7. Landscape Photography
ISO 100 • 1/100 sec. • f/11 • 160mm lens
Tips, Tools, and Techniques to Get the Most Out of Your Landscape Photography
There has always been something about shooting landscapes that has brought a sense of joy to my photography. It might have something to do with being outdoors and working at the mercy of Mother Nature. Maybe it’s the way it challenges me to visualize the landscape and try to capture it with my camera. It truly is a celebration of light, composition, and the world we live in.
In this chapter, we will explore some of the features of the D750 that not only improve the look of your landscape photography, but also make it easier to take great shots. We will also explore some typical scenarios and discuss methods to bring out the best in your landscape photography.
Poring Over the Picture
ISO 100 • 1/4 sec. • f/16 • 24mm lens
It pays to get up early for landscape photography, and this goes triple if you plan to photograph a popular spot like Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park. On my last visit to the park, we brought our group out there an hour and a half before sunrise to get a good position and we were already too late. Luckily we had a backup plan and were able to come back two days later and an hour earlier. Even at that hour we were not the first to arrive, but we did get a good position.
Sharp and In Focus: Using Tripods
Throughout the previous chapters we have concentrated on using the camera to create great images. We will continue that trend through this chapter, but there is one additional piece of equipment that is crucial in the world of landscape shooting: the tripod. There are a couple of reasons why tripods are so critical to your landscape work, the first being the time of day that you will be working. For reasons that will be explained later, the best light for most landscape work happens at sunrise and just before sunset. While this is the best time to shoot, it’s also kind of dark. That means you’ll be working with slow shutter speeds. Slow shutter speeds mean camera shake. Camera shake equals bad photos.
The second reason is also related to the amount of light that you’re gathering with your camera. When taking landscape photos, you will usually want to be working with very small apertures, as they give you lots of depth of field. This also means that, once again, you will be working with slower-than-normal shutter speeds.
Slow shutter = camera shake = bad photos.
Do you see the pattern here? The one tool in your arsenal to truly defeat the camera shake issue and ensure tack-sharp photos is a good tripod (Figure 7.1).
Figure 7.1 A sturdy tripod is the key to sharp landscape photos.
So what should you look for in a tripod? Well, first make sure it is sturdy enough to support your camera and any lens that you might want to use. Next, check the height of the tripod. Bending over all day to look through the viewfinder of a camera on a short tripod can wreak havoc on your back. Finally, think about getting a tripod that utilizes a quick-release head. This usually employs a plate that screws into the bottom of the camera and then quickly snaps into place on the tripod. This will be especially handy if you are going to move between shooting by hand and using the tripod. You’ll find more information about tripods in Chapter 11, “Accessorize.”
VR lenses and tripods don’t mix
Figure 7.2 Turn off the Vibration Reduction feature when using a tripod.
Selecting the Proper ISO
For most landscape scenes, the ISO is the one factor that should be increased only as a last resort. It is true that the D750 is able to produce relatively noise-free images at higher ISO values than you may be used to seeing (which is awesome), but you’ll still want to keep the ISO value as low as you can get away with at all times. For example, it is easy to select a higher ISO to get a smaller aperture at a given shutter speed (or, conversely, to get a faster shutter speed at a given aperture value), but the noise that it can introduce into your images can be quite harmful. The noise is not only visible as large grainy artifacts; it can also be multicolored, which further degrades the image quality and color balance.
To illustrate this, take a look at Figures 7.3 and 7.4, which show a raw unprocessed photograph taken with an ISO of 10,000. The purpose was to shorten the shutter speed and still use a small aperture setting of f/16 so that I could handhold the camera on this dark and dreary day. The problem is that the noise level is so high that, in addition to being distracting, it is obscuring fine details in the subject.
Figure 7.3 A high ISO setting created a lot of digital noise in the shadows and degraded the details.
Now check out another image that was taken moments later in the same dreary light but with a much lower ISO setting (Figures 7.5 and 7.6). As you can see, the noise levels are much lower, which means that my blacks look black, and the fine details are beautifully captured.
Figure 7.5 By lowering the ISO to 100, I was able to avoid the noise and capture a clean image.
When shooting landscapes, set your ISO to the lowest possible setting at all times. Between the use of Vibration Reduction lenses (if you are shooting handheld) and a good tripod, there should be few circumstances where you would need to shoot landscapes with anything above an ISO of 400.
As you start shooting with shutter speeds that exceed 1 second, the level of image noise can increase. Your camera has a feature called Long Exposure Noise Reduction that you can turn on to combat noise from long exposures.
1. Press the Menu button, then use the Multi-selector to get to the Shooting menu.
2. Using the Multi-selector, locate the Long exposure NR menu item and then press OK (A). Change this option to On (B) and press the OK button.
That’s all there is to it. Now when you shoot, your camera will be aware of the settings and work toward minimizing unwanted noise in your images. One thing to be aware of with Long Exposure noise reduction is that, after you take a photo, the camera will be unable to take another photo until it is finished working. This work takes as long as the duration of the shutter speed, so if you had a 30-second shutter speed the camera would be unavailable for taking another photo for 30 seconds after the first shot was taken.
Selecting a White Balance
This probably seems like a no-brainer. If it’s sunny, select Daylight. If it’s overcast, choose the Shade or Cloudy setting. Those choices wouldn’t be wrong for those circumstances, but why limit yourself? Sometimes you can actually change the mood of the photo by selecting a white balance that doesn’t quite fit the light for the scene that you are shooting.
Figure 7.7 is an example of a correct white balance. It was late afternoon and the sun was starting to move low in the sky, giving everything that warm afternoon glow. The white balance for this image was set to Daylight.
Figure 7.7 Using the “proper” white balance yields predictable results.
But what if I want to make the scene look like it was shot in the early morning hours? Simple! I just change the white balance to Fluorescent, which is a much cooler setting (Figure 7.8).
Figure 7.8 Changing the white balance to Fluorescent gives the impression that the picture was taken at a different time of day than it really was.
So how do you know what a good white balance selection is? You could just take a guess, but an easier way is to take a shot, review it on the LCD, and keep the one you like. I actually prefer to preview the effect using the Live View function. Live View will display the scene you are getting ready to shoot and will do so using the current white balance settings. If you hold the WB button and turn the Main Command dial while Live View is turned on, the changes in white balance will be displayed in the preview monitor. To activate Live View, press the LV button on the back of the camera. When you are done, press the LV button again to turn it off.
Using the Landscape Picture Control
When shooting landscapes, I always look for great color and contrast. This is one of the reasons that so many landscape shots are taken in the early morning or during sunset. The light is much more vibrant and colorful at these times of day and adds a sense of drama to an image. There are also much longer and deeper shadows because of the angle of the light. These shadows are what give depth to your image.
You can help boost vibrancy and contrast, especially in the less-than-golden hours of the day, by using the Landscape picture control (Figure 7.9). Just as in the Landscape mode found in the automatic scene modes, you can set up your landscape shooting so that you capture images with increased sharpness and a slight boost in blues and greens. This control will add some pop to your landscapes without the need for additional processing in any software.
Figure 7.9 Using the Landscape picture control can add sharpness and more vivid color to skies and vegetation.
Setting up the Landscape picture control
1. You can set the Landscape picture control by using the menu system, but there is an easier method. To quickly access the controls, press the i button on the back of the camera, select Set Picture Control (A), and press OK.
2. Next, use the Multi-selector to choose Landscape, and press OK when done (B).
The camera will now apply the Landscape picture control to all of your photos. This style will be locked in to the camera even after turning it off and back on again, so make sure to change it back to Standard when you are done with your landscape shoot. If you are in Live View, you’ll see the effect of the chosen picture control change on the LCD.
Turn On Exposure Preview
Since we’re looking at Live View for the effects of white balance and picture control choice, there is another cool feature on the D750 you should check out. It is called Exposure Preview, and when it’s enabled you’ll see the effects of changing exposure compensation (only from +3 to –3 stops), shutter speed, ISO, and aperture. By default, Live View will try to give you a good-looking image on the rear LCD regardless of your camera settings, but there may be times when you want the LCD to more accurately reflect the photograph you want to make—and now it will.
Enabling Exposure Preview
1. Press the LV button to enter Live View.
2. Press the i button, use the Multi-selector to highlight Exposure preview (A), and press OK.
3. Highlight Exp ON (B), and press OK when done.
4. Press the i button to exit the menu and return to Live View. You’ll now see a live exposure meter displayed on the LCD.
5. For an added bonus, press the Info button until the live histogram (C) appears onscreen.
Having an accurate preview coupled with a live meter and live histogram can be really useful for ensuring you are getting the look you want without blowing out highlights or blocking up shadows. Note that if you do plan to shoot in Live View mode, be sure to use the eyepiece cap that came with the camera to prevent light from entering the viewfinder and messing with your exposure.
Taming Bright Skies with Exposure Compensation
Balancing exposure in scenes that have a wide contrast in tonal ranges can be extremely challenging. The one thing you should try to avoid is overexposing your skies to the point of blowing out your highlights (unless, of course, that is the look you are going for). It’s one thing to have white clouds, but it’s a completely different and bad thing to have no detail at all in those clouds. This usually happens when the camera is trying to gain exposure in the darker areas of the image (Figure 7.10). The one way to tell if you have blown out your highlights is to turn on the Highlight Alert, or “blinkies,” feature on your camera (see the “How I Shoot” section in Chapter 4). When you take a shot where the highlights are exposed beyond the point of having any detail, that area will blink in your LCD display if you have set up the Highlights display option. It is up to you to determine if that particular area is important enough to regain detail by altering your exposure. If the answer is yes, then the easiest way to go about it is to use some exposure compensation.
Figure 7.10 The dark mountains and water caused the meter to overexpose the clouds and my friend’s light-colored pants.
With this feature, you can force your camera to choose an exposure that ranges, in 1/3-stop increments, from five stops over to five stops under the metered exposure (Figure 7.11).
Figure 7.11 A compensation of one stop of underexposure brought back the detail in the bright areas of the image.
Using exposure compensation to regain detail in highlights
1. Activate the camera meter by lightly pressing the shutter release button.
2. Using your index finger, press and hold the Exposure Compensation button to change the over-/underexposure setting by rotating the Main Command dial.
3. Rotate the Main Command dial to the left one click, and take another picture (each click of the Main Command dial is a 1/3-stop exposure change).
4. If the blinkies are gone, you are good to go. If not, keep subtracting from your exposure by 1/3 of a stop until you have a good exposure in the highlights.
I generally keep my camera set to –1/3 stop for most of my landscape work unless I am working with a location that is very dark or low key.
Note that any exposure compensation will remain in place even after turning the camera off and then on again. Don’t forget to reset it once you have successfully captured your image. Also, exposure compensation works across all of the shooting modes. If you change between modes (e.g., from Program to Aperture Priority), the camera will hold the compensation you set in the previous mode.
Shooting Beautiful Black and White Landscapes
There’s nothing as timeless as a beautiful black and white landscape photo. For many, it is the purest form of photography. The genre conjures up thoughts of Ansel Adams out in Yosemite Valley, capturing stunning monoliths with his 8x10 view camera. Well, just because you are shooting with a digital camera doesn’t mean you can’t create your own stunning photos using the power of the Monochrome picture control. (See the “Classic Black and White Portraits” section of Chapter 6 for instructions on setting up this feature.) Not only can you shoot in black and white, you can also customize the camera to apply built-in software filters to lighten or darken different elements within your scene, as well as add contrast and definition.
The four filter colors are red, yellow, green, and orange. The most typically used filters in black and white photography are red and yellow. This is because the color of these filters will darken opposite colors and lighten similar colors. So if you want to darken a blue sky, you would use a yellow filter, because blue is the opposite of yellow. To darken green foliage, you would use a red filter. Check out the series of shots in Figure 7.12 with different filters applied. The differences are subtle.
Figure 7.12 Adding color filter settings to the Monochrome picture control allows you to lighten or darken elements in your scene. The top right image has no filter applied to it. The bottom left has a red filter, and the bottom right has a yellow filter.
You can see that there is no real difference in contrast between the color image and the black and white image with no filter. The red filter has the effect of darkening the skies and giving a darker look to the greens in the vegetation while lightening the warm yellows. Using the yellow filter makes the yellowish vegetation a little lighter while darkening the blues in the sky. There is no right or wrong to choosing a filter for your black and white shots—it’s pretty much whatever you prefer. In this instance, I think I prefer the image with the red filter.
Other options in the Monochrome picture control enable you to adjust the sharpness and contrast and even add some color toning (like sepia) to the final image. This information is also in the “Classic Black and White Portraits” section of Chapter 6. I like to have Sharpness set to 5 and Contrast set to +1 for my landscape images. This gives an overall look to the black and white image that is reminiscent of the classic black and white films. Experiment with the various settings to find the combination that is most pleasing to you. Just remember that the Monochrome picture control is automatically applied and saved to a JPEG file but can be lost when you open your raw files (see the “Picture Controls for Raw Files” sidebar). In truth, if you are shooting raw you’ll have more control and get superior results by making the black and white conversion in software such as Nik’s Silver Efex Pro, onOne’s Perfect B&W, or even Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw.
The Golden Light
If you ask any professional landscape photographer what their favorite time of day to shoot is, chances are they will tell you it’s the hours surrounding daybreak and sunset (Figures 7.13 and 7.14). The reason for this is that the light is coming from a very low angle to the landscape, which creates shadows and gives depth and character. There is also a quality to the light that seems cleaner and is more colorful than the light you get when shooting at midday. One thing that can dramatically improve any morning or evening shot is the presence of clouds. The sun will fill the underside of the clouds with a palette of colors and add drama to your image.
Figure 7.13 The few minutes just prior to sunrise can add great colors to a partly cloudy sky.
Figure 7.14 Late afternoon sun is usually warmer and adds drama and warmth.
Where to Focus
Large landscape scenes are great fun to photograph, but they can present a problem: where exactly do you focus when you want everything to be sharp? Since our goal is to create a great landscape photo, we will need to concentrate on how to best create an image that is tack sharp, with a depth of field that renders great focus throughout the scene.
I have already stressed the importance of a good tripod when shooting landscapes. The tripod lets you concentrate on the aperture portion of the exposure without worrying about how long your shutter will be open. This is because the tripod provides the stability to handle any shutter speed you might need when shooting at small apertures. I find that for most of my landscape work, I set my camera to Aperture Priority mode and the ISO to 100 (for a clean, noise-free image).
However, shooting with the smallest aperture on your lens doesn’t necessarily mean that you will get the proper sharpness throughout your image. The real key is knowing where in the scene to focus your lens to maximize the depth of field for your chosen aperture. To do this, you must utilize something called the “hyper focal distance” of your lens.
Hyper focal distance, also referred to as HFD, is the point of focus that will give you the greatest acceptable sharpness from a point near your camera all the way out to infinity. If you combine good HFD practice with a small aperture, you will get images that are sharp to infinity.
There are a couple of ways to do this, and the one that is probably the easiest is, as you might guess, the one that is most widely used by working pros. When you have your shot all set up and composed, focus on an object that is about one-third of the distance into your frame (Figure 7.15). It is usually pretty close to the proper distance and will render favorable results. When you have the focus set, take a photograph and then zoom in on the preview on your LCD to check the sharpness of your image.
Figure 7.15 To get maximum focus from near to far, the focus was set about a third of the way into the scene on the opposite shoreline. I also used a neutral density filter to slow down the shutter speed and smooth the water.
One thing to remember is that as your lens gets wider in focal length, your HFD will be closer to the camera position. This is because the wider the lens, the greater depth of field you can achieve. This is yet another reason why a good wide-angle lens is indispensable to the landscape shooter. If you want to get more technical about it, a number of free and for-fee apps for both Android and iOS can calculate HFD for a given focal length/aperture.
Easier Focusing
There’s no denying that the automatic focus features on the D750 are great, but sometimes it just pays to turn them off and focus manually. This is especially true if you are shooting on a tripod: once you have your shot composed in the viewfinder and you are ready to focus, chances are that the area you want to focus on is not going to be in the area of one of the focus points. Often this is the case when you have a foreground element that is fairly low in the frame. You could use a single focus point set low in your viewfinder and then pan the camera down until it rests on your subject. But then you would have to press the shutter button halfway to focus the camera and then try to recompose and lock down the tripod. It’s no easy task.
But you can have the best of both worlds by having the camera focus for you, then switching to manual focus to comfortably recompose your shot (Figure 7.16).
Figure 7.16 Using the HFD (hyper focal distance) one-third rule, I focused about a third of the way up the shoreline, then switched the lens to manual focus before recomposing for the final shot.
Getting focused while using a tripod
1. Set up your shot and find the area that you want to focus on.
2. Pan your tripod head so that your active focus point is on that spot.
3. Press the shutter button halfway to focus the camera.
4. Switch the camera to manual focus by sliding the switch on the lens barrel from M/A to M (A).
5. Recompose the composition on the tripod, and then take the shot.
The camera will fire without trying to refocus the lens. This works especially well for wide-angle lenses, which can be difficult to focus in Manual mode.
Making Water Fluid
There’s little that is quite as satisfying for the landscape shooter as capturing a silky waterfall shot. Creating the smooth-flowing effect is as simple as adjusting your shutter speed to allow the water to be in motion while the shutter is open. The key is to have your camera on a stable platform (such as a tripod) so that you can use a shutter speed that’s long enough to work (Figure 7.17). To achieve a great effect, use one that is at least 1/15 of a second or slower.
Figure 7.17 This stream was in the shade of the forest, but it was still pretty bright. Using f/22 allowed me to get the slower shutter speed I needed.
Setting up for a waterfall shot
1. Attach the camera to your tripod, then compose and focus your shot.
2. Make sure the ISO is set to 100.
3. Using Aperture Priority mode, set your aperture to the smallest opening (such as f/22 or f/36).
4. Press the shutter button halfway so the camera takes a meter reading.
5. Check to see if the shutter speed is 1/15 of a second or slower.
6. Take a photo and then check the image on the LCD.
You can also use Shutter Priority mode for this effect by dialing in the desired shutter speed and having the camera set the aperture for you. I prefer to use Aperture Priority to ensure that I have the greatest depth of field possible.
If the water is blinking on the LCD, indicating a loss of detail in the highlights, then use the exposure compensation feature (as discussed earlier in this chapter) to bring details back into the waterfall. You will need to have the Highlight Alert feature turned on to check for overexposure (see “How I Shoot” in Chapter 4).
There is a possibility that you will not be able to have a shutter speed that is long enough to capture a smooth, silky effect, especially if you are shooting in bright daylight conditions. To overcome this obstacle, you need a filter for your lens—either a polarizing filter or a neutral density filter (or both). The polarizing filter redirects wavelengths of light to create more vibrant colors, reduce reflections, and darken blue skies. It also lengthens exposure times by about two stops due to the darkness of the filter (this amount can vary depending on the brand of filter used). It is a handy filter for landscape work. The neutral density filter is typically just a dark piece of glass that serves to darken the scene by one, two, or three stops (Figure 7.18). This allows you to use slower shutter speeds during bright conditions. Think of it as sunglasses for your camera lens. You will find more discussion on filters in Chapter 11.
Figure 7.18 I used a neutral density filter and a polarizer filter together to add four stops of exposure, thus allowing for a longer exposure time (so long I had time to get in it).
Directing the Viewer: A Word About Composition
As a photographer, it’s your job to lead the viewer through your image. You accomplish this by utilizing the principles of composition, which is the arrangement of elements in the scene that draw the viewer’s eyes through your image and hold their attention. As the director of this viewing, you need to understand how people see and then use that information to focus their attention on the most important elements in your image.
There is a general order at which we look at elements in a photograph. The first is brightness. The eye wants to travel to the brightest object within a scene. So if you have a bright sky, it’s probably the first place the eye will travel to. The second order of attention is sharpness. Sharp, detailed elements will get more attention than soft, blurry areas. Finally, the eye will move to vivid colors while leaving the dull, flat colors for last. It is important to know these essentials in order to grab—and keep—the viewer’s attention and then direct them through the frame.
In Figure 7.19, the eye is drawn to the bright moon in the upper third of the frame. From there, it is pulled toward the color and detail of the foliage that is anchoring the lower portion of the image. The eye moves around the slope at the bottom of the frame, where it is then lifted back up to the distant mountains and sky, right back to the beginning. The elements within the image all help to keep the eye moving but never leave the frame.
Figure 7.19 The composition of the elements pulls the viewer’s eyes around the image, leading from one element to the next in a circular pattern.
Rule of thirds
There are, in fact, quite a few philosophies concerning composition. The easiest one to begin with is known as the “rule of thirds.” Using this principle, you simply divide your viewfinder into thirds by imagining two horizontal and two vertical lines that divide the frame equally.
The key to using this method of composition is to have your main subject located at or near one of the intersecting points (Figure 7.20).
Figure 7.20 Placing the chapel door in the left third of the image creates a much more interesting composition than having it dead center in the frame.
By placing your subject near these intersecting lines, you are giving the viewer space to move within the frame. The one thing you usually (because sometimes it is good to break this rule) don’t want to do is place your subject smack dab in the middle of the frame. This is sometimes referred to as “bull’s eye” composition, and it requires the right subject matter for it to work. It’s not always wrong, but it will usually be less appealing and may not hold the viewer’s attention.
Speaking of the middle of the frame: the other general rule of thirds deals with horizon lines. Generally speaking, you should position the horizon one-third of the way up or down in the frame. Splitting the frame in half by placing your horizon in the middle of the picture is akin to placing the subject in the middle of the frame; it doesn’t lend a sense of importance to either the sky or the ground.
The D750 has a visual tool for assisting you in composing your photo in the viewfinder in the form of a grid overlay. The grid can be turned on using the camera menu system so that three horizontal and three vertical grid lines appear in the viewfinder. This won’t necessarily help with aligning things in thirds, but it will help you keep your horizons straight and give you some visual alignment cues.
Using a grid overlay in the viewfinder
1. Press the Menu button, then use the Multi-selector to navigate to the Custom Setting menu and select d Shooting/display. Press OK (A).
2. Highlight d7 Viewfinder grid display, press OK, set the feature to On, and press OK once again to lock in your changes (B).
Now when you look through the viewfinder you will see a new grid overlay. Don’t ask me how they do that, but it is a very cool feature. When using the Live View mode for shooting, you can turn on the grid feature by pressing the Info button until the grid appears in the LCD monitor.
Creating depth
Because a photograph is a flat, two-dimensional space, you need to create a sense of depth by using the elements in the scene to create a three-dimensional feel. This is accomplished by including different and distinct spaces for the eye to travel: a foreground, middle ground, and background. By using these three spaces, you draw the viewer in and render depth to your image.
The salt marsh scene shown in Figure 7.21 illustrates this well. The fallen tree strongly defines the foreground area. The misty marsh leading to the forest helps separate the tree from the middle ground, and the sky full of puffy clouds and color creates a perfect backdrop for the scene.
Figure 7.21 The fallen tree, misty marsh, and sky all add to the feeling of depth in the image.
Chapter 7 Assignments
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this chapter, so it’s definitely time to put this knowledge to work in order to get familiar with these new camera settings and techniques.
Comparing depth of field: wide-angle vs. telephoto
Speaking of depth of field, you should also practice using the hyper focal distance of your lens to maximize the depth of field. You can do this by picking a focal length to work with on your lens.
If you have a zoom lens, try using the longest length. Compose your image and find an object to focus on. Set your aperture to f/22 and take a photo.
Now do the same thing with the zoom lens at its widest focal length. Use the same aperture and focus point.
Review the images and compare the depth of field when using a wide-angle lens as opposed to a telephoto lens. Try this again with a large aperture as well.
Applying hyper focal distance to your landscapes
Pick a scene that once again has objects that are near the camera position and something that is clearly defined in the background. Try using a wide to medium-wide focal length for this (18–35mm). Use a small aperture and focus on the object in the foreground; then recompose and take a shot.
Without moving the camera position, use the object in the background as your point of focus and take another shot.
Finally, find a point that is one-third of the way into the frame from near to far and use that as the focus point.
Compare all of the images to see which method delivered the greatest range of depth of field from near to infinity.
Placing your horizons
Find a location with a defined horizon and, using the rule-of-thirds grid overlay, shoot the horizon along the top third of the frame, in the middle of the frame, and along the bottom third of the frame.
Share your results with the book’s Flickr group!
Join the group here: www.flickr.com/groups/nikond750_fromsnapshotstogreatshots