How to Get Amazing Scenery Photographs with a DSLR
Shooting scenic photography looks easier than it actually is. Simply standing in front of nice scenery and clicking a shutter release rarely result in a good shot. A small two-dimensional image will not convey the impressiveness of a vast natural panorama without a great deal of attention to detail. You need the right technique, composition, aperture and shutter speed to get the perfect image.
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Instructions
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Composition
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Decide what you are actually shooting. Your eye can take in everything, but your camera can't. Is the spectacular image the way rocks cluster on a hillside or the gnarled texture of a single juniper? Decide on one focal point for your image and compose around it.
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Walk around. Look at your subject from several angles. Sit on the ground. Climb up on a rock or car. Experiment with vertical and horizontal compositions. Shift position until you have the best foreground and background for your subject.
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Set your camera on a tripod. Use your zoom lens to precisely frame your subject. Look at the edges of your image to make sure you don't have partly cropped objects like half of a car or a partial tree in the sides or corners.
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Consider the sky. Unless you have spectacular clouds or sunsets, the sky should occupy no more than one third of your image.
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Avoid placing your subject in the center of the picture. Create dynamic angles rather than dividing your composition into horizontal bands.
Light
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Wait for the right light. The best photographs are usually taken in the "magical" 15 minutes just after sunrise or just before sunset. Professionals scout locations and then return the next day so that they can set up in advance 30 or 40 minutes early to maximize the number of shots they can get in perfect lighting.
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Shoot flowers in open shade or when overcast, framing your shot so no sky is included. Vegetation and wildlife look best in shadow-free light. Everything looks stunning when mist rises off a lake just at sunrise. Dramatic storm clouds give great light and skies at any time of day.
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Watch the position of the sun. Imagine that you are standing on a giant clock with your subject at 12 and you at six o'clock. You want the sun between three and five hand or seven and nine.
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Compensate for slightly back-lit subjects or ugly shadows by using fill flash set at two f-stops under ambient light. Bounce the flash off a diffuser hood for the best effect.
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Darken a hazy or overly bright sky with a polarizing or haze filter.
Camera Settings
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Single out an image by shooting a telephoto wide open, that is at its greatest possible aperture, usually under f 5.6. If you stand so that you are not focused at infinity, maximum aperture will blur everything outside your focal plane and isolate your subject.
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Create a panoramic effect by going to the opposite extreme and shooting a wide angle lens at f 22 for maximum depth of field -- as this will result in a very slow shutter speed. Mount your camera securely on its tripod and use a remote shutter release to avoid camera shake.
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Blur waterfalls with exposures of more than one second by using the minimum possible aperture on your lens and then adding a neutral density filter if necessary.
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References
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
