Notes on landscape photography

Introduction: Landscape photography is a way of taking landscape photos, which is a freeze-frame of nature. Below, I will list the things to note when taking landscape photography. Let’s take a look at it together! Landscape photography Things to note

1. Horizontal tilt

The horizon line will inevitably appear in most landscape photos. In ordinary people's consciousness, the horizon should be horizontal. If you accidentally tilt the horizon when shooting, the composition of the entire picture will be greatly affected. You can use the following methods to ensure that the horizon is straight and stable when filming.

Composition auxiliary lines: Most live view cameras can use auxiliary lines to indicate the horizontal direction to ensure that the composition of the picture will not tilt.

Electronic level: Many cameras now have built-in electronic levels, which carefully display the angle difference between your camera and the horizontal position.

Bubble level: uses physical principles to indicate the best angle for horizontal shooting of the camera. If you don’t have one on the tripod, you can prepare a hot-shoe version of the bubble level, which is compact and usable.

Post-processing: Use the rotation and straightening function to trim the picture to ensure it is level.

2. Only use the eye-level perspective to shoot

Shooting from the eye-level perspective can get the most classic shooting angle, but landscape photography can actually be more interesting. Use a lower angle, shoot close to the ground, or shoot from a higher location to get different perspective effects.

3. Photographing a sky that is too empty

Occasionally, the sky is cloudless and people feel comfortable, but a sky that is too empty makes the picture dull and boring. Try more interesting compositions in the sky, or simply reduce the area of ??the sky and focus on the foreground on the ground, so that the picture will be richer.

4. Blurry photos taken with shaking hands

For landscape photography, a blurry photo is worthless. It is recommended to increase the shutter speed or use a tripod to shoot directly. In low-light environments, a sturdy tripod can always ensure the best shooting conditions: fixing the camera's shooting position, allowing the photographer to free up his hands for other auxiliary actions such as shaking the black card flashlight, even when long exposure is not required In various situations, a tripod can still help photographers achieve precise composition. For the solo style photographer, a tripod is a lifelong companion.

5. The composition of the picture lacks visual focus

The blue sky and mountains and rivers are magnificent and beautiful, but they cannot be all of the photo. The photo needs a visual focus to maintain the audience's interest. The visual centerpiece can be anything, an interesting tree, a boat, a unique cloud, a notebook, etc. The visual center of gravity often contrasts with other content in the picture. Generally speaking, a picture is incomplete without a visual center of gravity.

6. The background is too confusing

When shooting scenery, photographers should not pay too much attention to the subject and forget about the formation of the background. Pay special attention to the objects directly behind the subject. When the background objects have nothing to do with the subject of the photo, it is best to remove them if possible. In the composition, it is best to pay attention to the distinction between each element and try to be clear and clear in purpose. Another point to note is that when the light changes, the background of the picture will also change. Complex light makes the picture more cluttered.

7. Bad use of light

When shooting with natural light, photographers will always encounter unfavorable conditions. The light in rainy weather will make the overall picture darker and the contrast of the picture will be reduced. Before actually shooting, the photographer needs to carefully consider the lighting conditions on site.

1. If the sun comes out, position the sun to the side and use side light to enhance the shadow and texture expression of the picture;

2. If the sun is directly in front of the lens, the camera will shoot The scene will be backlit, which allows for a dramatic silhouette effect;

3. If the sun appears directly behind the photographer, the scene to be photographed will be in flat direct light, consider changing the shooting direction ;

4. If there is no sun, the sky will be in a white soft light state. You can consider using soft light for close-ups.

8. Underexposure

This is an error that is prone to occur with automatic exposure cameras. If the sky is too bright, or the sun shines directly into the camera during morning and dusk hours, the camera will be deceived by the light meter, causing the overall picture to be underexposed. In this case, you can use exposure compensation to adjust the overall exposure of the picture. If you can adjust the metering area, you can also order it to meter to a location in the scene with appropriate brightness.

Using a neutral gray gradient filter to darken the sky is also a good choice. In landscape photography, using filters to regionally control the exposure of the picture is a very important shooting idea.

9. Overexposure

For digital cameras, if the light exceeds the range that can be recorded, it means irreversible loss of data. Overexposure in large areas is easy to detect and deal with, but overexposure in detailed areas such as sunlight-reflecting surfaces is difficult to detect. Faced with such a situation, photographers should use overexposure detection and constantly observe the histogram, and finally use exposure compensation to adjust the overall exposure.

10. Lack of depth

Even though photos are two-dimensional images, they record information about the real world. A composition that is too simple will make the picture lack depth. If you notice the weakness of the picture in this aspect, you can analyze the foreground, middle ground, and background of the picture, and consider the lighting performance state and blur state. The main reason for the lack of depth is the lack of information. If the information you want to express is added to the picture in an orderly manner, the content of the photo will be richer.