Landscape Photography

OK, I’ll say it: the majority of the supermoon photographs on social media are not very good. When I began working on this article, I was truly looking forward to writing about the “10 Best Supermoon Photographs on Social Media.” But at the intersection of Instagram and Twitter, I took a wrong turn and just kept going... straight into the full-on dumpster fire that is the world of supermoon photographs on the Internet.

Good composition is paramount when it comes to landscape photography. Ansel Adams said, "There's nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept." You don't need the fanciest gear or the snazziest Photoshop skills to pull off a great image, but you do need a strong composition. Photographers Mads Peter Iversen and Serge Ramelli have both recently released videos with great composition tips. Check them out to start taking better landscape images immediately.

Photographers across social media channels chimed in late this week as leaked documents were made public by the Washington Post on Thursday detailing the proposed size reductions and restructuring of both the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as well as the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

Creating landscape images in wintertime is always a unique challenge filled with its own obstacles and rewards. Chasing after that one composition that you've been dying to capture, trying to get out and capture that crisp winter scene before any of the snow becomes filled with the footprints of other photographers and adventures, and simply having the opportunity to see familiar views in a completely different season is something that many photographers look forward to.

In 2016, David Strauss wrote an article on Fstoppers about how purchasing an ND filter holder set might be a better option. I, being the smartass that I am at times, left the following comment, "Or you can be really cheap and just mean stack exposures :P, plus it prevents long exposure noise." Without doing any actual comparisons between the two, I had made up my mind about filters and decided against them. Recently, however, a close friend of mine, Imran Mirza, asked me to keep an open mind and give neutral density filters a try. For that reason, I have been testing some filters from NiSi over the last few weeks. In my latest video, I compare using neutral density filters to using Photoshop techniques such as mean stacking.

Over twenty years ago Chuck O'Rear took a photo that soon became part billions of peoples everyday lives. He captured Bliss on his way to see his girlfriend, he pulled over when he spotted the perfect scene in Sonoma County California. On the side of the road with his medium format camera, he took what would soon become the most viewed image of all time as a staple of Microsoft. After twenty-one years of unimaginable fame, O'Rear is back with a tribute to the epic American nature and a reminder for us all to cherish our earth's beauties.

Nightscape and wide-angle astro photographers have a number of choices for lenses and gear that they didn't have before and NatureTTL has put together a quick rundown of 3 of the most popular lenses for astrophotography; the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art, the Rokinon SP14mm f/2.4, and the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 IF ED UMC.

These incredible, apocalyptic-looking photos, taken by Axel Sigurðarson, show the scenes that occurred during the eruptions in Iceland between August 29, 2014 and February 27, 2015.

When you think of the sky in landscape photos, I bet you think of gorgeous sunsets full of luscious, vivid colors or puffy clouds floating over a blue backdrop, perfectly complementing the elements below. You probably don't think of drab, gray skies. Nonetheless, it's still possible to get great shots with less-than-stellar views above, and this video will show you how.

If you've been out shooting recently, there's a good chance that you're now sitting down to edit a pile of photographs that capture the incredible colors that autumn brings. This brief tutorial shows you a quick and dirty trick (jump to three minutes to skip the waffle!) for getting Lightroom to make the most of those gorgeous, orangey tones.

When you think of landscape and cityscape photography, you likely think of wide angle lenses designed to maximize the amount of the scene you can fit in the frame. And while these are the first choice of many photographers, this video makes a great case for why you should also carry along a telephoto lens.

Thomas Heaton continues to produce quality videos documenting his journeys as a landscape photographer. In this video, Heaton highlights the importance of occasionally approaching a shoot without a plan in place to keep his work interesting and to spark creativity. With this in mind, he ventures out early in the morning to a local beach to capture the sunrise and is able to come away with two amazing images.

When we head out to shoot, we often have some specific image in mind, or if not a single photo, at least a certain way of going about the process. The great video reminds us that the opportunity for great images is often much more diverse than we might initially anticipate.

As a newcomer to drones and drone photography, it can be a little overwhelming in the beginning. Learning all there is to know about maneuvering your new toy through the air is enough to give you a few grey hairs before you even get it off the ground. Once you’re up there, you better believe there’s some extra tension in your muscles the first few times you fly. Once you finally get the hang of this element, it’s about time to start learning how to make great images or videos from this new perspective you’ve gained. That’s a whole new set of complications for you to deal with. It might seem cool just to have that new viewpoint for a while, but you’ll soon be wanting more. Thomas Heaton addresses that in this video about composing from the sky.

Despite an early report from photographer Drew Geraci last week, it seems that the Sony a7R III may still be affected by the so called “Star Eater” effect. What is really going on?

If you're a landscape photographer, a drone can offer all sorts of new perspectives and creative opportunities. This great video talks about using one, getting good shots, and working around their limitations.

You've probably been there before: stuck in a creative rut. I know I have. It's easy to get into when you're shooting the same subject matter over and over again. Don't believe me? Try shooting ecommerce on white non-stop for a month and you'll see what I mean. But sometimes all you need is a change in perspective to set things right, figuratively and literally.

Thomas Heaton created a new set of videos last week about one of my favorite topics and shooting styles: landscape panoramas. I love photographing night skies and landscapes this way and the technique overall is very simple yet can give fantastic results. The best time to start learning how to shoot panoramas is during the day and Heaton takes us through his photography of a great autumn scene and explains what, why, and how he is capturing the images before he goes into his post processing.

It can be easy when you have a certain image in mind to get locked into attempting to get it, causing you to end up missing other great shots because you're either focused on the one in your head or frustrated that you missed it for whatever reason. This great video reminds us that it's important to keep our eyes and minds open when that's the case.

Students often ask me a rhetorical question: “What is it like to be a professional landscape photographer?” Well, it’s fantastic if you’re into the outdoors, natural landscapes, and of course photography. However, that’s not entirely the point of the question. The real question you want to ask though, is “How do you find a sustainable income to support such a career?” Typically, we all have a preconceived idea of what a landscape photographer does for a living. But that idea seems to stem from a time when there weren't that many people in the business.

Lenses are obviously some of the most talked about pieces of photography equipment out there. However, there's one type of photography that requires no lens at all. This neat video follows a photographer as he spends a day shooting landscapes with a pinhole camera.

In August 2016, Sony made a firmware modification to the a7R II and a7S II cameras. Among the changes was a new algorithm designed to reduce noise during long exposure photography. Unfortunately, the new noise reduction approach was a bit too aggressive and the astrophotographer community quickly realized that the new filtering method was removing minor stars during exposure longer than 3.2 seconds. They named this issue the “star-eater” effect and many specialists called Sony for a change. Photographer and time-lapse expert Drew Geraci is happy to report that the problem has been fixed in the new Sony a7R III.

Knowing how to visualize a shot in your head before you take it is an important step in the creative process, else you're simply firing off shots and hoping for a good edit to come out of the process. This great video follows a landscape photographer from pre-visualization all the way to printed photo.

Ultra-high-resolution photography has been around for years now but the technical difficulties associated with the creation of gigapixel images tend to limit the artistic output of this type of photography. People find it incredibly fascinating and like to explore every little detail of a scene, but they wouldn't want to put one on their wall as artwork. The aesthetic is often sacrificed in the race for resolution. That’s precisely why a group of photographers joined forces to create a collective called VAST in order to conciliate beauty and high definition.

In a lot of genres, you have to shoot quickly and efficiently, lest you'll possibly miss an important shot. In other genres and situations, being in too much of a rush can be what actually causes you to miss the shot or come home with less-than-stellar results. This great video examines the idea of patience.

In April 2016 I featured a video of one of my favorite places on Earth: Lofoton, Norway by the brilliant filmmaker, Dennis Schmelz. Well, Schmelz is back at it again, this time with The Beauty of Greenland in glorious 4K.

The one thing that ties us all together here is our passion for photography. For some of us, it's a beloved hobby, while for others, it's a career. This awesome video tells the story of how photography has had a positive impact in one person's life.

Outdoor Adventure Photographer Chris Burkard has spent much of his career documenting the harmony of man and nature around the world. Best known for his surfing photography, Burkard recently directed a documentary called "Under an Arctic Sky" about a group of surfers venturing to Iceland in the dead of winter in search of waves. This recently released behind the scenes showcases the daunting and treacherous production.

We all like to get results and to know that our efforts have not been for naught. Sometimes, though, getting that killer shot is just not in the cards, often because of forces outside our control, which is when it's important to remember how effort and persistence will eventually pay off.

The Italian town of Positano is one of the travel destinations adored by photographers and tourists because of its colorful and dynamic scenery. If you want to know how Landscape Photographer Elia Locardi photographed Positano and many other beautiful locations, check out Fstoppers' latest tutorial "Photographing the World 3." But before that, you need to be aware of the new taxes imposed by city council of the beautiful Italian town, regarding permits for photography and video.

The new season of Photographing the World 3 behind the scenes is now in full swing! In this week's episode, the gang heads down the Amalfi Coast and settles into the small town of Atrani. Here Elia Locardi teaches something I didn't think was possible: capturing star trails in a light polluted town. Of course, our food adventures continue but we also share some of our photography tips for getting great time-lapses straight out of camera. Oh, and yes Donald Trump takes his oath of office.

What is it about landscape photography that draws us back into nature? Is it waiting for the perfect light to hit the mountains overlooking a vast, green valley? Is it sitting on a rocky shore, listening to and witnessing the sheer power of Mother Nature's waves crash against the rocky shore? Is it the calmness of a misty pine forest at dawn, waiting for the sunrise and hearing the gentle crack of the trees, as a gentle breeze sweeps through the branches? Or is it the thrill of chasing a storm, down a highway in the countryside, while being pelted with hail the size of golf balls?

The latest in the “More Than Just Parks” video series has just been released and was worth the wait. On display in beautiful 4K is the vast 400-square-mile Rocky Mountain National Park teeming with mountain vistas and hardy wildlife.

There are two ways to photography: registration and creation. Let me be clear that, before we get into a short essay about self-acceptance in art, neither is better than the other. While I’d like to teach you today about conscious creation, registration is the inherent nature of photography. But the way we modify and modulate light before it hits the sensor, as well as the entire process after it, is all up to us and not the camera manufacturer.

If you are an outdoor photographer of any kind, bad weather is something that will eventually affect you. In his latest video, landscape photographer Thomas Heaton ventures out to the coast of Northern Ireland in rough conditions. He shares the benefits of shooting in bad weather, some tips for dealing with the outdoors, as well as the joy he finds in journeying through the wind and rain to get the image he wants.

When we think of landscape photography, the default image our mind imagines is probably some sweeping view with gorgeous golden light and epic scenery. Nonetheless, that's not the only look you can get in landscape work, and as this helpful video shows, you can pull impressive images even out of the worst conditions.

The problem with photography (or really, any creative pursuit) is that you can have all the variables in place and have prepared yourself as well as possible, only to feel the creativity drift away from you like some nebulous cloud you grasp at only to watch your hand pass right through it. This video examines the idea of when it's time to take a break.

Large format photography is its own beast, with all sorts of considerations and technical know-how needed to pull it off successfully, not the least of which being that the equipment is often simply unwieldy. Nonetheless, that extra work is not without a payoff, as the resultant images can be full of gorgeous detail. This neat video takes a look at a different way of going about landscape images.

A few weeks ago we released "Photographing the World 3," the newest installment of Elia Locardi's PTW series. As with with many of our tutorials, we have also produced a behind-the-scenes series that shows exactly how we filmed and produced this landscape tutorial. You can watch all of the PTW 3 behind the scenes here, but in this week's episode Elia covers the importance of scouting, Lee discovers a way to make his sandwiches even tastier, and I test out one of Tamron's newest lenses for time-lapse.

Here is a great video with some tips and tricks for photography in a tropical setting. Something that I'm sure a lot of us would kill for the opportunity to travel and shoot, the folks over at NatureTTL have some advice to save yourself a headache in the event you have that chance. If you want to save yourself some time and avoid learning things the hard way, give this video a watch as they break down a few different basic ideas to help you prepare for the climate.

Landscape photographer Thomas Heaton has been releasing one hit after another on his Youtube channel lately and his newest video is one of my favorites. Focus stacking is a great and relatively simple trick any photographer can use to add a unique look to your images.

Landscape photography is a frustrating and rewarding pursuit (often simultaneously). It can involve hours of hard physical exertion and enduring less-than-stellar conditions for a payoff that might never arrive. Yet, sometimes, nature surprises the photographer and makes the exertion all worth it.

I don't care when the song was originally referring to, because fall is the most wonderful time of the year. As this great video highlights, autumn is full of inspiring creative opportunities that are an absolute joy to shoot and can yield some really impressive imagery. Here are seven ideas for fall photographs.

Every landscape photographer needs a good wide-angle lens. Popular YouTuber Thomas Heaton discusses his new Canon 16-35 f/4 lens and offers some tips on the best way to use an ultra-wide-angle lens.

What do you do if that one location you want to photograph on your trip just happens to be one that hundreds if not thousands of other people also want to photograph? It can be a tricky situation to navigate. Sometimes it can be straight up frustrating. After too many instances where I found myself just being irritated, I found a few different ways to approach my shots of popular destinations that allowed me to capture what I wanted without having to feel like I was fighting crowds just for my shot.

Time-lapses have become exceedingly popular over the last several years and it's easy to become numb to them after a while. It takes an extraordinarily good time-lapse to capture a viewer's attention and stand out. Martin Heck of Timestorm Films has done just that with his 8K time-lapse film of the Dolomites mountain range in Northern Italy.

A few months back, I was getting the feeling that I needed to start traveling to see more of the beautiful world we live in. At the time it was just a thought until my buddy Tom Harmon called me up and asked if I'd want to go out to Oregon with him. Of course I had to take him up on the offer and I was excited to leave New Jersey for once. I knew that if we were going to be in Oregon for just three days, we'd better plan a hell of a trip to fit in all the spots we wanted to go see. Finally, it was the night before the trip and we had finalized the locations we were going to go. With everything planned out, we were ready to get out to Oregon for some droning.

Fall is here folks and that means that if you're able to get outside, you should definitely not miss the chance to do so. We have lots of articles and videos going around about fall colors with tips and tricks about making the most of your outdoor excursions this time of year. Here's another really great video definitely worth your time with some great information about rivers, fall colors, and some macro photography.

Photographers who are active on social media often get a lot of questions about the technicalities of photography. Especially about nightscape photography – the subgenre of landscape imaging where you basically have a dark landscape set to some celestial backdrop featuring twinkly stars. Either through commenting on a shared image, a direct message, or an email, people ask about the type of gear that was used to capture a specific shot or any of the numerous variables that make up a given photo. Variables that range from the time of day to how many degrees of rotation on the polarizing filter. But this time I got an email that announced the inevitable demise of the subgenre of nightscape photography. But there’s a strong, intrinsic motivation for nightscape photography that I want to share with you here.

There's probably no other genre in which long exposures are so heavily used than landscape photography. The convenience of mostly static subjects combined with the necessity of low ISOs means landscape shooters are often pushing their exposures well past the one-minute mark. This interesting video examines three variations on long exposures of similar subjects and how they produce different results.