Photo tips. Lens for landscape. Wide-angle lenses and landscape photography

I tried to summarize my experience in landscape photography and give the most important tips for beginner photographers. I hope my tips will help you learn how to shoot a very beautiful, memorable landscape.

Landscape photography allows you to preserve memories of those rare moments and helps you mentally transport yourself to your favorite places. But it’s one thing to shoot for yourself, and another thing to convey the atmosphere of a place to people who have never been there. Not everyone can do this.

We are used to living in cities, among concrete and glass. Many people only occasionally manage to escape into nature, enjoy clean air, clear water and piercing silence. And therefore, every meeting with nature seems special, you want to remember it for a long time.

1. Plan your trip in advance

Oddly enough, the work on creating a beautiful landscape begins long before pressing the shutter button - it begins with planning a trip. Wherever you are going to spend your vacation, in the Altai mountains or in middle lane on the shore of the lake, collect as much information as possible about this place in advance. Analyze satellite images and topographic maps– from them, for example, you can understand which mountain peaks will be illuminated at sunset or dawn. Find photos other people have taken of the area - even if they're shot on a point-and-shoot camera, this will help you get a better idea of where you'll be shooting. Highlight the most interesting features of the area - it could be a beautiful mountain peak, or an unusual tree on the bank of a river - and concentrate your attention on these objects.

Lake Poperechnaya Multa, Altai Mountains, mid-September.

2. Explore the area

Surely many of you have found yourself in a situation where, at the sight of the colors of the flaring sunset, a person begins to fuss and tries to take off at least something to capture the rapidly disappearing light. In such a situation, you are doomed to failure. To avoid this, devote everything you have to free time exploring the area. If you're vacationing by a lake, walk around the lake and find interesting places on its shore (for example, stones covered with variegated lichen or a stream flowing from a lake).

Take a walk through the forest or along a river, climb higher up the slope - somewhere you will definitely find something unusual and beautiful. During such research walks, take test shots so that later in the evening you can view them in a calm atmosphere and choose the most interesting places for shooting. And when the sky once again lights up with sunset colors, you must stand at a point you have previously chosen with your camera at the ready.

I found this shooting point after several hours of exploring the area.

3. Landscape is, first of all, light

Most amateurs prefer to shoot at midday, when the sunlight is very harsh. However, photographs tend to come out flat, with muddy colors and excessive contrast. Meanwhile, the sunlight is most beautiful and soft during regular hours - at sunrise and sunset, plus or minus an hour. Try to shoot during regular hours, and you will see how your photos will sparkle with completely different colors.

During research walks, use a compass to understand where the sun will rise and set - think in advance where it is better to shoot sunrise and sunset. Exact time and the location (azimuth) of sunrise and sunset can be found, for example, using The Photographer’s Ephemeris program (http://photoephemeris.com).

A sunrise of rare beauty, photographed by me completely alone - the rest of the tourists were sleeping at that time. When they woke up, they saw only the sky covered with gray clouds.

4. Photographic equipment

Always use a tripod. If you have a choice between bringing a tripod or an extra lens, choose a tripod. A tripod can turn the simplest camera into a powerful tool that allows you to shoot landscapes in almost any conditions. It is advisable that the tripod allows you to install the camera at any height from 20 cm to 1.5-2 m. The weight of the tripod is not so important if you are not going to shoot in a stormy wind.

I recommend using a wide-angle lens; it is most popular when shooting landscapes. For example, if you are shooting with a DSLR camera with a crop factor of 1.5, it could be a lens with a focal length range of 10-20 or 12-24; respectively, for full-frame cameras – 16-35 or 17-40.

A tripod is a landscape photographer's most powerful weapon.

5. Shooting from a low position

If you find an interesting foreground to photograph (for example, flowers or rocks covered in moss), try lowering the camera on the tripod. This will focus attention on the foreground and make the photo more expressive.

Shooting from a low position (40cm above the ground) made it possible to focus attention on the flowers by visually increasing their size in the photograph.

6. Depth of field

In a landscape, every area of the photograph needs to be sharp, from the grass in the foreground to the snow-capped mountain peaks in the background. To achieve the desired depth of field, relatively large aperture numbers are usually used - from f/8 to f/16. How larger number aperture, the greater the depth of field. However, it should be remembered that when large values At aperture numbers (f/16 and higher), sharpness can deteriorate significantly due to diffraction.

The f/13 aperture made it possible to sharpen almost the entire scene from rocks to mountains.

7. Dynamic range

Dynamic range (DR) is the difference in brightness between the lightest and darkest parts of the scene. When shooting sunsets and sunrises, the camera often cannot cope with the large DD of the scene, and white “overexposures” and black “underexposures” may appear in the picture. The easiest way to avoid such problems is not to shoot in backlight. For example, instead of filming the sunset itself, try turning the camera 90 degrees and filming the mountains illuminated by the last rays of the sun.

The DD of this scene is significantly less than that of the sunset, which was blazing behind me at that time.

8. Volume

A good landscape should have volume. Our eyes always see a three-dimensional picture, since we have two eyes. But the camera only has one “eye”, so in order for the photo to become three-dimensional, you need to make an effort. The sense of volume in a photograph is created through tonal and spatial perspective. Volume can be enhanced by light. The greatest volume is achieved with side and back lighting of the landscape. Try to choose a shooting point so that the photo contains both close objects (foreground) and distant objects (background). Ideally, there is a smooth transition between different plans, for example, a stream flowing from the background to the foreground.

Spatial perspective makes the photograph more voluminous. Sunlight illuminating the ridge at an acute angle reveals its texture.

9. Get up early, go to bed late

Perhaps the most important tip. Get up an hour before dawn and go shoot, regardless of the weather. I know how difficult it can be to get up at 4 am and get out of a warm sleeping bag into the cold air, but believe me, it’s worth it. Likewise, an hour before sunset, go shoot regardless of the weather. Remember that gorgeous sunsets with rainbows only happen after rain, and in order to capture them you need to get pretty wet.

It rained an hour before sunrise. It was hard to imagine that literally half an hour later an incredibly beautiful doomsday would take place over the lake.

10. Be patient

Beautiful light does not happen often, and you will have to be patient to wait for it. No amount of advice will allow you to create dozens of beautiful landscapes a month. Even the best landscape photographers spend an average of 5-10 days creating a single image - time spent waiting for light. This needs to be taken into account when planning a trip - if you stay in some place for less than a few days, then the likelihood of taking a beautiful photo in this place is close to zero.

Taiga Eye Lake, Ergaki Natural Park

P.S. Ask your questions in the comments..

Summer is the most time of grace year for landscape photographers who, armed with their favorite cameras, are ready to wander from morning to evening in search of successful shots. But if everything is more or less clear with cameras, then the debate about whether in a given situation is already ongoing for a long time. Likewise, there is an ongoing debate about which is better - a fixed focus or a zoom lens. Probably, in the end, it all depends on personal preferences, but certain patterns can still be identified. This article examines the advantages of different Canon lenses in relation to specific situations and gives approximate recommendations for their use.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS

A great all-around lens for travel, landscapes and wildlife photography. Works great on the EOS-1D Mk IV too. Is different good quality assembly and provides decent image quality at an affordable price. The focal length and speed are ideal for both outdoors and indoors, although the image stabilization is only two-stop. However, Canon promises to release a Series II version with a new coating and a four-stage stabilizer.

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II

This lens is ideal for wide-angle landscape photography on full frame cameras such as the 1Ds Mk III or . It can also be used as an all-purpose lens on the EOS-1D Mk IV when traveling. It is distinguished by exceptional sharpness and speed, due to which it can be used in rooms where flash photography is prohibited. There is a slight lack of image stabilization, but its presence would make the lens feel heavier. And for those for whom the cost of the lens is important, we can recommend the Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L.

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS

One of the best lenses in the EF-S line. Works perfectly on the EOS-7D and can easily be used as a general purpose lens general purpose. It's certainly not cheap, but the build and image quality are top notch, and the constant aperture across the entire focal length range ensures excellent results in low-light conditions.

Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye

This lens has a unique focal length range and is the widest fisheye lens on the market. It provides a 180-degree diagonal image angle on all EOS cameras from full frame to APS-C and is capable of producing circular images on full frame EOS cameras. With AquaTech equipment it can be successfully used for underwater photography. And on land, with its help you can get unusual, spectacular and creative photographs of nature.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II

This super-sharp, fast lens is ideal for photographing wildlife and animals with close range. The image stabilizer provides four steps of correction at any focal length. The latest version of the lens is especially good. Thanks to its low weight, it is great for travel. Works well with 1.4 and 2x telescopic extender attachments. The lens has a rugged design and is suitable even for harsh environments.

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS

Thanks to light weight and a wide range of focal lengths, the lens is well suited for travel and shooting large natural objects and large animals (for example, whales) in good lighting. Equipped with an excellent image stabilizer with an advantage of four shutter speeds. Disadvantages include the inability to use extenders and the lack of a tripod mount.

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS

A lightweight, versatile lens for nature and animal photography. To change the focal length, a high-speed push-pull system (forward and back) is used, in which the approach is carried out not by scrolling the ring, but by simply moving the frame forward or backward. The advantage of such a system is speed, but the disadvantage is the high probability of dust getting on the lens. Works well with the 1.4x extender on the EOS-1D, delivering decent image quality. According to rumors, in next year Canon will release a new EF 100-400mm f/4-5.6L IS II to replace this lens.

Canon EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L IS

The EF 28-300mm is suitable for situations where it is not possible to carry multiple lenses with you or there is no time to change them during the shooting process. This is a versatile, multifunctional zoom lens with a large (10x) zoom range. The minimum focusing distance at any focal length is only 70 cm. On APS-C format devices, it can successfully replace a macro lens. Among the disadvantages, one can note the weight – 1.67 kg.

Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS

Another excellent lightweight and compact telephoto lens that is great for wildlife photography. If speed is not your main criterion, it will replace even the EF 300mm f/2.8L II IS, since the difference in sharpness is very small, and its weight and price are much less. It works well with a 1.4x extender, and, if necessary, with a 2x extender on the EOS-1D body (though the image quality drops). The undoubted advantages of the lens are mobility, excellent quality and a built-in light-protective hood.

Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS

Arguably the best Canon lens for wildlife photography. While it's not the sharpest in Canon's lineup, it's unparalleled when it comes to the optimal combination of speed, quality and weight. Those who spend whole days shooting, and even without a tripod, will definitely appreciate its advantages. It does an excellent job of capturing moving objects, such as birds in flight. Works well with 1.4 and 2x extenders, which makes it possible to shoot handheld at a focal length of 1000 mm, without any tripod, providing incredible freedom of action. Now awaiting release new version Series II with 4-stop image stabilization and innovative coating.

Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II

The best Canon telephoto lens for shooting with a tripod. It is one of the sharpest in Canon's lineup and is ideal for landscape and wildlife photography. Unfortunately, Series I is currently on hold; the Series II version is released instead. This is a lighter lens with improved optics, but is significantly more expensive. If you already have the Series I version, there is no point in upgrading to the Series II, as all the improvements do not justify the inflated price.

Greetings, dear readers! In touch with you, Timur Mustaev. Some amateur photographers consider landscape one of the most basic genres of photography. To some extent, I share their point of view: go wherever you like, and shoot whatever comes into your head.

Plus, unlike studio shooting, which requires considerable financial costs, nature will not disappear and will not require anything in return except careful treatment of it, and the situation changes depending on the time of year, giving scope for imagination.

But is the landscape really that simple? Let's figure it out together.

Let's start the debriefing, perhaps, with the definition of this genre and its place in human reality.

Landscape in photography

Scenery is a genre in which nature is the center of the image.

This trend originated in the era of the absence of cameras, when famous and not so famous artists went out into the open air and conveyed what they had seen with the help of brushes and paints.

That is why understanding the meaning of this genre should be learned from realist artists.

Paintings, like nothing else, allow you to experience all the beauty of nature; they are inextricably linked with the inner world of a person, with his feelings, mood and love for life in general.

And in photography, a landscape is not a thoroughly accurate redrawing of this or that corner of nature, but one’s own perception of the world.

Modern landscape photography is quite versatile. Exhibitions of such materials instill in the viewer an artistic taste and develop imagination by drawing associative parallels between real life and pictures.

The relationship between photographic art and life gave rise to a new direction - the urban landscape, in which the dominant element is not nature, but the brainchild of society - the city with its numerous streets, architectural objects, squares, as well as an endless stream of cars and pedestrians.

The urban and classical landscape captivates even the most stingy photographers! And there is an explanation for this: by shooting in this genre you can get excellent shots without using expensive equipment.

All you need is desire, patience, a tripod, an SLR camera, and some skills in using it.

Shooting in this genre, as in any other genre, is, first of all, a creative process, accompanied by your own vision of what is happening, but, oddly enough, there are many rules, the observance of which will save you from failure.

Landscape photography

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine: in front of you are stretched out spaces of unprecedented beauty and it seems that as soon as you press the shutter, the most beautiful image that the world has never seen will appear on the camera display...

Capture this episode in your memory and open your eyes, your fantasy will remain a fantasy, and you will never learn how to photograph a landscape if you neglect the rules listed below.

Maximum sharpness. Many photographers practice shooting landscapes with an open aperture, however, “many” is not an indicator of good work.

A classic technique for landscape photography is focusing on the entire image (shooting with a closed aperture).

Usually it is enough to make simple camera settings to get a sharp and moderately exposed photo: the slider is around f/11-16, but you can trust the automatic if you shoot at . However, to avoid movement, it is better to shoot landscapes using or.

Having meaning. For any photo, it is important to have a semantic center of the composition, so that, as they say, the eye has something to catch on to. The center of attention can be anything: an interesting shaped building, a tree, a mountain, a ship in the middle of a sea, etc.
Rule of thirds in the overall composition of the frame. The location of the semantic center relative to all elements and details of the picture is as important as the presence of sharpness.

The reference says: a photo looks most advantageous when the objects being photographed are conventionally separated by lines that divide the image into three parts, both lengthwise and crosswise.

Thoughtful foreground. Place the semantic centers on the front part of the photo, leaving “air space” in front, this way you will be able to create the effect of lightness and convey depth.
Dominant element. The secret of successful nature photography has been revealed - either the sky or the foreground should dominate the picture.

If your photos don't fit this description, most likely, they will be considered boring and ordinary.

If it happens that the sky during the photo shoot is uninteresting and monochromatic, move the horizon line to the upper third, so you will not allow it to prevail over the rest.

But if it seems that the airspace is about to explode or collapse on the ground with streams of lava, give it 2/3 of the frame and you will see how much the plot of what is happening can change.

Lines. There are endless ways to capture the beauty of nature to its fullest. One of them is the technique of including active lines in the composition. With the help of lines, you can redirect the viewer’s gaze from one semantic point of the photo to another, while creating a certain enclosure of space.

Lines not only create patterns in a photo, but also add volume. This also applies to the horizon line, beyond which you constantly need an eye and an eye.

Movement. Many people consider landscape photographs to be calm and passive. But this is not necessarily the case! You can add life to a photo with the help of water or wind, for example, use a DSLR camera to capture the violence of the ocean or a flowing waterfall, the blowing of the wind or the falling of leaves from a tree, the flight of birds or the movement of people.

The influence of weather and time on the quality of landscape photography

The Golden Rule of Landscape: “The scene and subject matter can change dramatically overnight, depending on weather conditions and the time of year.”

It is a mistake to believe that best time for natural shots - a sunny day.

In cloudy weather, in terms of lighting effects, it is a pleasure to shoot: hail, sleet and thunderstorms can fill any landscape with an ominous, mysterious mood.

However, there is a side effect - the possibility of getting your feet wet, getting sick and saying goodbye to your DSLR forever, since moisture can have a devastating effect on all electronics.

To avoid this, plan your day in advance, take your preparations seriously: think about what to wear and what to wrap your camera in. For these purposes, it is best to purchase a waterproof case or at least one that protects the lens from drops getting on the lens.

Shooting in the rain doesn't have to be - it's just one way to achieve artistic images.

This creates a very soft diffused light, giving the pictures a lightness and a special sleepy look.

A forest covered in fog will look much more mysterious and attractive than on a sunny day.

Although if shooting takes place in summer or autumn, the light shining through the foliage can create an interesting look at an open aperture.

During sunset, using , you can photograph no less interesting landscapes, especially if the foreground is slightly backlit.

To avoid bunnies, use a lens hood or. This filter in landscape photography simply irreplaceable.

Night photography is technically the most difficult. Taking pictures of nature in full nature is pointless due to the lack of light. Therefore, you need to go where there are artificial light sources - the city.

In this case, it’s not worth using the flash continuously, raise the value to 800-1600 and go towards the city landscape!

A brief educational program on the topic of landscape photography has reached its point of no return! I hope this article was at least somewhat instructive and useful. I think that I have conveyed to you the meaning of how to photograph a landscape correctly in order to achieve the desired results.

If you are an aspiring photographer who wants to achieve positive success in photography, then everything is in your hands. The best place to start is with the concept of your DSLR camera. And one of the video courses below can become an assistant. Most novice photographers, after studying this course, began to have a different attitude towards SLR camera. The course will help you reveal everything important functions and DSLR settings, which is very important at the initial stage.

My first MIRROR- for owners of a CANON DSLR.

Digital SLR for a beginner 2.0- for owners of a NIKON DSLR.

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All the best to you, Timur Mustaev.

It's time to talk about what equipment is needed for landscape photography? Let's start with the camera. If you apply a creative approach to the filming process, you can shoot a landscape with almost any camera. Of course, the better the camera you have, the better the result will be. Ideally, despite the rapid development of digital technology, wide-format film cameras are still considered the most suitable for landscape photography... But what about digital SLR cameras - are they really not suitable?

Text: Alexander KITSENKO

Dmitry Bogachuk. Kiev-Pechersk Lavra,

Nikon D80, Nikkor18-200 mm f/3.5-5.6, f/9.5, ISO 100, panorama.

The soft light brightened up the already beautiful place, giving the photo the right mood. High point The shooting allowed us to effectively show the scale and grandeur of the opening view.

Selection of photographic equipment

If you have visited photo exhibitions of famous artists, you probably noticed that for some reason there are no photographs taken with mobile phones, and that a photograph printed in size of a meter or more on the long side looks much more impressive than the classic 10x15 cm...

A professionally scanned wide slide provides an incredible amount of resolution for printing on large formats, and the “film” color and contrast add a special charm to the photograph.

But the use of such a technique requires a thorough knowledge of the shooting processes (film, especially slide film, does not give any room for error, especially if you consider the ratio of the number of reels you take with you and the emotional impulse to press the button) and a lot of banknotes (taking into account the cost of film, scanning, etc. .).

The next, and currently most common, option is to use a digital SLR camera. I will not dwell in detail on the types and brands, but I will briefly say this: modern digital SLR cameras, without exception, allow landscape photography to be done at a quite decent level, and only the photographer himself can be to blame for unsuccessful photographs.

If the question of choosing a camera is not so important, then choosing optics is the most difficult and expensive task. The requirements for optics used in landscape photography are very high, and not every lens can produce the desired result.

For amateur photographers, zoom lenses in the mid- and high-price categories are most suitable. Professional fixes show the best results.

To summarize the above, it is better to purchase an inexpensive camera and expensive optics, rather than vice versa. After all, it is the lens that draws light, not the matrix or film.

The range of focal lengths used in landscape photography is comprehensive.

What lenses and in what cases are used when shooting landscapes.

Lenses	Purpose, features	Practical use
Ultra wide and wide angle	have a wide angle of view, perfectly emphasize the perspective in the frame, due to the small size of MDF, they work out the foreground to the smallest detail, differ high level perspective distortions	When it's plot important elements are located close to the shooting point (literally at a distance of several meters); If it is necessary to emphasize perspective (space) and enhance the effect of volume; To create the visual effect of a large depth of field (I emphasize - only an effect, in fact, the depth of field does not depend on the focal length)
Normal	keep geometric proportions close to those seen by the human eye	the objects being photographed (terrain) retain their usual shapes and scale, while the perspective is conveyed less pronounced than when using wide-angle optics, the viewing angle in the frame decreases (often used as “framing”, i.e. cutting off unnecessary details)
Telephoto lenses	“brings closer” the shooting objects, compresses the perspective, creates the effect of small depth of field, geometric distortions are minimal	allow you to literally “cut out” shooting subjects from general plans, effectively separate them from the background, shoot any objects or natural phenomena without approaching dangerous distances (for example, volcanoes, floods, women...)

The next important tools for creating high-quality landscape photography are a tripod and tripod heads.

It is simply impossible to shoot most complex scenes without a tripod, since they all require either a long shutter speed or several takes of the same frame with different exposures. Without a good tripod head, it can be very difficult to take panoramic views (for combining single frames in appropriate programs). An excellent addition to a tripod would be cable releases and camera remote controls.

Another indispensable tool is filters. Wide Application The following filters have been found in landscape photography:

Polarizing - remove glare from non-metallic surfaces (relevant when shooting wet foliage, grass, sea coast etc.), enhance the contrast and some of the saturation of images, and are indispensable when shooting scenes that include a large part of the sky;

Neutral grays - reduce the amount of light falling on the light receiver (film or matrix), allow you to set long shutter speeds when shooting, for example, seascapes and moving water (to create a “milk” effect), in city landscapes - to eliminate “extraneous” moving objects (cars, people);

Gradient - allow you to shoot scenes with a large difference in brightness in the frame: sunrises, sunsets, etc.;

Colored - intended for artistic tinting of photographs at the shooting stage.

A serious success factor is the photographer’s choice of clothing, because the number of photographs taken directly depends on the ability to stay in certain conditions for a long time. I'm on personal experience I became convinced of the truth of what was said when, running in ankle-deep summer shoes in wet snow, I very quickly lost inspiration and the ability to think creatively. The approach to the selection of equipment should be similar.

Technical aspects of landscape photography

Next, I propose to consider some shooting techniques that are relevant for the landscape genre. Let's start with the shooting parameters. The factors that determine the parameters of the image will be the aperture, shutter speed and sensitivity in various combinations.

The aperture is determined based on the subject of the photo and the lens parameters. In most cases, landscape photography requires a large depth of field, so the aperture should be stopped down to achieve greater depth of field. If the goal is to highlight the subject being photographed, it is advisable to use small aperture values to blur the background. Remember that the most high quality picture obtained at average values.

Shutter speed depends on many factors, and each time you need to carefully evaluate the situation before shooting. When shooting a “standard” landscape from a tripod in calm weather, shutter speed does not play a special role; the determining parameter will be the aperture.

And in windy weather, to “freeze” swaying grass and leaves, short shutter speeds should be used. In each case, the value is determined experimentally or by eye, based on experience.

The shutter speed is set in the same way when shooting flying snow or falling water: it’s almost never possible to guess with one shutter speed how beautiful and spectacular the snow or waterfall will be.

When shooting without a tripod, a simple formula to remember is that a safe shutter speed for handheld shooting is approximately 1/F, where F is the 35mm equivalent focal length. If stabilization is present, the safe shutter speed may increase.

Sensitivity. By changing the sensitivity we can partially solve the issues of correct exposure. When shooting with film equipment, changing the sensitivity is a rather painful topic, since until you finish shooting the entire film, the sensitivity cannot be changed.

In digital cameras this problem has been solved, but there are certain limitations, because, as we know, one of the pitfalls in photographic equipment remains a significant decrease in the quality of images with increasing sensitivity - digital noise.

Ideally, the lower the sensitivity, the less noise will appear and the more high quality photo can be obtained. Of course, this statement does not apply to those works where noise is an integral part of the image.

Landscapes from our planet

Mikhail Vershinin, Blue taiga, (Krasnoyarsk Pillars, Russia)

On Christmas frosts, immediately after sunset, fog stretched over the Yenisei. The presence of a foreground made it possible to realistically convey the space in the frame, and the curves of the slopes added grace to the photo.

Vadim Balakin. Oasis, (Death Valley, California, USA)

Canon EOS 5D, Canon EF100-400 mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM.

Rhythmic waves of sand, like time, wash a lonely island of life. Low light played a huge role in the frame, allowing the author to better emphasize the wavy texture of the sand and give the image volume.

Vadim Balakin. When the Stars Light Up (Indian Beach, Oregon, USA)
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 20 mm, f/11, 25 s, ISO 100, X-PRO Cokin filters: ND4 + Gradual ND8.

The shore of unearthly beauty is picturesquely complemented by marine inhabitants. A clear division into plans, the presence of perspective in the frame, soft warm colors make the picture a classic landscape.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to the following photographers for their work:

Alexander Nesterovsky (Ukraine), www.nesterovskyi.com

Yury Golub (Ukraine), www.yurybird.com

Mikhail Reifman (USA), www.mikereyfman.com

Mikhail Trakhtenberg (Russia), t_berg.photosight.ru

Mikhail Vershinin (Russia), vershinin.photosight.ru

Vadim Balakin (Russia), www.vadimbalakin.com

Dmitry Bogachuk (Ukraine), www.dimitribogachuk.500px.com

Landscape is probably the most popular genre that amateur photographers use to introduce themselves to artistic photography. There are many reasons for this.

Firstly, this genre is the most accessible. Unlike staged studio photography, in which you need to at least pay for renting a photo studio, nature will not escape you. If the photo is unsuccessful, then you can go to the same place again, but, for example, at a different time of day or in different weather.

Secondly, the landscape is not very demanding on the level of photographic equipment. Of course, it will be difficult to take high-quality photographs of a landscape with a cheap compact device or smartphone, but an amateur DSLR, mirrorless camera or a more or less advanced compact camera can provide quite acceptable results.

Thirdly, a landscape does not require haste, unlike, say, a reportage. It gives you the opportunity to experiment with camera settings and shooting point, try, and finally abandon the automatic mode in favor of manual. To some extent, this is filming “for the soul,” and some people find the filming process more enjoyable than watching the footage.

Based on this, one may get the opinion that landscape is a very simple genre, the lot of dummies and housewives (one “pretentious” wedding photographer put it this way, I won’t name the name). In my opinion, only those who have not tried to delve into the intricacies of landscape composition, limiting their creativity to views from the window of a house or car, can argue this way. How then to explain the fact that out of millions of landscape photographs published on the Internet, only a few evoke a feeling of admiration? So, the genre is not so simple...

What do you need to know to become good landscape photographers?

I hope you understand that the topic of landscape photography is very voluminous and it is simply impossible to fit it into a standard article on the site, so I will only talk about basic things. There are only two of these things - exposure and composition.

Exposition- this is the total light flux captured by the matrix during the opening of the shutter. This light flux is dosed using three parameters - shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity. If you don’t know what this is, or have simply forgotten, I recommend pausing reading the article and going to the Photo Tutorial. In addition to text and pictures, at this link you will find a camera “simulator”, which can be used to track how exposure settings affect the resulting image. Correct exposure is the basis of technical image quality. Sharpness can also be considered a technical quality, but I think there is no need to explain in detail what it is :) Although, if you wish, you can read the chapter of the Photobook.

Composition- this is the relative position and interaction of objects and light sources in the frame. To put it simply, if the viewer understands what the photographer wanted to tell and show with these photographs, they say that there is a composition. If a photograph is a jumble of objects that are not connected to each other in any way, interfere with each other and do not carry any special meaning, then there is no composition. Or is it so sophisticated that not everyone can understand what they wanted to show?

Let's not dig into the jungle of composition rules for now, but remember two simple rules:

Simple compositions out of 1,2, a maximum of 3 key objects are created relatively easily, and are also easily perceived by the viewer. You shouldn’t try to fit everything you see into the frame - a road, a hill, a forest, a lonely tree, a cloud, a fence, a goat in a meadow, a bridge in the distance. Concentrate on the most important and important things. Any photograph, even landscape photography, must have a plot or motive. Try not to take into the frame those objects that have nothing to do with it.
Equilibrium. Try to ensure that key objects are evenly distributed across the frame, do not interfere with each other, and do not obscure each other. It will help you with this rule of thirds. Mentally divide the frame into 3 parts horizontally and 3 parts vertically something like this:

For many cameras, you can even enable the display of such a grid on the screen. Try to “pull” large key objects to these lines, and small ones to their intersections. Intersections are also called visual centers.

If there is only one main subject in the frame, try to place it as close as possible to one of the visual centers, and so that more space remains in the direction where the subject is “looking”. Let me give you a specific example:

The house “looks” to the left in the photo, so we’ll give it more space on the left. But what if there are more key objects? Yes, everything is approximately the same - arrange them so that they “lie” on the line of thirds, and some of their prominent parts are combined with the visual centers:

However, the rule of thirds, no matter how good it is, cannot always be applied. If objects are not tied to the lines of thirds and visual centers in any way, simply position them so that there is some hint of symmetry between them relative to the center of the frame.

The above photo doesn't fit the rule of thirds by any stretch of the imagination, but it nevertheless has symmetry and balance. Take away at least one element, this balance will be disrupted.

Many people have a question - how to place the horizon line in the frame. In the middle? A little higher? A little lower? Let's take a closer look.

Example 1.

This is a composition with an “upper” horizon. It is used when you need to emphasize a small object in the foreground. In this case, it is a stone lying in water. It is located exactly in the “golden ratio” (plus or minus half a centimeter).

What will happen if in this case we use the “lower” horizon? Let's mentally lower the shooting point to the level of the height of the stone. It turns out that the stone will be against the backdrop of the dark distant shore, that is, it will be “lost.” The balance of the photo will also be lost - its bottom will be overloaded with details compared to the top.

That is, in a picture with an “upper” horizon, the foreground is key.

Example 2

And this is a composition with a “lower” horizon. It should be used if you need to emphasize the distant or middle ground. In this case, there is a close-up shot (a meadow on the shore of a lake), but it carries virtually no semantic meaning.

But let's mentally remove the foreground - what do we get? Nothing good! The picture becomes flat - it loses depth and volume. Therefore, even with a “low” horizon, the presence of a foreground is very desirable.

However, there are situations when you have to deviate from the golden ratio rule. Rarely, but they do happen.

Example 3.

This is a shot with a "middle" horizon. This composition should be used when we are dealing with reflections of objects in water. In this case, the upper and lower parts of the photo complement each other perfectly. But you need to think seriously before using the “middle” horizon and avoid it if possible (except in cases where it is the only option for implementing the idea of the photo). Very often, the inept use of this compositional technique leads to the fact that the horizon “hurts the eyes.”

Pay attention to the picture on the right. This is a typical compositional mistake, try not to repeat it. The plot is completely devoid of dynamics - the viewer moves his eyes along the shore line (as if it attracts him with a magnet) from one edge of the picture to the other and is unable to understand the author’s idea. It’s not even clear which object is the main one in the frame. The shore is not suitable for this role, since it is too homogeneous and monotonous, there are practically no details visible on it. The only thing that can be regarded as the main object is the gaps between the clouds on the right side of the image. But then the role of the shore is not clear at all, it gets in the way, but you can’t get away from it... Whatever you say, the composition of the photo is simply not good! By the way, this is one of my first photos:)

Example 4

There is no horizon line! To be precise, this photo cannot be called fully landscape. It's something like minimalism. Beauty is in simplicity. But this “simplicity” must be carefully verified so that there is nothing superfluous other than what evokes some kind of emotion in the viewer. The title of the work is "Come back...".

This work benefits from its plot and internal dynamics. The diagonal composition, which emphasizes movement, plays a significant role in this. That is, a fisherman on a boat sails into the distance (to the upper left corner), and a blade of grass from the lower right reaches behind him, as if saying “where are you going???” By the way, this photo was quite highly appreciated by professional photographers.

The absence of a horizon can be used very effectively in “minimalist” photographs. A prerequisite is the presence of internal dynamics (that is, the photograph must direct the viewer’s attention in the direction intended by the author) and the reduction of objects to a minimum (there may even be only one object, but it must be positioned so that it is not in the center, but the photograph would not lose poise). In general, I think there will be a separate article about minimalism.

Tonal solution

The second one is very important feature photography is its tonal (color) solution. Since color affects the psyche, the tonal solution is one of the main components of the mood of the photo. The tonal solution can be of several types.

1. Photo in bright colors

Helps convey lightness, calmness, and tranquility. Subtle but pleasant colors were used. It is important that the plot be suitable for such a tonal decision. In this case, it is a quiet spring day. A very important technical point is that when shooting (or processing) you do not “blend” light areas into whiteness (prevent the loss of information about plutons).

2. Shot in dark tones

These are mainly night shots. To be fair, it is worth noting that photographing nature at night is a fool’s errand. The foreground will be completely black, and the background will have a fairly dark sky. For night shooting you need to go to the city with its lanterns and glowing windows. Night shots look very good in cool blue tones (which is achieved during processing). In this case, it is played on the contrast of the anxious mood associated with the overall cold tonality and the warm light in the windows, bringing peace. In general, yellow on blue almost always looks good (but not vice versa!).

3. High contrast

This is the case when the picture simultaneously contains both dark and light tones, ranging from absolutely black to absolutely white. Such an aggressive tonal solution has an exciting effect on the psyche. The main problem in implementing this tonal solution is the transmission of halftones. The dynamic range of the camera is often not enough to correctly convey both highlights and shadows (the given example is no exception), so a significant part of the image field may be occupied by black or white areas (loss of information). But if you still manage to reduce these losses to a minimum, sometimes you can get some pretty spectacular pictures.

Perspective

When we stand on a railroad track and look into the distance, we see that parallel rails converge on the horizon to one point. This is what perspective is. In relation to photography, this concept can be formulated as follows: perspective is the ratio of the angular sizes of identical objects located at different distances from us.

The transfer of perspective depends on the focal length of the lens. Let me give you an example.


f=80mm	f=200 mm

If you look closely at these two photographs, you will notice that the foreground was shot at the same scale, but the background with a 200mm lens turned out to be larger. But there is one "BUT". The 200mm lens has a noticeably smaller angle of view than the fifty-kopeck lens, so I had to move very far from the subject to place it in the frame. In general, focal lengths up to 80 mm (equivalent) are considered the “landscape” range. The most commonly used focal lengths are from 28 to 35 mm. in this case we get a pronounced perspective and depth of the photo. When shooting at long focal lengths (with a telephoto lens), the perspective is very weak and the picture may seem flat.


f=28 mm	f=460 mm

As we can see, in the photograph taken with a wide-angle (28mm) in the field of the frame there is a space from 2 meters (sandy bottom) from us to infinity (far shore). The perspective is clearly expressed, the transfer of volume is noticeable. It is possible to say with some accuracy how far from us it is to the sand spit or to the far shore.

A photograph taken with a telephoto lens (460mm) has virtually no perspective. It is very difficult to judge by eye the distance from the trees in the foreground (at the bottom edge of the frame) to the cranes in the background. The photo looks completely flat. In fact, the distance between the foreground and background is more than a kilometer!!!

However, I must note that you can also shoot wonderful landscapes with a telephoto. But there is one caveat. Since the telephoto camera has virtually no geometric perspective, you should use tonal perspective. That is, when the separation of plans is observed due to the difference in their illumination (or visibility).

Here clear example, illustrating the concept of "tonal perspective". With the same focal length of 460mm, the image does not lose volume due to the pronounced separation of plans due to fog.

Lighting

The original definition of photography is “light painting”. Beautiful light turns a simple image of an object into a work of art. Oddly enough, the role of lighting is often undeservedly forgotten. And completely in vain.

In landscape photography, we only have one light source - the sun, and we need to adapt to it. Let's consider characteristics lighting at different times of the day.

1. MORNING

It is rightly believed that the most Better conditions illumination occurs in the early morning immediately after sunrise. The sun does not shine very brightly through the veil of morning fog and gives a very gentle and warm light. The fog itself, being a light diffuser, provides us with great opportunities to use tonal perspective.

Fog works wonders! Notice how perfectly it conveys the volume and depth of the image. And the backlight, generating diverging rays, gives the picture a special chic. Now imagine what a photo taken in the same place, but on a bright sunny day, will look like? Absolutely right - nothing special! Regular trees, ordinary grass. We've seen this thousands of times! And with morning light and fog, you can take very interesting pictures almost anywhere!

What to do if the sun is low and there is no fog (for example in the evening)? Use backlight.

Backlight can be used very successfully when there is something in the foreground that will be backlit (with the overall dark tone of the photo). For example leaves or flowers. However, when using backlighting we encounter two obstacles.

1. Camera dynamic range. As you can see, in the above photo it was not enough and the sky turned white. (shot by the way with the same Olympus 860 with which I took my first steps in photography)

We've dealt with backlighting, and now let's look at some examples of what good things can be seen in the morning hours. This is definitely heaven.

Very often on a summer morning in good weather there are very beautiful cirrus clouds in the sky, backlit by the sun. But to shoot them you need: 1. a wide-angle lens, 2. a polarizing filter is very desirable, which increases the contrast of the sky. (read more about what a polarizer does). The first photo was taken just after dawn. The second - after 1 hour. No processing was done in Photoshop. Notice how beautiful and unusual the clouds look when illuminated by the low sun (first frame). The second one looks more ordinary - almost the same as taken on a sunny day.

2. DAY

Sunny day - it really is worst time for artistic landscape photography. The only thing that can make a “daytime” landscape interesting is, first of all, a beautiful place combined with a well-thought-out composition. If morning photographs are more like paintings, then daytime ones are “postcards”. Yes, they are nice to look at, but they are unlikely to “hook us to the quick.”

A cloudy day is also not the best option, since the light is uninteresting. It takes a lot of effort to capture something truly worthwhile. Most of the photographs come out without mood - the same postcards, but “gloomy”. Very important role The sky plays a role in the artistic value of a photograph during daytime shooting. It is very difficult to photograph a normal landscape if the sky is completely clear or covered with a monotonous veil of clouds. Photographs in which clouds (cirrus or cumulus) play some role in the composition look much more interesting.

As already mentioned, a polarizing filter is used to make the sky more expressive. Cirrus clouds are interesting because they usually occur at some interval, which can be advantageously used as a basis for realizing the rhythm and dynamics of the image.

It should also be mentioned that a lot of interesting things can be seen in unstable weather, when dark thunderclouds can be present at the same time and the sun is shining. And if you're lucky, you can see absolutely terrible, but very beautiful phenomena such as, for example, atmospheric fronts.

If you notice that something is wrong with the weather, don’t rush to hide!It is quite possible that “Armageddon” will be very beautiful!:) By the way, this phenomenon is very fleeting - no more than 1-2 minutes. Therefore, try to take a good shooting point in advance (and one that has somewhere to hide from the rain:)

3. EVENING, SUNSET

The main thing that is most often photographed in the evening is sunsets. Absolutely everyone takes them off and many times! But for some reason, most sunset pictures sent to photo sites receive a very average rating.) . And no wonder! Spectators have already seen so many sunsets that it is difficult to surprise them with anything.

So, in order to capture a quality sunset (from an artistic point of view), you need to carefully consider the idea of the photo. Point-and-click photography is doomed to fail because it's a cliché idea. So, the main components of success:

Colors and shapes. Keep in mind that sunsets have very interesting color combinations when the weather changes. Sometimes oddly shaped clouds appear on the horizon. The color of the sky is usually very beautiful and unusual.
Dynamics. Avoid static subjects at all costs. Remember, the idea itself is terribly hackneyed, so look for something that can give the photo a “zest.”

Since there is very little light in the evening, the ground tends to be very dark. That's why sunsets are most often filmed over water.

This is one of my few sunset landscapes that I consider more or less successful. For a better understanding, I recommend viewing the enlarged version. What do I think makes this photo successful?

Contrast between a cold overall tone and a warm stripe on the horizon
The rhythm that is formed by the waves on the lake and the clouds in the sky.
Image depth. There is also a clearly defined foreground (reflection of clouds in the water), middle (forest) and distant (horizon).
Conciseness. Nothing extra. By and large, there are only 2 clearly identified main objects in the frame - the sun (with reflection) and the forest on the shore on the right.

One more example. A photo that received quite a high rating.

This was already taken after sunset. Beauty is in simplicity! There is only one object in the picture, but it is well located relative to the background (which, by the way, forms a diagonal) and the “golden ratio”. The color scheme of the photo played a big role (again, the contrast between the cold tones in the upper left corner (LUC) with the warm ones in the lower right corner (LNU).

But let's not focus on sunsets, but turn our gaze in the other direction and I'm sure that we can see something quite worthy there.

But for such filming you already need a tripod. Pictures taken closer to night are distinguished by a special and sometimes very pronounced mood, which is due to the predominance of cold tones. For originality, I recommend placing small objects in the frame that somehow contrast with the overall tonality.

4. NIGHT

Night photography is one of the most difficult in terms of technicality. As already mentioned, it is useless to photograph nature at night. Because the natural sources there is no light (the moon doesn’t count - it’s too weak). Therefore, for night shooting you need to go where there is artificial light. A tripod is required. General recommendations are:

Concise photographs look better
Don't overuse long shutter speeds. It is still night and the photo should be in a dark tone.
If you want to do tinting in Photoshop, for drawing general plan use cool tones, for light key objects - closer to warm ones.
Some photographs in black and white look more interesting than in color. Keep this in mind.

Examples:

So what do we have?

Shot 1. Played on the contrast of warm tones given by the light source and the overall cold atmosphere.

Photo 2. Laconic composition. Nothing to add, nothing to take away. Clouds illuminated by the moon play a very important role - they seem to compositionally connect the moon with a dried tree. That is, they are openwork like tree branches and at the same time “repeat” the moonlight.

Pictures 3 and 4. Agree that without the fog they would be much less interesting!

A few technical points

WHY SHOOT RAW?

RAW- this is nothing more than information taken directly from the camera’s matrix and recorded on a flash drive without processing. Digital SLRs typically use 36-bit color (12 bits per channel), compacts use 8-10 bits per channel. At the same time, in the format JPEG (both DSLRs and compacts) use a color depth of 8 bits/channel. That is, when processing information by the device’s processor, we inevitably lose information. Which one? That's another question. Let's look at an example.

Pictures taken by the device Canon 300D. Left - JPEG , shot automatically. On right - RAW , filmed under exactly the same conditions, processed with a converter from the composition Adobe Photoshop CS. By JPEG we see that the device made an error in measuring the exposure (part of the sky fell into whiteness) and in the white balance (the colors turned out cooler than necessary). Correct these errors with only JPEG quite difficult - information about the color of the sky is lost, it is impossible to restore it in its original form.

And here those additional 4 bits per channel come to the rescue (in the 300D RAW 36-bit - R+G+B), which were lost when processing information by the camera processor, which "brought" the representation of color to the form R, G, B. Using this information, we can correct the white balance, tighten up the shadows, and even save “burnt out” highlights. (if the overexposure is not very strong).

In addition, RAW The converter allows you to set an arbitrary level of brightness, contrast, saturation, and image clarity, correct noise reduction and even chromatic aberration (and these operations are performed with a 36-bit image). And when shooting in JPG These parameters in the device can only be changed in steps (usually for each parameter there are 5 gradations - -2..-1..0..1..2), and not all settings are available. During processing JPEG in the editor program we are no longer dealing with a 36-bit, but with a 24-bit image, that is, one way or another we cannot use all the information that we could have using shooting in RAW.

WHAT TO DO IF THE DEVICE DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO REMOVE RAW?

The most important thing is not to trust the machine. If in simple conditions illumination (for example, a sunny day) it will probably cope with the task, then in the morning or evening (and even more so at night) you will have to manually specify the white balance and/or enter exposure compensation. It’s better to take a photo a little darker than overexpose it - “pulling out” shadows is much easier than correcting highlights that have fallen into whiteness. The easiest way is to use a tool Shadows/Highlights , which is present in Photoshop CS (Image/Adjustments/Shadows-highlights)

Here is a clear example of the capabilities of this tool. To extend the shadows, use the "group" controls Shadows". Amount and Tonal Width (switch to the advanced mode of the tool) set the degree of shadow correction, and Radius- "span" of the tool (it's easier to see how it works than to explain in words:). Default Radius=30px and around dark areas, light halos may form. I recommend increasing the radius.

So...

I'm not finished yet! Everything that has been said here is nothing more than my subjective opinion. I'm sure that after some time I will want to change a lot. But for now, this is my current view of landscape as a genre of artistic photography - so simple at first glance and so complex if you dig deeper!:)If you have any questions or suggestions, please send them to email, I will be glad to answer.