Chapter 11: Nature and Landscape Photography

One of the most rewarding and challenging areas of photography is nature and landscape shooting. Not only are subjects inspiring and abundant, providing a rich photography experience, but also the variety of light that you encounter challenges your technical prowess in getting the best exposures. As a result, nature and landscape photography blends both the technical and creative aspects of photography into a synergistic and fluid process, with each aspect complementing the other. In this chapter, you explore how to use the EOS 60D to get stunning images of the natural world and to deal with the range of light that you encounter when you photograph nature and landscape images.

Preparing for Nature and Landscape Photography

Few photographers can resist the lure of photographing the stunning array of beauty that nature provides. And as you photograph nature, your photographic eye becomes more precise and your appreciation for the amazing world of nature grows exponentially.

You can apply many of the techniques you use for nature and landscape photography to shooting skyscrapers, cityscapes, and, in part, outdoor architectural photography.

The umbrella of landscape and nature photography is large, encompassing everything from photographs of travel, fine-art landscapes, seascapes, flora, fauna, wildlife, and birds to close-up images of the smallest subjects that occur in nature. Despite the diversity in this category, all these areas share common threads: They have a wide diversity of light, there is structure and rhythm in the scenes and subjects, and they inspire you to capture the singular beauty and interpret what you see in new and exciting ways.

Selecting gear

The adventure of nature photography begins by having a good selection of lenses and filters, as well as other accessories. The lenses and filters that you choose for landscape and nature photography depend on the scenes and subjects that you’re shooting or that you’re likely to encounter. Because nature offers such an amazing variety of subjects and because the light can change in minutes, be prepared to capture everything, from sweeping landscapes to close-ups of flora and fauna. And, of course, be prepared for sudden weather changes.

At the top of the packing list are lenses. Here are some lenses to consider packing in addition to other gear that comes in handy:

Wide-angle lenses. To capture truly sweeping landscapes with the 60D, you need a wide-angle and ultrawide-angle lens such as the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM (25.6-56mm on the 60D), EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM, or the EF 17-40mm f/4L USM (27.2-64mm) lens. If you don’t have a wide-angle lens, consider using the lens you have, and shoot a panorama of images that you can later stitch together using the PhotoStitch program that Canon provides on the EOS Digital Solution Disk.

If you shoot panoramas, carry along a monopod or a tripod to keep the image series level. Keeping the images level makes stitching images together easier and more precise.

Telephoto lenses. Your choice of telephoto lenses depends to some extent on what shooting opportunities you’ll most likely encounter. For example, if the area has wildlife, then pack the longest telephoto lens that you own, along with the Canon Extender EF 2x II or III or the Extender EF 1.4x II or III, to double the focal length or to multiply the focal length by 1.4X, respectively.

11.2 For this shot of a farm in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains, I handheld the camera with the lens zoomed to 200mm. I used Aperture-priority AE (Av) mode; and the shutter speed at 1/80 second normally would not be fast enough to ensure sharp focus, but with Image Stabilization, I was able to get tack-sharp focus. Exposure: ISO 100, f/16, 1/80 second using an EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens.

In general, a lens in the 70-200mm (112-320mm on the 60D) or 100-400mm (160-640mm) range or longer is a good choice for birds and wildlife, and allows you to get in close to distant landscapes.

Lens extenders reduce the maximum effective aperture. The 1.4X extender reduces the effective aperture by 1 f-stop, and the 2X extender reduces it by 2 f-stops. For more information on extenders, see Chapter 9.

Macro lenses. I seldom go anywhere without a macro lens. If I know that I’ll be doing a lot of macro shooting, I take both a long and short macro lens. For macro work where you can’t or don’t want to get close to the subject, the EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM lens is ideal. For flowers and plants, the EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM (96mm on the 60D) or the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM (160mm) les are excellent choices.

Filters. Standard filters for outdoor shooting include a high-quality circular polarizer, and graduated neutral density filters. Filters are described in the sidebar in this section.

Weatherproof camera and lens sleeves. The EOS 60D’s weather sealing is not as extensive as other EOS cameras. Also non-L-series lenses lack extensive weather sealing. As a result, carrying a water-repellent bag is good insurance against the moisture, dust, and sand that can quickly put a camera out of commission. You can buy a wide variety of weatherproof camera protectors from Storm Jacket, Pelican, AquaTech, and OP/TECH. If your lenses are not well sealed, good lens sleeves are also advisable. I always have several large plastic bags in my camera bag to protect accessories during an unexpected shower. Most newer camera bags are water repellent and have overlapping protectors around zippers to keep moisture and dust out of the bag. But if you’ve left the camera bag in the car and venture out with a spare lens and some filters, the separate camera covers and lens sleeves come in handy.

Additional gear. Because light can change quickly, depending on the time of day and the focal length of your telephoto lenses, you will likely need a sturdy tripod or a monopod. Also carry spare SD/SDHC cards, charged camera batteries, a cell phone, florist’s wire (to steady plants), silver reflectors, a GPS locator, and water and snacks. If you’re on an extended shooting trip, you’ll want to carry a laptop or handheld drive to offload photos at the end of each day’s shooting. Some parks require that you pack out what you bring in, so carry a trash bag in your gear bag.

I encourage you to adopt the mantra of many nature and landscape photographers to “leave only footprints.” In other words, make no negative impact on the environment as you photograph it.

The 60D is a fine camera and Canon lenses are among the best on the market, but they capture only what you see. So be sure to bring your sharp and practiced photographic eye as well as your curiosity and passion.

Setting up the 60D for nature and landscape shooting

Every morning that I wake up knowing that I am going shooting, I can’t get started fast enough. However, over time, I’ve learned to slow down long enough to check the latest weather forecast, and to set up the camera before I rush out the door. The few minutes it takes to adjust the camera not only saves me time when I get to the location, but it also helps me avoid oversights that can make a big difference in the quality of the images. This way, by the time I get to the location where I’m shooting, I can concentrate on evaluating the scene, light, exposure, and composition.

Most often, I have the Camera User Settings (C) shooting mode preset for outdoor shooting, and adjusting settings based on the weather or other conditions takes only a few minutes. With the C shooting mode, you can preset your preferences for the shooting, autofocus, drive, and metering mode, as well as Picture Style and Custom Functions.

Here is a checklist of camera settings that you can set in advance or register in C mode:

Shooting mode. Nature photographers use several different approaches to choosing a shooting mode. The following sidebar covers this in depth.

Autofocus (AF) mode and AF-point selection. For still subjects, I use One-shot AF mode with manual AF-point selection because I always want to control where the plane of sharpest focus is in the image. But with birds or wildlife, AI Focus AF mode, which automatically switches from One-shot AF mode to focus tracking (AI Servo AF mode) if the subject begins to move, is a good choice.

Drive mode. Choose a drive mode based on the scene or subject you’re shooting. For example, if I’m shooting in areas where birds and wildlife are common, then I use High-speed Continuous drive mode. But if I’m shooting only landscapes, flora and fauna, or macro subjects, then I use Single shooting drive mode. And for macro shooting with a tripod, the 2-sec. Self-timer/Remote control drive mode helps avoid the blur that can happen when you press the shutter button.

Metering mode. Evaluative metering gives good exposures in many scenes. You can also use Spot metering mode and Manual (M) shooting mode and meter on a middle gray area of the scene, a technique detailed later in this chapter.

Picture Style. Because I always edit my images on the computer before displaying them on the Web or printing them, I most often use my modified Neutral Picture Style for shooting outdoors. This style offers ample room for interpreting the color and contrast during image editing, and the colors are very true to the scene. You can also use Landscape Picture Style with its more vivid greens and blues. If you don’t edit images on the computer before printing them, then the Standard or Landscape Picture Styles produce good prints from the camera.

For more information on modifying Picture Styles, see Chapter 4.

Custom Functions. Your choices depend on the scene and subject, but in general, here are some Custom Functions to consider. If you want to make larger or smaller changes in aperture and shutter speed, you can set exposure level increments, C.Fn I-1, to 1/2 stop instead of the default 1/3 stop increment. Safety shift (C.Fn I-6) offers some insurance to automatically change the exposure setting if the light suddenly changes. Long exposure and High ISO noise reduction (C.Fn II: 1 and 2) are good choices if you are shooting low light at a high ISO setting and/or using long exposures. Finally, you can set C.Fn III-5 to lock up the reflex mirror to prevent blur when you are making long exposures or macro shots, or using a long lens.

Shooting Nature and Landscape Images

As with shooting any subject, one of the compelling considerations is getting a great exposure. But what does that mean, and what should you for look for in terms of a good exposure? Technically, a good exposure is one that retains detail in the highlights and shadows, and that has a full range of tones between the brightest highlight and the deepest shadow. In addition, the late photographer Monte Zucker added this caveat: “A properly exposed digital file is one in which the [tonal range] fits within the range that can be printed on photographic paper and still show the same detail.”

The place where good exposures happen is in the camera, not on the computer. Too often, photographers see an exposure problem and think, “I’ll fix it in Photoshop.” Certainly you can improve many image problems with skillful editing, but your goal should be to get the best in-camera exposure that the 60D is capable of delivering.

The exposure sections that follow help you get the best exposures from the 60D. At first glance, the advanced exposure approach may seem too complex or too much trouble. In that case, use the basic exposure technique knowing that the 60D will give you consistently good exposures. However, the advanced technique explained in the sidebar is a classic approach for ensuring good exposure and one that you can try as you continue working with the 60D.

For the basic exposure approach, you can expect the 60D’s onboard reflective light meter, along with Canon’s new and improved Evaluative metering, to provide excellent exposures for most scenes. However, in some scenes, you’ll want to override the camera’s suggested exposure by using Exposure Compensation, AE Lock, or Auto Exposure Bracketing.

The exposure approach described first in the next section is bolstered by the 60D’s new metering sensor. The camera takes into account focus, luminance, and color from the 63 zones throughout the viewfinder, and each layer of the dual-layer sensor is sensitive to different wavelengths of light. This provides very accurate meter readings.

Exposure approaches

For the majority of nature and landscape images, the primary consideration is controlling the depth of field — whether you visualize a final image with an extensive depth of field for a stunning sweep of flower-covered hills, or with a shallow depth of field. In any case, the shortest route to controlling the depth of field via aperture changes is by using Aperture-priority AE (Av) shooting mode. And for metering, Evaluative metering mode is dependable and accurate, even for backlit subjects.

11.6 Scenes such as this one of Mt. Baker in Washington State are tailor-made for the basic exposure technique using the Evaluative metering mode. Exposure: ISO 200, f/8, 1/800 second using an EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens.

Here is the sequence for the basic exposure approach. Set the ISO, set the aperture based on the depth of field you want, and then check the shutter speed. If you’re shooting handheld and the shutter speed is too slow to handhold, increase the ISO incrementally until you have a fast-enough shutter speed to handhold the camera, use a wider aperture, or use a tripod. Then make the first exposure using the camera’s recommended settings. Evaluate the image histogram to see if exposure modifications are needed. In some scenes, the camera’s recommended exposure needs to be modified to maintain highlight detail or to open blocked shadows. Exposure modification is detailed in a later section.

In low-light scenes, Tv shooting mode is preferable because you can lock in a fast-enough shutter speed to handhold the camera (as long as the light allows).

A spike on the right side of the histogram indicates blown highlights, and a spike on the left side indicates blocked shadows — shadows that transition too quickly to black. For more details, see Chapter 3.

You can realize the highest dynamic range of the 60D by shooting at lower ISO sensitivity settings such as 100 and 200 and by shooting RAW capture. In addition, using Highlight Tone Priority can increase the highlight range by approximately one stop although shadows block up more quickly as well.

Web sites such as www.dpreview.com and www.imaging-resource.com have 60D reviews that provide test results on the dynamic range of the 60D.

A goal of exposure is to retain highlight detail within the subject, and if possible, to maintain highlight detail throughout the entire scene. This is especially important if you are shooting JPEG capture because if you don’t capture the highlight detail, you cannot add it later. If you’re shooting RAW capture, you can recover varying amounts of highlight detail when you convert the image in a RAW conversion program.

If the highlights are blown when using the camera’s suggested exposure, then use the exposure modification techniques, such as Exposure Compensation, detailed in the next section.

Exposure modification techniques

Because the camera expects all scenes to have an average distribution of tonal values, it follows that scenes with a predominance of light or dark tones throw off the camera’s suggested exposures. Thus it’s important to recognize these types of scenes. Nonaverage scenes are those that have large areas of white or black or dark subjects, such as large expanses of snow, white sand, or large expanses of dark water or a black train engine.

When you’re presented with a snowy landscape or an expanse of white sandy beach, you know by now that if you don’t make an exposure modification, the camera will average all the tones in the scene to middle gray. As a result, the final image will have gray snow and gray water using the basic exposure approach.

This is when you should set positive Exposure Compensation for light-toned scenes and negative Exposure Compensation for dark-toned scenes to get true whites or true blacks.

Generally, a +1 or +2 Exposure Compensation for scenes with a predominance of light tones, or –1 to –2 compensation for scenes with a predominance of dark tones produces true whites and blacks. But be sure to check the histogram to ensure that highlights are not blown or the shadows are not blocked. You need to experiment to find the precise amount of compensation that the scene needs.

When you set Exposure Compensation in Av shooting mode, the camera changes the shutter speed to achieve the compensation. So always monitor the shutter speed, and use a tripod if the shutter speed is too slow for handholding the camera and lens.

11.10 For this image of Mount Index, I used the advanced exposure technique and metered on the patch of blue sky that is a middle gray tonal value. Exposure: ISO 100, f/14, 1/80 second using an EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens.

With any exposure approach, you may not see any difference in images where you make exposure changes if you have Auto Lighting Optimizer on the Shooting 2 menu set to any setting except Disable. Auto Lighting Optimizer automatically brightens pictures that it detects as being too dark and corrects low contrast. Auto Lighting Optimizer can mask the effect of any exposure modifications that you make.

Another exposure modification option is Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB). Normally, you use AEB to shoot three exposures: one at the camera’s recommended exposure, one with more exposure, and one with less exposure. But if the challenge you’re trying to solve is overexposed highlights, shooting the frame with more exposure is pointless. Fortunately, the 60D enables you to shift AEB so that all frames are in the negative exposure range.

11.12 Exposure Compensation of +2/3-stop helped render this daisy petal white instead of middle gray. Exposure: ISO 200, f/2.88, 1/160 second, using an EF 50mm f/1.4L USM lens.

Looking for the Light

All the tips in the world cannot make great images if the photographer doesn’t constantly practice seeing and appreciating everything in nature. I’ve irritated more people on the highway than I can count because I routinely slow down to appreciate a stunning mountain lit by that rare and incomparable light that happens only occasionally. Slowing down helps you get great landscape and nature shots.

Keep these tips in mind as you begin exploring nature and landscape photography:

Look for the light. Light, especially beautiful light, is transitory and fleeting, and this is the light you want to capture. Maybe the light illuminates a mountainside forest with gold and purple hues, or maybe a small shaft of light pierces through the forest trees to spotlight a tiny frog or wild mushroom, but whatever the light, look for it with an acute eye. And be ready to shoot, regardless of whether or not you have the right lens on your camera. Don’t let the magical light opportunities pass you by.

Keep your eye in practice. Photography is like any other skill: The more you practice it, the more finely tuned your eye becomes and the more you will look for unique and unusual scenes and approaches. For example, when I spend long stretches writing at the computer, and then go out shooting, it takes a while to see with a practiced eye again.

Image composition is very important. Many books have been written on composition, but you’ll do well to study nature itself. For my work, nature itself is the ultimate field guide to good composition.

11.15 In this image, the layering of the elements provides a good sense of depth. Exposure: ISO 200, f/10, 1/50 second using an EF 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro USM lens.