APPRECIATE LIGHT

Sunrise, sunset, twilight. Light in all it’s facet’s, learn how to use it to capture the mood of your landscape. There is no good and bad weather for the landscape photographer. Of course there are the conventional time’s to shoot pictures, sunrise sunset, when the sun is low in the horizon, creating modeling on the landscape and warmth. But what about stormy days, go on be brave, take the camera out when the weather is not that friendly, you may be rewarded when there’s a break in the clouds and the light opens up pockets of landscape with heavy dark clouds above.

A WORD ABOUT EXPOSURE

If your shooting landscapes you need ND filters. The natural density graduated filters are measured in ‘stops’ using a logarithmic scale; 0.3 = 1 stop, 0.6 = 2 stops, 0.9 = 3 stops. Use them, you will find your landscape images will improve dramatically, all without having to use photoshop.

Exposure meter not working? Then remember the f/16 rule. A scene on a bright sunny day is f/16 at 1 over the ISO setting, if your ISO is set to 100 set your speed to 1/100 sec at f/16.

A WORD

Thinking of venturing out and shooting some pictures this weekend?

Here are a couple of things for you to think about.

1. KISS, keep it simple stupid. When looking for a subject, compose your shot so that it removes as much unnecessary objects as possible. A good clean and simple composition is an essential ingredient to an eye catching image.

2. Don’t over dominate the foreground. A wide angle lens helps to accentuate foreground and create images full of impact. Unless if your not careful, the foreground subject can over dominate the frame and throw your carefully composed composition off balance.

Hope these help.

SYDNEY

According to the weather forecast last night after the news, Sydney was supposed to have fog, but after making the trip down this morning in the hope they had the weather right for once I was disappointed to get only a slight cloud cover over the top of the bridge, but saying that I did come back with 6 images of the harbour, this is just one of them. Photographed with the D3 and a 0.6 natural density grad filter at 20 sec, f22 the film speed was 200iso.

SOLDIERS BEACH

Last night I headed up to Soldiers beach to take my camera for walkies. This is one I came back with, two guy’s had packed up and were leaving already by the time I got there and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t see this. Granted it was  a long exposure, 2 minutes at f22, but there again the good stuff is always worth hanging around for.

I had been waiting to get this rock outcrop for a long time but every time I went there the tide was to high or my timing not quite right. I still feel there is something more I can get out of this location so I will keep trying.

For those of you who read my blog I would like to put this by you. How many of you would like to learn how turn out landscapes like this on your digital camera? I’m thinking of offering short courses  for those who want to be more serious about the creation of good landscape photography. If any body is interested please email me and I will see what I can do if I get enough of a response.

BOX HEAD

I love winter, it’s cold and when the sky is clear it’s very crisp on the horizon line. So with that in mind I headed to Box Head yesterday afternoon, a little bush bashing to get to this lookout and then wait. It didn’t look much to look at so I turned the D3 to Vivid colour, thought I might get something out of it. I don’t normally use this colour balance as I find the vivid saturation a little to plastic, but on this occasion I think I was justified. I used a natural density gradual 0.9 filter for both shot’s, processing was done in Capture NX2 again no photoshop work whatsoever. I often read of photographers using 2-3 images spliced together to get one properly exposed image, when with a little experience and understanding of light and how it works can save you a lot of time and, in the end deliver a far superior final result.