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Archive 2014 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?

  
 
NightPhoto
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


I hope I asked in the right forum, I'm new to outdoor photography. I just got my first fast wide angle lens, Tamron 17-50mm F2.8. When I take shots like the one below, I feel the color is not as rich looking as it could be, and the sky is almost always overexposed. Would a polarizing filter help? I haven't tried one yet. How could I improve the color and quality of the photo?




Edited on Oct 24, 2014 at 03:23 AM · View previous versions



Oct 10, 2014 at 05:54 PM
FarmerJohn
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


Joseph!
Welcome to critique!

You've asked a lot of questions, so hopefully you don't mind a lot of answers. Hope it's not too overwhelming.

Polarizing filters help with getting those dark blue skies, or you can also do various PS/LR things (reduce blue luminance) to get the same effect. If the sky is overexposed, you probably want to look into the various bracketing or blending methods. I wouldn't go overboard on the HDR effects, but realistic blending and bracketing really helps in these sorts of scenes.

Certainly time of day makes a big difference for quality of light and color. Closer to sunrise/sunset is 'typically' better. But you can take good photos at other times of day, but the typical advice is sunrise/sunset.

I think with this photo, your composition could be improved. You've got pretty nice (late afternoon?) light on the trees in the distance, which I'm guessing is supposed to be the subject. But it's very small in the frame compared to the close tree and shadow. don't know if you can go back there or not - I think if you were at the water's edge, or a little lower at this position, that might help. There's some good composition article links in recent threads. I'll try to find them and add the links.

keep on shooting and posting



Oct 10, 2014 at 07:01 PM
Eyeball
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


A polarizer could help a little but there are two primary ingredients to outstanding landscape photography:

1. Great landscape scenery (that means you may need to travel, hike, whatever, to find something interesting, unique, and appealing).

2. Great light (that usually means getting up extra early in the morning or sticking around late into sunset. It also may mean coming back to the same spot multiple times until you get lucky with the light and weather. Early-morning or late-evening light will not only likely have better color but it will also usually reduce the dynamic range and reduce your blown-out-sky problem.)

That is why great landscape photography seems so easy ("just shoot the landscape. It doesn't even move!") but is really quite hard (requires time, patience, and tenacity as well as good equipment, technique, and an eye for composition).



Oct 10, 2014 at 07:03 PM
AuntiPode
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


The first factor is how to expose an image properly. Depending upon the light in a scene, automatic exposure in a camera may render a sky too bright or a foreground too dark. It can help to bracket the exposure - take several images at different exposure settings. With automatic exposure, you usually have an exposure compensation dial or some such, to reduce the exposer or increase it to allow you to bracket the exposure. You will often fine one of the bracketed exposures renders the scene better than letting the camera choose how to render it. Also, if you capture an image in raw rather than jpeg and use a good processing program, you can often brighten the shadows and darken the sky to balance better an individual image to make a good version of a scene that initially looks less than good.

Whether a polarizing filter would help the sky depends upon the position of the sun. A polarizer will render part of the sky more blue because it blocks part of the scattered light. One disadvantage, if you use a wide angle lens or assemble a panoramic image, the blue of the sky can vary in portions of the sky because the angle of the sun is different. However, for some images it can help significantly. It can also render the color of some objects in a more saturated way because it removes some scattered light. For many years I always shot sunny scenes with a polarizing filter. It was a plus most of the time. I only needed to remove it occasionally. Indoors, it's occasionally useful to knock down reflections from surfaces such as glass.

Often the real problem with a sky is the brightness of the sky and darkness of the foreground is greater than the dynamic range of a camera sensor. One way to compensate is to use a graduated neutral density filter which will reduce the amount of light from the sky without reducing the amount reflected by the foreground. Another method is to take two exposures - one to properly expose the sky and another to properly expose the foreground and to combine the two in image processing software such as Photoshop. These are options, but there will be a learning curve if you decide to dip your toes into the post processing pond.


Edited on Oct 10, 2014 at 07:14 PM · View previous versions



Oct 10, 2014 at 07:11 PM
NightPhoto
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


Thanks, my first photo posted here.

The purpose I shot this particular picture was to use for a facebook banner, which means it gets cropped to just a band of the image.

I agree my composition needs improvement in general right now. Especially with nature shots, as I'm new to it. Also, not taking pictures for almost 10 years has had it's own effect, I feel very rusty. But technically speaking, not regarding composition per say, time of day would help I guess. The park is walking distance from my house.

I've got a lot to learn, I've never shot bracketing, I'll do some research on it. I take it you blend the correctly exposed sky photo over the correctly exposed ground in post processing? I don't actually have photoshop installed right now. I do own it, though an older version (CS I think?). And Lightroom version 2 I think. I may have to subscribe to the service for photography uses.

Edited on Oct 10, 2014 at 07:20 PM · View previous versions



Oct 10, 2014 at 07:11 PM
AuntiPode
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


You could use bracketed images to combine them in post processing. That's what's typically done in what they call HDR. However, the old-time and still good use of bracketing exposure is to find the ideal exposure for a given scene. There are elaborate ways to use light meters, especially spot light meters to evaluate a scene for optimal exposure. Te value a camera picks in automatic exposure mode may or may NOT be the best exposure. If you bracket the exposure you can pick which exposure you think is best. Also, in post processing one of the "off" exposures might actually work better for correction by a program such as Photoshop.


Oct 10, 2014 at 07:19 PM
NightPhoto
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


I take it to do proper bracketing I'd have to mount the camera on a tripod for identical multiple shots?

The fact that you shoot with a polarizing filter all the time is good to know. I've got to try one out. I think I have one, I'll have to look for it. Anything in particular to know about them? Suggested brand, etc?



Oct 10, 2014 at 07:23 PM
NightPhoto
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


I did some digging in my camera bag I kept my Canon stuff in, and found the polarizing filter! I thought I had one. I also stumbled on a big rubber hood which I didn't know why I had. It fits the filter.

Not entirely sure why I got it in 77mm**, but it has a step down ring to 67mm, so it's ready to use on my lenses. I looked it up, and this is the model it is I believe:

http://www.amazon.com/Kaesemann-Circular-Polarizer-Multi-Resistant-Coating/dp/B0000BZLAC

It says F-Pro on the outside and B+W 77 KSM C-POL MRC on the inside in the front.

Think this is a decent one?

**Edit: Looks like I got the largest size I'd ever have to fit it on (at the time), so I could step it to each lens size rather than having to buy multiple ones for each. Hmmm.



Oct 10, 2014 at 10:27 PM
AuntiPode
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


When you bracket for exposure there's no need to use a tripod because you're just looking for the one image with the best exposure. If you want to combine multiple images in a program like Photoshop, using a tripod may be necessary for some post processing programs, but Photoshop can align images that are shot manually and slightly out of alignment. That said where you can use a tripod for landscapes, I'd recommend one. It helps you be careful and methodical.

Digital cameras generally need a circular polarizer as there can be issues with linear polarizers. Not sure I can tell the difference between most brands of polarizing filters. My 24-105mm Canon wears a 77mm filter, because that's the size it needs.



Oct 11, 2014 at 12:33 AM
NightPhoto
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


After reading all the replies, and some careful consideration, it seems to do good outdoor photography you have to really concentrate on a single shot and perfect it. Action photography is all about taking enough photos to hopefully get a good one it seems, but with landscape you have a static target. Something very different. To capture the photo correctly seems like it would require many attempts and hope for good weather conditions, try different times of day, and different types of lighting of the shot. As this is one of my first landscape shots, I'm just starting to get the hang of what may be required to get a good photograph.

Just wondering, anyone around here use Gimp? It's free, perhaps it might get me going on at least cropping my images to represent how I intend to use them. In the shot above I was focused on the center portion of it to use the reeds and grass as foreground, and hopefully get enough water in the picture to capture the atmosphere of the lakes around here. It has to be wide enough for flickr, facebook, and other such sites top banner. I would love it if I could get a shot with mist above the water, but at this time of year that is most likely impossible. I took the shot at F4, with the camera on ISO 100, using my Nikon D2X.



Oct 11, 2014 at 12:55 AM
NightPhoto
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


I used MS Paint to crop and show how it appears on my facebook page, after I positioned it. Added to first post (see above). This is what I had intended it for, online top banners. It really looks washed out. I think I'm going to try this again with my polarizing filter.


Oct 11, 2014 at 01:34 AM
AuntiPode
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


Lylejk is the gimp-master here.


Oct 11, 2014 at 03:31 AM
Eyeball
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


Your B&W filter is a top-of-the-line filter so no problems there.
The polarizer will darken the sky (assuming you are 90 degrees to the sun as Aunti mentioned) and take some glare off the tree leaves.

Depending on how that scene is oriented to the morning sun though, I recommend you get your butt out of bed and take an early-morning shot.

If you're in Minnesota, I would think it would be pretty easy to get a "misty" shot at that time of morning. The water will still be relatively warm and should be producing some vapor on a cool morning. At that time of day the polarizer is probably not necessary and will make you unnecessarily lose a stop or more of light but you could try some shots with it on to see.



Oct 11, 2014 at 09:28 AM
Camperjim
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


Landscape or otherwise, there are three factors that seem to be important and cover almost all issues.

Camera settings and gear. There are no set, necessary gear and settings but these are the tools needed to work with the two other factors.

Composition. By this I mean the arrangement of all of the elements in the image including shapes, colors, lines, light and dark. The photographer is responsible for what is or is not in the image.

Artistic intent, goals and vision. Before you push the shutter, and concurrent with making appropriate camera settings and composing, you should have a clear idea of your reasons for taking the photo and what you want to accomplish. If you want instant shock and awe and maximum impact, you may need to wait for those special moments, the thunderstorms rolling in, the rainbows, the red skies or all of the above and more at once. Of course there are lots of other reasons to take pictures including simpler ideas such as recording the beauty of a special place.

Edited on Oct 11, 2014 at 09:36 AM · View previous versions



Oct 11, 2014 at 09:35 AM
NightPhoto
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


Cool, I think I'm gonna buy one that fits the lens at 67mm, as it blocks the hood right now and the other hood I have doesn't work with this wide of an angle lens (it shows looking through the viewfinder).

I just took some test shots with it. Really helps fix that washed out look it seems. The sky isn't white, it's blue, with the filter.



Oct 11, 2014 at 09:36 AM
RustyBug
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


Congrats on the lens ... the Tammy 17-50/2.8 is a fine lens on crop bodies. Had one when I was shooting Nikon crop. Sold after switching to Canon and going up to FF.

+1 @ much of the others. I'll add that you scene is inherently being shot with portions in two very different lighting conditions. Part shade, part full sunlight (the sky is also "full sunlight" if you will). Getting a correct exposure for two dynamically different light levels is essentially not possible with one exposure.

Think of it this way ... you're at the carnival and trying to knock over two milk bottles with the throw of one ball. The rules are you need to knock them down, but if one (or both) of them falls off the table, then you lose. You have to keep them both on the table, but you still have to knock them both over.

So, while you might be focused on where to throw the ball to get them both to fall, you also have to consider how hard to throw the ball so it is the "correct" force to knock them both over without them falling off the table.

Okay, so here's the twist:

While to you, they LOOK the same as you are standing there ... the reality is that one bottle is really heavy, the other is really light. The "correct" amount of force you need for one bottle is the "wrong" amount of force you need for the other bottle. Well, if you knew that you'd think ... I'd need to throw two different balls at two different speeds. With only one ball, I'll either throw too hard and the lighter one will fall off the table ... or, I'll throw too soft and the heavy one won't budge. You can try to "split the difference" and thrown just the right amount, but there really is no "split the diff" amount that will get them both if you hit them both at the same time (exact vector force application notwithstanding @ disclaimer for any theoretical physicists that might be lurking).

BTW, notice how when the operator knocks the bottles over ... he does so with his hand HOLDING the ball, one bottle at a time, where he can apply a DIFFERENT force to each bottle so it knocks down, but still doesn't fall off the table. You aren't able to perceive that he is applying two different amounts of force, so you ASSUME that it is possible if you do it "just right". The reality is that it is an impossible task if the weights are too far apart. Yet, you are deceived into believing that there is a "correct" amount that will be just right to do both, when the reality is that with only one ball to throw, it will be an exercise in concession of one for the other ... which ever what you try for.

So when we are shooting in mixed lighting exposure value situations, we have some decisions to make @ which lighting we are aiming for. Do we go for the heavy or light portion of the scene? Do we try to take one exposure that is "down the middle" or do we decide to take two throws at it, one for the heavy, one for the light (not allowed at the carnival, but we can do it) and then put the results of the two together.

Because when we are standing there looking at it ... it is more challenging to realize just how much difference there is (without proper objective metering info). The diff's can easily be 2 - 3 stops in normal shade/sky situations and even more in different conditions. The polarizer can help reduce this diff a bit in some scenarios due to the logarithmic values of exposure dynamic range, but it isn't a cure.

Camera's just don't see things quite the same way that we do when it comes to dynamic, mixed lighting, so we have to adjust our thinking a bit. People wouldn't normally think that the same looking milk bottles would weigh significantly different. Same goes for when we see portions of the scene that "look fine" to us, but they can have significantly different amounts of light in them ... i.e. more than can be properly handled with only one shot tossed at it. Such is the bane of many a landscape photo, that we either shoot diff lighting @ reduced dynamic range, apply ND filters (PL pseudo ND), apply multi-value expsoures, split the diff and PP or accept the sacrifices on one in favor of the other.

More than one way to skin the cat, but one shot can be a tough gig when two cats are standing very far apart.

Anyway, HTH and welcome to the PC Forum.

Bring on the pics.




Oct 11, 2014 at 11:46 AM
NightPhoto
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


Well, with a bit of photoshop editing I think the photo improved some. I can't exactly retake it as the leaves have changed. The original purpose of the photo was to feature how green everything is where I live.



Edited on Oct 24, 2014 at 03:25 AM · View previous versions



Oct 16, 2014 at 05:58 AM
NightPhoto
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · How to improve outdoor landscape shots?


I made another pass at it, replacing the sky this time. You can click the text under the image for a large version of it. Any thoughts?




Oct 20, 2014 at 08:23 PM





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