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02/28/2005 05:33:09 AM · #1 |
| Just to photograph a landscape this week, so what are the best setting to photograph landscapes? |
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02/28/2005 07:00:58 AM · #2 |
Wide angel and small aperture.
Good light is important, at sunrise or sunset. |
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02/28/2005 07:57:46 AM · #3 |
Depends. :) What lens do you have, where are you going to be, and what kind of weather are you having?
Clara
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02/28/2005 11:13:43 AM · #4 |
or the Ansel Adams challenge, depth of field is important, so use a tripod and stop down. be sure your point of focus is sufficently far into the foreground that you have maximum DOF. As a rule of thumb, useable DOF is measured 1/3 in front of the point of focus and 2/3 behind it. Basically, on a conventional lens (with a focus ring on it) you would set the infinity mark on the aperture being used, and the extent of your DOF would be measured by the value aligned with the aperture on the left.
It's not really true that "wide angle" is "best" for landscapes. Sometimes it is, but there needs to be a dominant feature for this to work. I have shot a LOT of landscapes, and I believe the bulk of them were shot at closer to a normal/slight telephoto range. For a good example of this, look at Zoomdak's profile; how many of those beach shots are true wide angle? Not many, I don't think. The mild telephoto "stacks" landscape objects very well. Here's a very poor web reproduction of an Ansel Adams shot with considerable reach to the lens: //cours.cstj.net/570-346-f.d/ma%C3%AEtres/Adams.htm
One thing to watch out for; if the sky's not very interesting, try to frame shots that use less sky and incorporate foreground objects for depth and scale. If the sky's killer, lots of dramatic clouds, you can definitely use more of it. In any event, use a polarizer to darken the sky for the true "Ansel" look.
The suggestion to use sunset or sunrise is a good one, but not an absolute requirement. You need what we call "defining light", but depending on the subject's orientation it can come at different times of day. As a rule, shooting around midday is not going to work, but for those of us int he Northern latitudes the light is low in the sky at all times of the day right now, so there's not really any one time of day that's truly "bad" as far as light angle goes. The main thing is that for the orientation of your particular shot the light should be "painting" the landscape, 'defining" it with highlights and shadows.
In other words, DON'T shoot with the light directly behind you, nor (usually) directly into the light.
Robt.
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02/28/2005 11:29:14 AM · #5 |
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02/28/2005 11:38:58 AM · #6 |
| The name of the group of nature and landscape photographers who made Yosemite famous, among whom was Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Imogene Cunninham was the group f64. They wanted their prints super sharp from near to horizon. To get the whole thing into focus, get that appature as tight as you can, and try to get the camera as stable as possible for that long exposure. |
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02/28/2005 12:55:10 PM · #7 |
For a wideangle shot on an EF-S or DX format sensor is not necessary to stop down so much.
Take a Nikon D70, use the 18-70 lens at 28mm (it is sharper beyond 24mm) and set the focus point 100m into the scene. At these settings f4 would already yield a dof of 9m to infinity. f8 gives you 5m to infinity, f11 3,3m to infinity. It depends of the subjects you have nearby to determine the aperture. If you'd focus at 1000m still the DOF at f8 would be 5m to infinity. It becomes a different story when you use longer lenses like 50, 100, 150mm etc.
Because many lenses have their sweet point around f5.6 to f8 it will be the sharpest at those settings.
Stopping down will only give less sharpness because of diffraction, especially on digitals. Another downside of stopping down so much is all the sensor dust you will see and need to clone out. My sensor at this moment is littered with small dust and it is really annoying from f11. But I seldomly get past f8 so it doesn't bother me so much and I don't see it in any landscapes I shot lately (f8 and they are very sharp all over).
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