Best settings for Landscapes

Mozziephotography

Mozziephotography

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Stephen
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My better half has an 18-200mm on a Nikon D7100. CAN'T get her to move away from jpeg. What settings on this model will give the "best" possible results? Are there things that should be switched on or off? I know that composition is important and she does have a good eye for this.
 
  • Shoot in RAW, or RAW + JPEG (far greater range of editing potential with RAW).
  • Use a good sturdy tripod (or use IS if no tripod available) and it's usually best to make sure that it's level, depending on the scene.
  • Use a low ISO (less image noise).
  • Focus 1/3rd of the way into an image, that tends to yield good results with overall sharpness.
  • Set a white balance to suit the conditions, don't rely on Auto (this can still be changed in post-processing).
  • Find your lens sweet spot (sharpest f-stop), often between f/8 - f/11 although it may vary by lens.
  • ND filters are often used for landscapes, or you can bracket your exposures and blend them with software.
  • Good light helps a lot, shoot when there is sidelight, ie early morning of late evening.
Hi Stephen, I'd typed this out but then re-read your post and realised that your question is more model specific, rather than method specific. I'm posting it anyway, just in case it's useful to someone else.
 
Some good advice, but I have always wondered about this one:

TheAndyA said:
Focus 1/3rd of the way into an image.
Click to expand...

If the furthest part of the scene is at infinity, 1/3 in is infinity/3. Even if you put a figure on it and you have some distant features 3 miles away, 1/3 in is 1 mile.


Steve.
 
Thanks Andy, I really do appreciate any help. I don't know why Sal is SO reluctant to shoot in RAW. I use Lightroom and she uses Corel, something her sister bought her. When you get to our age - late 60's early 70's, there can be a reluctance to change to something which appears very technical. Watched a few you tube things and some talk about using f16. Like you, I thought that the sharpest f-stop wouldn't be so small. There are certain settings on the D7100 which I'm not totally sure about, things to do with jpeg compression etc. But thanks.
 
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I'm in my early 50's and a relative newcomer to photography myself, I've managed to learn from forums like this and I've also found Youtube to be very useful. It's never too late to learn something new. (y)
 
Encourage her to shoot a scene with subtle colouring (a sunrise or sunset but a soft, cloud free one, not a dramatic one) in RAW+jpg. If the Corel she has is Paintshop (the same as I use) if you double click a thumbnail you can arrow key through the images in a full screen slide show, which will display the RAW and jpg immediately after each other. Leave her to notice just how much more there is in the RAW. It was doing that that convinced me that RAW was the only way to go. But do check first that the software supports the RAW format for her camera.
Can't help with anything else - I'm a Canon user....................:exit:
 
Thanks Jan It's the settings such as white balance, picture control, colour space, jpeg compression
 
TheAndyA said:
I'm in my early 50's and a relative newcomer to photography myself, I've managed to learn from forums like this and I've also found Youtube to be very useful. It's never too late to learn something new. (y)
Click to expand...
Having retired, I'm able to spend a lot of time experimenting with the camera. But there are times when you just need that bit of info that moves you on..
 
The best settings really depend on the scene in front of you, for some circumstances you might want to use wide apertures such as f5.6 to separate a subject from the background, if you're shooting in woodland for example. Otherwise, the traditional landscape settings are normally apertures between f8-f13 (probably using aperture priority mode), ISO 100, with exposure compensation to suit, with the camera mounted on a tripod. Graduated neutral density filters will be very useful if your better half doesn't want to process her images and polarising filters will boost colour and contrast in sidelit scenes. Set the white balance manually if shooting jpeg and make use of the histogram on the back of the camera, ensuring there is no excessive clipping of highlights and dark tones. If you want ultimate quality then raw is the way to go, but it is understandable if your wife just wants to take pictures without having to spend time editing in front of a computer. If she ever is persuaded to shoot raw + jpeg, if she compares the unedited raw and unedited jpeg side by side, the jpeg will look much better as the raw will need to be processed.
 
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