or sunrise , which is usually the best time of the day . These hours are considered the golden hours of photography. Don’t pack the bags right after sunset when there are 30 to 70% clouds in the sky.

At sunrise and sunset, the longer wavelengths of red and yellow colors of the sun will use the clouds as a canvas to paint a vibrant pink glow on the clouds which creates a dramatic look on the landscape photo.

Landscapes are constantly changing. Weather, light, seasons, plants, and trees change every day. Scout areas close to home. Visit the same locations multiple times during different hours each day. You might be surprised by what you find. Look for water, ponds, lakes, and creeks. Reflections of scenery on the water make interesting landscape photographs.

4. Take a Moment to Let Yourself Fully Enter the Landscape Scene

One of the primary purposes of good landscape photos is to capture the magic of a place, to encapsulate its essence in a moment. The best way to find that magic in a landscape image is to give yourself a few moments to connect with the scene before setting it up. You can even use this time to explore the scene from different perspectives – sitting, kneeling, climbing up on a rock, etc.

Relax and find the spot where the most amazingness hits you – this will be what you want to communicate to the viewer. Unless you’re quickly losing the light, there isn’t really a lot of reason to rush.

5. Horizon Placement

Never place the horizon in the center of the image. Try to move it above or below the center of the picture, depending on the composition. If there is not much drama in the sky, try to include only ⅓ or below the sky and include interesting elements in the ground.

Also, human perception is hard-wired to see everything level, even if what we’re looking at isn’t. By leveling the horizon for us, you keep our brains from spending that extra effort on keeping things straight (which is slightly uncomfortable).

6. Pay Attention to Your Composition

Composition is also one of those features that set apart amateurs from accomplished landscape photographers . As with most photography, placing key elements on the ‘thirds’ in the frame (otherwise known as the ‘rule of thirds’) will usually yield far better results than using the center of the frame. Also, including leading lines and interesting foreground elements will help to add depth to your photos.

Composition depends on the eyes that are behind the camera. Some other compositional elements include using shapes and curves. These rules can be broken if you think you can get a better picture by breaking those rules of composition . Go beyond the rules!

7. Shoot Different Exposures

If you are shooting at sunset/sunrise, it’s difficult to capture the entire dynamic range in a single picture, so try to bracket the exposures to get a proper exposure. Usually, an exposure setting of -2 (underexposed), 0 (correct exposure) 2 (overexposure) will work.

Do not use third-party HDR plug-ins for creating HDR images by inputting the differently exposed images. Use the Lightroom CC’s Merge -> HDR feature for better results to begin with. Luminosity masks are much more advanced and give outstanding results.

8. Long Exposures

Use long exposures to show the motion in the clouds or water. A neutral density filter can do the magic. At the same time, tripods are also essential for any photography that needs a longer shutter time (like getting a softer texture on water).

9. It’s All About the Light

If you ask a landscape photographer – what is the key element that can help you make prize-winning and stunning landscape photos, the answer, most certainly, would be – “Get out of bed early.” Landscape photography isn’t as simple as you think it is.

There’s a lot more to it than just getting out of bed pretty early. You need to have a good understanding of light outdoors and know how it behaves at different times of the day. You will need to know why a professional landscape photographer hardly ever shoots when the sun is in the middle of the sky.

Your understanding of light will also help you to make better judgments in terms of exposure. You will be able to use the light better and create astonishing images that can win photo competitions, the kind you see in national geographic magazines.

10. Work with the Golden Hours

Lighting is one of the most important parts of any photography . With landscapes, this usually translates into shooting during the “ golden hour ” – the hour right before sunrise and after sunset. This is when the lighting can really make your landscapes come alive.

Times to avoid are when the sun is highest (i.e. afternoon), when the intensity and angle of the light create hard shadows and washed-out colors in landscape scenes. This also allows you to capture incredible scenes as the light is scattered through the clouds.

11. Shoot Landscape Photos in Black and White

Many famous and legendary landscape photographers have shot masterpieces of landscape photos in black and white , which includes Ansel Adams, Michael Kenna, and Brett Weston.

For the best results and exciting images, you can photograph winter landscapes, trees, grass, beach, and mountains.

12. Enhance Your Photos in Post

You will need to have a post-processing workflow to ensure that the final image is close to what you envisioned. Adjusting the white balance, doing a bit of dodging and burning, adjusting the exposure, and working with the curves will give you the final image that you were after.

Keep things as simple as possible. Doing manipulative image edits is never recommended. Having said that, it should not make you over-dependent on post processing. Try to get the image right as much as possible in the camera.

Sometimes your photos aren’t completely finished until you edit and retouch your photos. There are many photo editing software programs out there to help you improve your photos. We recommend editing in Lightroom and also applying our presets for landscape photos , specially created to highlight and enhance your scenic landscape shots. Using these Lightroom presets can help you control the areas of your photos that just need that extra oomph of contrast or light.

Shooting landscapes is sometimes very challenging, considering the varying light, weather conditions, and other things a photographer confronts. If you want to get more of our tips for photographing nature and landscapes, take a look at our free landscape photography course .

See more in

wondering about the photo that is at the top of this article with the sunflowers and mountain. Is there a way I can get a print or copy? Is there a fee? Thank you

Hello Melissa, Sadly we do not sell the prints in this article however we do sell other prints. You can contact [email protected] to find out more

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• PHOTOGRAPHY

Landscape Photography Tips

We've all had the experience: Driving through a beautiful landscape, you stop at every scenic overlook to make photographs sure to capture the grandeur of what you see.

You get home, look at the pictures, and find them flat and boring. All the elements that enthralled you at the time are there, but not the feeling. Why?

When we look at a landscape, our eyes travel over it and selectively focus on the elements that we find appealing. Our field of vision encompasses a great deal of the scene, but our eyes and brains have the ability to ignore all except the most alluring details. Lenses and sensors or film cannot do this by themselves. They need help.

Time is the most important investment you can make in getting good landscape pictures. When you arrive in a place you've never visited before, spend time scouting—driving or hiking to different locations, finding different vantage points. Carry a compass to figure out where the sun will rise and set, and imagine how the place would look in different kinds of light. This can take some practice because you also have to look at where the light will not be falling. Photographing a canyon, for example, you might see that the west wall will be beautifully lit in the early morning, if the canyon is deep, however, the east wall will be in such complete shadow that your camera will be capable of rendering it only as a great black blob. Unless this is the effect you want, you'll either have to modify your composition, shoot it later in the day, or plan to return on an overcast day when both sides will be photographable.

LANDSCAPE SUBJECTS

Flowing Water

If a river or stream flows through the landscape you are shooting, think about the character of it and how to convey that character in the image. A big, slow river looks and feels different from a fast-moving mountain stream. The water can be the center of interest in the image, or it can serve as an element in your composition—as a diagonal or other leading line, as a horizontal line, or as a shape that complements other elements in the frame.

Look carefully for reflections in the water. You can use some reflections to enhance the image—the colors of reflected autumn leaves, for instance—but others may just be distracting. You may have to move around a bit to include or eliminate them, or return when the sun is at a different angle. Use a polarizing filter to eliminate some of the reflection and increase contrast; rotate it until you have the effect you want.

Photographing forests presents a different set of challenges. First, think about the character of the forest you want to shoot and the feeling you want to convey in your image. Should it feel dark and brooding, or light and airy? Are there any special features that will help express how you feel about it?

As with any photograph, find a point of interest. It might be one slightly different tree trunk, a path winding through, or a splash of color on a flowering vine. Whatever it is, compose in such a way to lead the viewer to it. Look for shafts of light penetrating the canopy or one spot on the forest floor directly lit by the sun.

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Whether you are shooting toward a forest or shooting from inside it, look for patterns, lines, and other compositional elements you can use. Try both wide and telephoto lenses. A wide lens looking up at the trees will make them soar; a telephoto will compress a row of trunks. Lie down and look straight up through the branches; climb a tree to look down the path.

Plains and Prairies

Wide-open spaces such as plains and prairies are among the hardest landscapes of all to photograph well because often they lack an obvious point of interest. In most cases, the huge scope of the scene is one of the things you're trying to communicate. Even so, remember that viewers need something on which to focus. Look for an element peculiar to that place and use it as a point of interest that says something about the scene and imparts a sense of scale. You don't want the viewer's eyes to wander aimlessly around the frame, so use whatever might be available to lead him into the image—a winding road, a stream, or a fence line, for example.

Like every forest, every plain has its own personality, so hunt around until you have found an angle and composition that reflect it. What is the most important feature of this particular place? Think about the sky. Do you want a lot or a little of it? A clear blue sky might best reflect the character of one plain, a brewing storm another. Remember the rule of thirds. If the sky is important, place the horizon along the bottom third division of the frame. If it is not, put it along the upper third.

Look for ways to show the rugged nature and the beauty of deserts. In the middle of the day, find waves caused by the heat. Using a long lens to compress them, you'll get dramatic shots that really say "hot." Deserts are also great places for pictures of stars. There is no humidity, and usually no terrestrial lights to interfere, so stars seem more numerous and are unusually brilliant. Watch the way the color of the sand changes throughout the day with the angle of the sun. Think about ways to capture the characteristics of the desert. A wide shot might best portray one desert, while a close-up of one plant struggling to survive on the side of a dune might best represent another.

Think about including the sun in your photograph—it's one sure way to say hot and harsh. But shooting the sun is tricky. On a clear day, the sun is so bright that your camera's meter will tend to underexpose everything else in the frame. Shoot in manual mode, or take a reading without the sun in frame, depressing the shutter button halfway to hold the exposure, then reframe before you shoot. If you're shooting film, bracket a lot to make sure of getting the exposure you want. With a digital camera, check the images as you shoot. Wide-angle lenses tend to work best because the blown-out sun takes up less of the image, but they are susceptible to lens flare. The advantage of SLRs is that you can see the flare when you frame the image.

Consider these different scenes: a tranquil tropic isle with turquoise water lapping at a white, sandy beach; storm waves pounding a rocky New England shore; a densely packed vacation beach. What kind of shore are you photographing, and how can you best convey it? What time of day, what kind of weather, and what season is most appropriate for showing its character? These are the kinds of questions to ask yourself while scouting for the right vantage point and composition before shooting. Every shoreline is different in some way. Show the difference in your images.

Once you have thought about the character of the shore, look for elements you can use to reinforce the feeling you're after. Palm trees make a good frame for a tropical beach; a spray of water shooting over rocks adds drama to a rugged coastal scene. As in the desert, be careful about sand. If it's windy, be sure to protect your camera and lenses from blowing sand. Don't open the camera back unless you are in an area that is well sheltered.

Are the mountains you're shooting rugged or worn, threatening or enchanting? What feeling do you get from them? Look for elements that will reinforce your feeling and convey it to the viewer. What composition, angle, light, and weather seem most appropriate? Look for the telling details that reflect the spirit of the mountains, too.

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52 Assignments: the ultimate landscape photography tips

Posted on Jan 20, 2021 • 8 minute read

52 Assignments: Landscape Photography is the latest book by Ross Hoddinott and Mark Bauer with ideas for a whole year. In our exclusive, abridged excerpt, we’ve got four assignments for you.

Buy the book

52 Assignments: Landscape Photography by Ross Hoddinott & Mark Bauer, priced at £12.99 and published by Ammonite Press, is available online and from all good bookshops. Please visit the Ammonite Press website for more details.

“Whether you are a newcomer to landscape photography, a hardened enthusiast or even a seasoned professional, it is important to keep learning and to have a purpose. This is where the role and discipline of assignments comes in to help you add to your skill set.

“Undertaking self-assignments or personal projects is key to any photographer’s development. The aim of these tasks is to spur creativity, assist with problem-solving, teach new techniques and generally help you to evolve and progress in your photography. By doing so, you will become a more able, assured and versatile photographer, capable of seeing and capturing the ‘standout’ images we all crave.

“To that end, we have set you 52 assignments. Some are relatively quick and straightforward, while others are longer-term projects. But all will help broaden your horizons and keep you motivated and creative. This is absolutely essential in an age when it can sometimes feel like everything has been photographed or ‘done’ before.

“We hope each assignment teaches you something new, however small it might be, and that we help you on your photographic journey. Experiment, don’t be scared of making mistakes and, most important of all, have fun!”

Ross Hoddinott & Mark Bauer

Assignment 09: Go slow

Cameras today can offer shutter speeds of up to 1/8000sec. However, going slow – using an exposure of one second or more – can offer more creative options. Subjects such as moving water or clouds will blur during a long exposure, producing images that convey motion with added visual interest.

There are two ways to generate a creatively long exposure. You can shoot in low light – at dawn or dusk – when the exposure is naturally long, or you can use a neutral density (ND) filter to lengthen the exposure. These filters absorb light in various strengths, up to 15 stops, allowing you to create long exposures even in good daylight. Your camera’s through-the-lens (TTL) metering will normally compensate for the filter’s density, adjusting the exposure time automatically.

For this assignment, try shooting different things – such as people or vehicles – and experiment with different shutter speeds, using ND filters of varying strengths. Also try different ISO speeds to control the amount of movement recorded. What effects do you like best? Settle on your favourite subject and approach, and use them to create a portfolio of ‘go slow’ photographs.

Field notes

Many cameras have long-exposure noise reduction, which is usually activated when exposure length exceeds 8secs. This works by making a dark frame of the same duration as your exposure. Be aware that you will be unable to take photos while this is happening. The function can be switched off via the camera’s set-up menu.

The longest automatic exposure for most cameras is 30secs. For exposures longer than this, you will need to select Bulb mode, which allows you to lock open the shutter for longer exposures.

To help you calculate longer exposures using dense ND filters, use a smartphone app such as PhotoPills.

Special kit

• Remote shutter release
• Neutral density (ND) filters
• Smartphone app, such as PhotoPills
• Avoid auto ISO when using ND filters or shooting in low light
• A sturdy tripod is essential and triggering the shutter remotely will eliminate the risk of any camera shake; use a remote shutter release or set your camera’s self-timer
• Focus and frame your shot before attaching your ND filters

Assignment 16: Create a panorama

Panoramic images have an enduring appeal, mainly because they most closely replicate our viewing experience when we look at a big vista: our eyes scan across the scene, taking it all in. The adoption of the widescreen format as standard for TV and movies has arguably boosted their popularity further in recent years.

Creating a stitched panorama is a two-stage process. First, you need to take a series of shots, then you need to combine them into a single panoramic image on the computer. Specialist software is available to ‘stitch’ images together, but excellent results can be obtained using the industry standard software, Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop. Photoshop Elements also has the facility to merge images. Specialist tripod heads for shooting panoramas are available – these make lining up your shots easier – but, unless you plan on creating a lot of them, any good, stable head will do.

Serious panorama photographers will insist that images should be shot in portrait (vertical) format, which means you will need to shoot seven or more images to provide a wide enough view. It’s certainly true that you will get less distortion if you stitch vertical images, but for this assignment you can shoot in landscape orientation and post-process using the instructions overleaf. As long as you have no close foreground, you won’t run into any serious problems. This also has the advantage of requiring fewer images, and therefore there is less chance of the light changing dramatically in the time it takes to shoot your sequence.

Click the images to see a larger view

Step 1 : Import your images and, in the Library module, select the ones you want to stitch – but don’t process any of them yet. Go to Photo > Photomerge > Panorama

Step 2 : You will see the Panorama Merge Preview dialogue box. You can choose from three projections: Spherical, Cylindrical, and Perspective. Experiment to see which looks best. In this example, Cylindrical gives the best result

Step 3 : Select Auto Crop to remove undesired transparent areas around the edges of the image

Step 4 : Use the Boundary Warp slider to warp the image to fill the canvas. This allows you to preserve parts of the image on the edges of the frame that may otherwise be lost when cropping

Step 5 : Click Merge. Lightroom creates a DNG file, which you can then process as you would any other, using Lightroom’s tone controls

Step 6 : The final, post-processed image (below) is stitched together from four horizontal images

Getting the tripod and camera completely level is the key to a good panorama. Use a tripod with a built-in spirit level to help you set up accurately – a levelling base (purchased separately from your tripod) will make this even easier. Use your camera’s electronic level if it has one or use a hot-shoe mounted bubble level. A pan-and-tilt tripod head or a three-way geared head makes it easier to get your camera level.

• Table tripod head
• Bubble spirit level (optional)
• Levelling base (optional)
• Post-processing software, such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom
• Make sure your camera is absolutely level
• Shoot in manual exposure mode, so the exposure is consistent across the frames
• Allow extra space at the top and bottom of the image for cropping
• Don’t use a polarising filter. As the camera angle changes, so will the amount of polarisation, which will be uneven across the frames as a result
• Pan the camera between each shot, allowing an overlap of around 30% from one shot to the next

Read two more exclusive abridged tips in the free-to-read digital issue 83 of Photography News.

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