Common mistakes for Beginner landscape photographers

Stefano Bussandri said:
So I am just starting off on Landscape and I need to decide on a good lens for landscape photography, which would be the best for a beginner with little money?
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What camera do you have ? (will have a fairly high bearing on the advice)

Also if you already have a kit lens don't fall into the trap of thinking you "need" more than that to start out , my advice would be to work with what you have until its limitations become the limiting factor on your photography
 
big soft moose said:
What camera do you have ? (will have a fairly high bearing on the advice)

Also if you already have a kit lens don't fall into the trap of thinking you "need" more than that to start out , my advice would be to work with what you have until its limitations become the limiting factor on your photography
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I have a Canon 7D
 
Stefano Bussandri said:
I have a Canon 7D
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Well if you got a kit 18-55 , 15-85 or 18-135 with it I'd say use that until you find it really limiting. If you specifically want a wide angle lens you could do worse than the 10-18 Efs STM which although definitely built to a budget out performs most other lower end lenses - its about £180 new
 
big soft moose said:
Well if you got a kit 18-55 , 15-85 or 18-135 with it I'd say use that until you find it really limiting. If you specifically want a wide angle lens you could do worse than the 10-18 Efs STM which although definitely built to a budget out performs most other lower end lenses - its about £180 new
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Okay thanks for the feedback
 
As others have said Stefano, don't stress about the kit. As long as you have something which will go wide-ish and something which will go normal-ish then that's all you need to start with.

Fix a focal length if you have a zoom. On a crop sensor start with something like 18mm and if you're using full format then 28mm or thereabouts. It's easier to compose with that sort of focal length than ultra wide angle. Or just shoot 35mm on crop and 50mm on FX to see a completely different style of landscape. Spend as much time as you can learning about composition and how light affects the landscape you're looking at. Youtube will have some decent videos and online articles from fstoppers and the like are usually pretty decent too.

There's no substitute for getting out and taking loads of rubbish shots. I don't mean that unkindly at all - it's the way we all learn. You have to work out what doesn't work before you really understand what does.

And enjoy it - even taking the rubbish shots!
 
Stefano Bussandri said:
So I am just starting off on Landscape and I need to decide on a good lens for landscape photography, which would be the best for a beginner with little money?
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You don't say if you have a tripod or not, but that the most useful accessory after the camera. You can take landscape photography using any lens for the time being.
 
Once you start to stop down the lens to get a decent depth of field the differences between the kit lens and a "decent lens" become much less obvious.
 
Stefano Bussandri said:
I have a benro tripod but i was looking for a decent lens
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What kind of area are you in? Ultra wide can be good for flat because you can exaggerate foreground and sky. A longer zoom in the 70-200mm range is better for mountains or hills so you can capture distant peaks or features
 
Thanks everyone,
I've read this entire thread and it's been enlightening. I'm pretty new to landscape, I've done the odd few, mostly sunsets in the local area. (Formby and Crosby beach and the lighthouse on Perch Rock)
But today was a real attempt, went to Penrith and Aira Force over looking Ulswater. Thought I had a good picture lined up and waited for golden hour, only for the sun to drop behind a mountain and take any decent light with it. So I really need to learn how to read the landscape, understand where the Sun will rise/set and also read the sky, blue skies are nice on holiday but are bit dull for landscape!
 
Here are my tips for newbies

try and get three points of interest, foreground, middle ground, background such as this image


Scottish Volcano? by David Byrne, on Flickr

So we have the river and rocks as the foreground, the main mountain as the middle ground and the rolling glen and clouds as the background, this allows the eye to wander through the image without having to jump around. Use the thirds, they work so use them as a starting point. but dont get carried away, they are guidelines not the law and remember rules are meant to be broken, if i feel an horizon needs to be on the middle of the frame ill do in in an heart beat.

I shoot at f/16 normally unless the situation means i need to change that, but 90% of the time it's right for the shot, i use good quality glass so diffraction isnt a real issue. I tend to focus on the first point of interest, so in this shot it would have been the boulder in the river, it doesnt matter if the very distant mountains are slightly soft when viewed at 100% on a screen, its never going to be picked up on and looks normal, plus it's not noticeable when printing at A3 or smaller.

I use a tripod if it cant be handheld, but i like to shoot fast and move around a lot trying multiple viewpoints, if the scene is a good one i'd normally spend an hour or more trying different shots / waiting for some good light, I tend to do my landscaping between October and March, the sun is low and the 'golden hour' is extended, in dec/jan the golden hour lasts all day, this photo was taken at 1.45pm


Delemere Forest by David Byrne, on Flickr

Cant stand filters, just more time fiddling with stuff and missing shots, i'd prefer to get the shot and fix in Lr or Ps. I will use a circ pol though if needed.

In the summer I use a converted camera to Infrared, the light is awful for normal landscape photography but if you get creative the mid day sun wont ruin a photo, this one was taken on a very sunny day with little cloud, but the ir brought out detail in the sky and made it black, which is also cool

]
Broadway Battlements by David Byrne, on Flickr

But the biggest tip i can offer is the most overlooked, a lot of people ask me how come you can get good photos, or how come you get good light, etc, well the reason is simple, i go out and take photos regularly, too many people think about it but dont actually do it! I get good light because i keep trying, theres been plenty of days ive come back from a day out with nothing on the card but rubbish and soaking wet, but the next time you can get the killer shot.

Landscaping is one of the most difficult types of photography, it requires a lot of effort, time and money and your subject to the great British weather trying its best to ruin your day, but when it goes right you have the great British weather giving you stunning shots, it just requires a little dedication.

Hope this helps :)
 
You can't go wrong with a slow shutter speed and level horizon! (well, maybe I am exaggerating a little but still:))
 
Great thread and really good info.

Relative novice at photography and going up to the lakes in a couple of weeks time with my Canon 60D, tripod, remote release, nice 17-55 F2.8 and 10-18 (I think) and looking forward to improving on last years decent efforts with my iphone 6 and at the time recently purchased £85 ebay special Fuji bridge camera (I had promised my wife I wouldn't spend loads of money until I was certain I was very interested in it as a hobby)

Staying half way between Penrith and Keswick so nice location with plenty of opportunities
 
speaking as a nikon crop user, when i first started i tried to read and take in as much as possible this never changed but with regards to apertures for landscape i went down the route of f11 plus to try and cover everything in focus. this must be right, i read it. i was never happy with my results and wanted to improve.

spending time reading how the lens performed helped me more than what i previously read. i have come to the conclusion that f11-f16 plus can be performed on full frame without major performance drop and the best lens on crop sensor start to fall off dramatically just passed f8.

a very helpful member on here suggested focus stacking at the lens sweet spot and fully agree with this method. however i need to improve my PS skills as stacking when objects move creates blur, i guess laying and manual bushing will solve this in PS.

thanks
 
If a lens performs well at f11, it will do so regardless of sensor size, however a larger sensor can mask reduced resolution because when viewed, the image is being magnified less for a given size. Most lenses will hit peak performance between f8 and f11, and it's usually higher quality optics that will continue to hold image quality at larger apertures.There will always be exceptions to that rule - a very poor lens may be soft at every aperture, a very fast lens may be softer outside it's intended working range - but generally there's little difference between f8 and f11, and it's often hard to see softening at f16.

Focus stacking can be helpful for FF, but crop needs it less because focal lengths are so much shorter for an equivalent field of view.
 
review on dxomark messurements on crop camera say 18-35mm sigma art and tell me they perform well passed f8, then look at full frame say, 24-70mm. regardless if its lens or combination after f8 performance drops like a stone on crop whereas on full frame it does not. im a geek.
 
Are you comparing 2 different lenses?

OK, lets take a lens I own and know well - the zeiss 16-80 for Sony : http://www.photozone.de/sony-alpha-...5-dt--sony-alpha--review--test-report?start=1

I've chosen someone other than DXO because DXO scores are complex to interpret, whereas photozone present results much more simply. Performance does not drop drastically between f8 and f11, though there is a small reduction in sharpness.
 
ok i will explain slightly different , take the 18-35 sigma art 1.8, we can agree this is probably one of the sharpest lens for crop body on dxomark.

http://www.dxomark.com/Lenses/Sigma...on-mounted-on-Nikon-D3300---Measurements__928

The above drop off after f8 is quite normal for dx setup , we can see that right?

Now go check many fx setups, ok different lens yes but you will see the drop off is not at f8.

Another way is to go find a dx setup that doesn't drop off on dxomark after f8, i based my findings on the 18-35mm as its the highest performer on that site.

If this data is being read incorrectly then please let me know.


Cheers
 
Really must read some more of this thread before i go away. and download that app and make sure i understand it before going!!
 
Don't slip on ice in Glencoe and kick your tripod and camera in to the water!!!!

Is there a well know sweet spot on a lens that captures everything pin sharp? I read that if you drop it 2 stops down from the largest aperture then that is the sweet spot on any lens for sharpness but I'm not sure of that is correct?

Scott
 
sherbs79 said:
Is there a well know sweet spot on a lens that captures everything pin sharp? I read that if you drop it 2 stops down from the largest aperture then that is the sweet spot on any lens for sharpness but I'm not sure of that is correct?

Scott
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Maybe for kit lenses, but that's not useful for landscapes if you're using a 50mm f1.4, for example. Also some lenses aren't sharp at any aperture, and there's nothing you can do to make them useful unless you want soft-focus.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Maybe for kit lenses, but that's not useful for landscapes if you're using a 50mm f1.4, for example. Also some lenses aren't sharp at any aperture, and there's nothing you can do to make them useful unless you want soft-focus.
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Ahh ok I didn't know that, I used to shoot anything other than an LE shot at 2.8 but always wondered why some of the corners of the shot weren't sharp, have been reading up on this sweet spot so going to maybe drop it down to see if that helps
 
There's more to sharpness than resolution. For landscape work you will generally want everything in view to be in focus as far as possible, therefore selecting the correct aperture is quite important. This tends to be less of a problem for DX sensor cameras because the shorter focal lengths allow greater depth of field. With FX you not only need to stop down further to get more in focus, but you also need to select what part of the image will be sharp and which can be softer and still look OK.

Going back to that 50 f1.4, that lens has a useful working range of f1.7 to f11, give or take, so aperture can be used as a tool to control the image appearance. With something like a kit lens you'll probably want to stop down to 5.6 or 8 at the wide end and 8 or 11 at the tele end to get best sharpness (1 or 2 stops) but that doesn't give you room to use aperture as a tool any more.
 
Jayson Beele said:
Forgetting to Include Foreground Interest was a common mistake for me, when starting out!
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You don't actually need it just for the sake of it - you can use lines of the land, receding waves etc to draw you in without having a traditional foreground rock etc...
 
Forgetting to put the eye cap on for long exposures (I actually had my first ND filter replaced because i thought there was something wrong with it! :facepalm:). Using too small of an aperture as i didn't have a tripod meaning the background was sometimes out of focus. Im sure there are many more that i can't think of right now!
 
Ah. A problem that some cameras have.

I seem to remember some SLR cameras had an eyepiece shutter in the old days. Back then I used Olympus cameras that didn't have the problem.
 
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ancient_mariner said:
If you expose on auto, light can enter through the eyepiece when you move your eye away from it and alter the meter reading - you then get under exposure. Not a problem with EVF.
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Or even that with your eye away from the eyepiece you get light leaks on long exposure that bugger the images with light patches and weird internal reflections (after all, it's a two way system).
 
ianp5a said:
Is it?
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Well, if you can see through the eyepiece then it stands to reason that light can get back in and the internals aren't 100% sealed to light entering that way. See @Michael Little 's image above, I've had lots where you can see the whole stepped shape of the eye box because I forgot to cover the eyepiece, it can be especially bad during night time long exposures where you have a head torch on and look at the camera.

edit: obviously not if you have an EVF.
 
Nawty said:
Well, if you can see through the eyepiece then it stands to reason that light can get back in and the internals aren't 100% sealed to light entering that way. See @Michael Little 's image above, I've had lots where you can see the whole stepped shape of the eye box because I forgot to cover the eyepiece, it can be especially bad during night time long exposures where you have a head torch on and look at the camera.

edit: obviously not if you have an EVF.
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'obviously' is a tough word in the 'beginners' thread. And so many different camera types in use too.

Are you referring to cameras with viewfinders? And do they all leak? Does it stand to reason?
 
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