I’ve been looking back on some of my first landscape photos recently and it dawned on me that I really struggled to get the feeling that I wanted in my photos in the beginning. So, I thought I would share some golden gem tips for other beginners in landscape photography to help avoid this struggle altogether.
In this article are actionable tips I wish I knew earlier when I first started out in landscape photography. I hope these tips boost your skills and inspire you to get out there and play!
Great photos keep the viewer’s eye moving through the image and tell the whole story of a scene.
In order to do this, try to include a foreground, mid-ground and background in your scene like this:
Sometimes it’s easy to just hone in on one of these elements like the mid-ground. But what happens in these instances is there’s nothing for our eyes to follow, to flow from foreground, to mid-ground to background. So, the eye stops and the photo falls short.
Take this photo here for example. This is what not to do:
See how there’s nothing drawing us in? It’s just a boring bunch of trees in the middle of the photo. But, if we can include a foreground, mid-ground and background in our images, like the image with the mountains above, it’s just one easy way to improve our landscape photography skills!
2. Utilize a Levelling System
Here’s a cool experiment: Look at something that’s level, like your countertop, or the top of your door frame. Now tilt your head from shoulder to shoulder. See how the countertop or frame stays level?
Our eyes are incredible! And when we see a photo that doesn’t replicate what our eyes would normally see, we instantly feel like something is off.
What I’m talking about here is the horizon line. Yes, see how the horizon in this photo is straight?:
That’s part of what makes it so appealing to look at. Because this is what our eyes would naturally see.
Many cameras now-a-days have a built in levelling system.
Use it!
To get to mine, I just have to press the info button a few times on my Canon 6D Mark II while in live view mode. Here’s what mine looks like:
What you want to do 100% of the time when photographing landscapes is make sure the horizon line is level. The exception for me is when you don’t see the horizon line in the image, then your creative eye can take over, but if you do see the horizon line, make sure it’s level!
To get the most out of this tip, use a tripod and then use the levelling system to secure your camera level and in place.
3. Recognize Great Light
Once I started paying more attention to how a scene is lit, this helped my photography game go through the roof!
Light improves the scene because it adds depth to the photo. We’re experiencing a 3D space in real life but trying to represent that scene in 2D through photography.
The more dimensionality we can give to our photos, the better. If we can incorporate great light, our viewers will feel like they can walk through the space instead of the image feeling dull and flat.
So, what is great light you ask?
Good question!
I love side lighting when it comes to landscape photography. The reason why is because it highlights edges and textures on one side, while leaving the other in shadow. This makes the scene feel 3D and we’ll see this type of light the best during golden hour.
So to capture this great light for yourself, the trick is to compose your scene at about 90 degrees in relation to the sun during the golden hour. Try being at your location and ready to shoot one hour before sunset or one hour after sunrise and if the sun is shining through, you’ll be sure to capture some great depth in your scene!
4. Understand the Reciprocal Rule
You don’t always have to use a tripod when out perfecting your landscape photography. In fact, a number of my favourite shots have been taken handheld.
The reciprocal rule has to do with shutter speed and is a very good guideline to help you mitigate camera shake with your handheld shots.
The rule goes like this:
Take the focal length of the lens you are shooting at and invert it to get your shutter speed. This will be the minimum shutter speed that you’ll want to use in order to avoid camera shake in your photos.
So for example, if I’m using my 24-105mm lens, and have it zoomed in to 100mm, then my minimum shutter speed should be 1/100 sec.
This rule is great, especially with longer focal lengths, but try not to go under a shutter speed of 1/60 sec for anything hand held just to be safe!
5. Use a Polarizer to Reduce Glare
You know how putting on polarized sunglasses cuts the glare from the sun and brings A LOT more contrast to what you see? Well, a Polarizing filter does the exact same thing when you add it to your lens.
Using a Polarizer will greatly enhance the quality and reduce glare in your photos if you’re outside on a sunny day. Check out this example of the same photo as the the feature for this tip but without the Polarizer:
To get the most out of your Polarizer, compose your scene with your camera at about a 90 degree angle in relation to the sun. This is the best angle for the Polarizer to cut the glare from the sun.
If you’re curious, the Polarizer I use is from B+W and I love it! The colour renditions are great and the quality of the photo is worthy of the little Italian chef kiss!
6. Zoom In!
Sometimes a scene can be very busy and distracting. One way to alleviate this is to zoom in and crop out the distracting elements, like the mountain shot above.
Here’s the composition I was working with before. The reason why the zoomed-in mountain shot is much more striking and powerful is because there are no distracting elements in the scene.
The feature shot above was taken with my absolute favourite telephoto lens, the Sigma 150-600. To give you some perspective, the zoomed-in shot was taken at 200mm focal length, while the other was 150mm. So although it wasn’t much of a change, it made the biggest difference!
7. Get Tack-Sharp Images
One of the biggest questions I receive from my subscribers relating to landscape photography tips is “how come my images aren’t sharp?” Here are some steps that you can take to help you ensure your images are tack sharp every time!
- Use a tripod – this is a given, but do make sure it’s a good quality one.
- Use a remote shutter release – I like my wireless Canon RC-6. This way there’s no risk of camera shake.
- Turn off Image Stabilization – you’ll see this as a toggle switch on your lens. Make sure it’s off while your camera is on the tripod as the purpose for this is for the lens to try to reduce blur while taking hand held photos. When on a tripod, Image Stabilization can actually be detrimental as sometimes the camera detects its own vibrations and tries to correct it, resulting in a blurry photo. *
- If using a telephoto lens like the 600mm lens used to capture the shot of the heron photo above, use Mirror Lockup or Live View. This will alleviate any camera shake from the mirror flipping when taking the shot. *
- Use a smaller Aperture to get a larger depth of field, ensuring as much of your scene is in focus as possible. F/8 or F/11 are a great place to start.
*Note: The third and fourth bullets both have asterisks beside them because I wanted to remind you to turn Image Stabilization back on and Mirror Lockup back off once you’re done.
I’ve had too many instances where I’ve forgotten to turn Image Stabilization back on. Then by the time I’m out on my next adventure, I’ve completely forgotten about this and all my hand held shots look shaky. I don’t want this to happen to you!
8. One a Day
This may be the most simple tip of all these landscape photography tips!
Honestly, no matter what camera you have on you, be it your DSLR, mirrorless or camera on your mobile phone, take one photo every day. Like this one, taken with my old iPhone 8 on an adventure:
Taking a photo a day is great because like anything, practice makes perfect and through you may not be feeling creative at a particular moment, you’d be surprised what you come away with more often than not.
What I love most about this is it acts as a small memoir as well. And who doesn’t love reminiscing about wonderful memories over a nice cup of tea?
Summary
There we have it!
We’ve covered 8 landscape photography tips for beginners. Just to summarize, here are the 8 tips you can apply in your next landscape photography adventure to help improve your skills!:
1. Pull the Viewer Through the Scene – Do this by incorporating a foreground, mid-ground and background in your scene.
2. Utilize a Levelling System – While using your camera on a tripod, make sure to keep that horizon line level!
3. Recognize Great Light – Try shooting at 90 degrees to the setting or rising sun to get more depth in your photos.
4. Understand the Reciprocal Rule – take 1 over your focal length (for example 1/100mm) and that (1/100 sec in this case) should be your minimum shutter speed to reduce camera shake while hand held. Note that 1/60 sec should be your minimum shutter speed for shooting anything hand held even if you’re using a wide angle lens like 16mm to avoid camera shake altogether.
5. Use a Polarizer to Reduce Glare – Just like cutting glare from the sun with sunglasses on, Polarizers do the same thing for your camera. You’ll see more contrast come to life in your photos too.
6. Zoom In! – Cut out all distractions by zooming in.
7. Get-Tack Sharp Images – Follow the five steps noted to get tack sharp photos every time.
8. Take One Photo Every Day – It doesn’t matter if it’s on your mobile phone’s camera or your DSLR, take one photo every day to inspire you to keep going!
If you’re looking for more tips to improve your skills, make sure to sign up for our Free 5 Ways to Improve Your Photography Guide.
Now pack your camera bag and let’s get out there and play!
About Claire Court
Claire has been a landscape photographer since 2015. With a passion for photography and love of helping others, she has built an online business where she teaches new photographers how to achieve success in their photos. Read her latest e-Book for FREE to help improve your photography skills here!