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Landscapes

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  • Use a tripod.  This enables you to select small apertures for front to back sharpness.  If it's windy, hang your camera bag over your tripod to weigh it down.

  • Use your feet to move around and look for alternative viewpoints.  Climb hills, stand on stiles or crouch.

  • Include foreground interest to avoid your images looking two dimensional.  Hedges, walls, gates, rocks and paths are all suitable candidates.  Use the rule of thirds to create a balanced composition

  • Filters should be used sparingly.  Graduated filters are useful for reducing contrast between land and sky, polarisers for deepening blue skies and warm-ups for enhancing light.

  • Putting horizons across the centre of the frame is rarely effective.  Using the top or bottom thirds of the frame is more dynamic.

  • Different ISO create different effects.  Use of higher ISO (ISO 1000 and above) to give grainy, contrasty images or slower emulsions (ISO 100 or lower) for optimum image quality

  • Don't think that you need to live on the lake side can take good landscapes, urban views can be just as dramatic, as can flat fields, it's how you interpret  the scene that counts.

Experiment with different lenses.  Telephotos compress perspective and give a stacking effect, wide-angle lenses stretch a scene give greater depth to an image.​

Time of day is critical, getting up early or venturing out late is far better than shooting at mid-day.

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Setting to try out...

Exposure Mode:  Manual

Focus Mode:  Manual

Aperture: f/8

ISO:  100

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To improve your shots...

  • You need to wait for a still, calm day so that the surface of the water is smooth to capture the best reflections.

  • Look for strong, simple shapes in the background, such as hills or trees.

  • Use a low viewpoint to make the water reflection more obvious in the frame.

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Tip

  • Use a shutter speed of a second or longer to smooth out small ripples, although you will lose some detail in the reflection.

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