Mastering landscape photography is something that requires more than just a high-quality camera. Understanding the nuances of camera settings and composition is crucial for photographers aiming to elevate their outdoor imagery, something this helpful video directly addresses.
Coming to you from Jacek Sopotnicki, this insightful video shares practical tips on achieving dramatically better landscape photos with minimal effort, focusing on optimal camera settings. He explains the advantages of shooting in AV mode with an f-stop of f/9.0, which he argues offers the perfect balance of depth of field and sharpness for landscape photography. By setting the ISO to 100 and taking advantage of the bright sunlight in southern Portugal, photographers can avoid using a tripod while still achieving a fast shutter speed of around 1/400 of a second.
Sopotnicki’s approach to landscape photography doesn’t stop at technical settings; he also delves into composition techniques that transform good shots into extraordinary ones. He demonstrates how altering the camera’s height and positioning can drastically change the photo's depth and perspective, making an already beautiful scene even more captivating. By simply lowering the camera to belly level or closer to the foreground element, photographers can capture more engaging and layered compositions. Sopotnicki emphasizes the importance of incorporating foreground elements to add depth and context to landscape shots, showing that thoughtful composition plays a significant role in achieving quality photographs. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Sopotnicki.
And if you really want to dive into landscape photography, check out our latest tutorial, "Photographing the World: Japan With Elia Locardi!"
I’ll admit it from the outset my landscape photographs are no better than average and I know exactly why and it has nothing whatsoever to do with camera settings, camera make or sensor size or even composition. It’s all down to the effort required. If you imagine you can take great landscape images with minimal effort then you need to think again. While all photography requires a good deal of effort possibly landscape requires more than most especially of the physical variety.
Taking a great landscape image requires knowledge of the location arriving there at the best time for the light and weather conditions. I’m not sure mid day with blue sky and harsh shadows will ever yield anything better than an average snap as demonstrated in the video. I know photographers who have taken several years to get the shot they had imagined camping out in remote locations to be there for that special moment when conditions are just right. All the things I’m not prepared to do! I get the feeling this video is aimed at instagramers and influencers and not photographers as it gives totally the wrong impression what Landscape photography is all about. This is all about how to improve your landscape snaps for social media.