Introduction skills of landscape photography

Lead: Landscape photography is one of the most popular photography themes. Fine image quality, clear detail expression, pure color expression and stable and lasting composition are the elements of ideal landscape photography. Let's bring you the introduction skills of landscape photography. Let's go and find out!

Lens recommendation

Traditional landscape photography is dominated by wide-angle and medium-focus lenses, and telephoto lenses are rarely used. In the choice of zoom and fixed focus, because of the small aperture below f/ 10, the imaging gap between them is not obvious, and landscape photography requires more accurate composition, so zoom lenses are often used. As long as it can give full play to the advantages of 5D Mark III, it is a suitable choice.

Introduction Skills of Landscape Photography —— Recommended Lens (Taking Canon as an Example)

Wide-angle zoom lens: EF 16-35mm F2.8L USM, EF 17-40mm F4L USM.

Standard zoom lens: EF 24-70mm2.8L USM, EF 24- 105mm F4L is USM.

Telezoom lens: Ef70-200mm2.8L is USM II, Ef70-200mf4L is USM.

Medium gray gradient mirror

It can darken the sky in scenes with large light contrast such as sunrise and sunset, so that both can be exposed correctly, and its natural effect is also difficult to simulate by HDR or digital post-production.

Medium gray mirror

Also known as the reduction mirror, it can reduce the amount of light entering the lens without changing the aperture. Long-exposure shooting often uses a medium-gray density mirror, which can create a very dreamy picture effect.

Introduction Skills of Landscape Photography —— Use of Tripod

No tripod, no scenery. Landscape photography and tripod go hand in hand. Landscape photography requires extremely high resolution and great depth of field, which can only be achieved by using a tripod. Although it will have a certain impact on maneuverability, it is worthwhile to weigh it.

Precautions for use

Be sure to lock the bracket and tripod head.

Use cable release or self-timer mode to reduce the possibility of hand shock.

When shooting with shockproof lens and tripod, the shockproof function should be turned off to get a clearer picture.

You can't put the camera on the tripod and take it with you, which will easily damage the tripod and cause the camera to fall.

▲ In order to get enough depth of field, use a small aperture of f/ 10 for shooting, and combine the length of M-mode manual exposure and bar graph for accurate exposure to ensure the detail presentation of the picture. Canon EOS 5D Mark III+ Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/ 1.4 ZE, F 10, 1/250, ISO 160. (Photo: Du Yongle)

▲ Tripod is very important for landscape photography, especially when using the built-in HDR function. Because the stitching needs to take three photos, a tripod is essential. Canon EOS 5D Mark III+ Zeiss Distagon T* 15mm f/2.8 ZE, F 1 1, 1/25, ISO 100. (Photo: Du Yongle)

Introduction Skills of Landscape Photography —— Parameter Setting of Landscape Photography

Scenery photography requires fine image quality, so the sensitivity should be set to 100 as far as possible to obtain the most delicate image (ISO 50 is extended sensitivity, and its image fineness is not obviously different from ISO 100, which is mainly used to control exposure). In low light environment, if there is a requirement for exposure time, a faster shutter speed is required, and the sensitivity can be improved appropriately, but it is best not to exceed ISO 500. Although Canon EOS 5D Mark III has excellent anti-noise performance, it is necessary to use low sensitivity because landscape photography has extremely strict requirements on image quality.

The greater the depth of field of landscape photography, the better, while maintaining a high enough resolution, so the best aperture setting should be from F 8 to F 13, depending on the shooting distance and scene depth. When shooting, you can get the best results by focusing on infinity or near infinity. Remember to play back the photos after shooting, enlarge the photos, check the focal length and depth of field, and adjust the aperture and shutter in time to get the clearest image.

The diffraction limit aperture of Canon EOS 5D Mark III is around F 10. That is to say, due to the diffraction effect of small aperture, when the aperture is smaller than F 10, the lens resolution begins to decrease, which cannot meet the high-definition requirements of Canon EOS 5D Mark III. As a result, the overall resolution of the picture slowly decreases. The smaller the aperture, the more obvious the resolution decline. Below F 22, the picture quality is almost unusable.

Introduction skills of landscape photography-shooting skills of starry sky photography

The light in the starry sky is extremely weak, which usually requires the maximum aperture of the lens. According to the different shooting methods, the setting of sensitivity and shutter can be roughly divided into two categories:

If you want to shoot a long-time exposed star track, you must set the sensitivity around ISO 400 and use a long exposure (B shutter) for more than 20 minutes to shoot a clear star track.

If you want to shoot the stars (that is, the starry sky similar to the naked eye), it is best to use the shutter for no more than 30 seconds, and use ISO 1600 or even higher sensitivity to ensure exposure. In the area with less light damage, with this parameter setting, extremely magnificent starry sky can be photographed.

▲ The shooting parameters are not static. Under special circumstances, the shooting parameters should be adjusted accordingly. Canon EOS 5D Mark III+ Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/ 1.4 ZE, F 1.4, 1/40, ISO 2000. (Photo: Du Yongle)

▲ Canon EOS 5d mark iii+ef 400 mm f/4 do is USM, f6.3, 1/640, ISO 400 (photo: Zhao Jia).

Introduction skill of landscape photography-the choice of light

The sunshine in the early morning is warm in tone and soft in light, and the low light angle is also easy to form a contrast between light and shade, which is most suitable for landscape photography. Therefore, it is necessary to "get up early in the dark", be in place before sunrise, and persist after sunset until the last inch of light disappears into the twilight, so as to grasp the best shooting time of landscape photography before and after sunrise and before and after sunset.

Secondly, we should pay attention to the application of local light. Let only local areas in the picture be illuminated by light, and other parts are in the shadow. Such local light can create a dramatic effect and make the work glow with unique vitality.

Diffuse light on cloudy days is not suitable for landscape shooting. Too uniform diffuse light will make the photo look dull and dull. But there are exceptions Foggy days and snowy days are good examples. In foggy days, the visibility is greatly reduced, the air perspective is enhanced, and it is easier to form a sense of spatial hierarchy; Snowy days are often pure white, without color and hierarchy, but its charm is still unstoppable. However, this is a special case. In most cases, sunny days are still the best choice for landscape photography, which proves that many excellent landscape photography works are taken on sunny days.

▲ Yunnan, Meili Snow Mountain. The sunshine in the morning is soft and warm, which adds charming color to the main peak Kawabegar.

Canon EOS 5d Mark III+EF 70-200mm2.8L is USM II, F8.0,1100, ISO 100. (Photo: Du Yongle)

Introduction Skills of Landscape Photography —— Application of Composition

linear combination

Careful observation reveals that life is full of various linear relationships: vertical trees, horizontal lakes, extended roads, and undulating contours of distant mountains ... These are all beautiful linear shapes in nature.

When different lines are put together, a richer combination is formed, and there are various linear forms: diagonal, S-shaped, vertical, horizontal and radial. From the perspective of space, two parallel straight lines that extend far away will eventually meet, and this line shape has the function of visual traction; This is also a common way in linear composition.

After summing up these common composition rules, they can be properly used in observation and shooting; For the linear combination that is not obvious or has a high degree of combination, the decision can be made faster and a better composition can be obtained. So the training of basic skills is very important.

Symmetrical composition

Like linear composition, symmetrical composition is an obvious law in nature, which can usually be found in places or buildings with lakes. The quiet lake reflects the mountains and the sky. At this time, when the scene and reflection are taken at the same time, a unique symmetrical form can be formed on the picture, which makes the composition richer and more contemporary, and also makes the picture more rigorous and regular.

Decentralized combination

Decentralized composition is a kind of "composition without composition", which focuses on excavating implicit geometric relations or internal relations from a pile of scattered points with no obvious regularity, so that the picture looks orderly and not messy, thus making the whole picture form a complete whole.

Geometric composition

In addition to the obvious composition rules in nature, we can also dig out the composition rules that nature does not have.

Triangle composition method

Putting three prominent objects in the scene into a triangle in the picture can naturally make people feel a sense of stability, and "stability" is the biggest feature of triangle composition.

Frame construction method

Taking the foreground as a picture frame and putting the scene in the picture frame can break the general observation mode, make the picture form more changeable, and the collocation of the foreground and the background also makes the picture more layered. The "picture frame" of some scenes itself has rich information, such as beautifully designed hollow windows in the garden; This special prospect can fully enrich the content of the picture and deepen the theme, and it is also a common means in landscape photography. There can be other changes in frame composition, such as multi-frame composition. The multi-frame picture in the foreground divides the scene into many small pictures, which are independent of each other and set each other off as interesting. It is also a wonderful composition.

Balance of the picture

Balance is a common concept in photographic composition. Not only landscape photography, but also most photography fields should be considered. This is a kind of psychological balance, and the object to be balanced can be the subject or background content, even the color block without content can be competent.

There is no precise measure of balance, but you can have a rough judgment. We can understand it as a seesaw: there is a big object on the left, and there must be corresponding elements on the right to maintain balance and equal weight; When one side is closer to the center, it is only necessary to arrange a small object near the edge of the other side to maintain balance. For example, a large number of scenes on the ground are concentrated on one side, and there should be sky, clouds or other elements on the other side to achieve balance, which can make the picture feel stable and more attractive.

▲ In the picture, dogs can be regarded as points, railings as lines, plank roads, leaves and lakes as blocks, so that a picture can be abstracted into an orderly pattern composed of points, lines and surfaces. Canon EOS 5d Mark III+EF 70-200mm2.8L is USM II, F2.8, 1/640, ISO 200. (Photo: Du Yongle)

Combinatorial composition

In actual shooting, we often encounter some complicated scenes, and we can't simply use the above composition method. At this time, we need to use the composition rules flexibly to create our own unique composition. For example, a straight street lamp on the roadside must be equipped with two traction lines, which is a comprehensive application of vertical line composition and traction line composition; There are many lines and birds in the sky, which is a comprehensive application of point composition and line composition. The composition principle of landscape shooting is to adjust measures to local conditions and discover carefully; Communicate with nature, understand the laws of nature, and express this law and aesthetic feeling with your heart, you can get your own unique landscape photography.