How to take spectacular and beautiful mountain scenery photos?

How to take mountain scenery photos to a higher level? We'll introduce you to the basics to help you develop your skills and learn how to create powerful work. Whether you’re new to mountain landscape photography or a pro, here are some helpful tips.

1. Choose a location and get there as early as possible

When you decide which mountains you want to photograph, do some careful research. Which trail or route are you planning to take? How long do you need? What should you wear? How much equipment do you want to carry? Then, once you think you've answered all of these questions, remember to give yourself extra time to make sure you see what you want to photograph!

If you are already an experienced traveler, you will find it easier and faster to get into the mountain wilderness than a newbie, and you will be able to plan a better itinerary.

Using a telephoto lens, you can even photograph some mountains from the side of the road, making them appear much closer than they actually are! You want to get to your chosen location early so you can find the best pieces before you start.

2. What are some good mountains worth photographing?

Where should you start looking? We are here to get you started and inspired. The wonderful wildflowers blooming in the mountains are recommended in spring and summer and can be used as the foreground of mountain photos.

Be careful when looking for mountains.

　3. Use the foreground to compose your shot

No matter what time of year you choose to do your mountain landscape photography, there is always the opportunity to include plenty of foreground interest. Use the foreground to direct the viewer's eye towards the mountains. Grass and wildflowers can be used in spring and summer, and ice and snow can be used in autumn and winter. Ideally, the foreground should be there to help your main subject, the mountain scenery, stand out. With this in mind, try to avoid too many distractions in the foreground and look for leading lines and color contrast to give the image depth and interest.

4. Try bracketing your exposure

Landscape photographers are bound to encounter darker and brighter skies that may affect your exposure, coupled with stormy weather, or even just A good sunrise or sunset, and the contrast levels in the scene can easily exceed the processing capabilities of the latest digital camera sensors. Graduated filters are often used in landscape photography to solve this problem by darkening the sky, however, since mountains tend to be jagged, the ND filter solution won't work for them. The transition zone of a graduated filter is a straight horizontal line, and any mountain that protrudes into a darker area will become darker compared to the rest of the mountain.

So exposure is a way to solve this problem for mountain photos, capture good details from shadows to highlights and merge them into HDR images in image editing software, also available in Photoshop Photometric masks to create images so you get balanced sky and shadow exposure.

5. Use different focal lengths

We introduced above the use of wide-angle lenses to include the foreground in mountain landscape photography. For different scenes, try using a tripod and a telephoto zoom lens from about 100mm to 500

mm to get closer to the mountains themselves.

Being close to a mountain means you can capture the wind swaying over the mountains, or the light playing on the rock textures. Sunrise and sunset are great times to take mountain photos with longer focal lengths, and zooming in can also be helpful when weather and light don't work well for an overall mountain image.

Summary

Mountain landscape photography can be one of the most challenging but rewarding types of photography. You'll need to adapt to changing weather and light conditions, so it pays to be patient. There are many great spots and numerous places to take stunning mountain photos.