Tips on how to take good landscape pictures? (With a SLR)?

Question

I'm going on a vacation to New Zealand and Alaska...
I hear they have great landscapes and that I would really regret not taking photos. I have a SLR camera but I'm not really sure what type of equipment to bring.

Answer 1

Sounds like fun! If you are doing a fair amount of hiking, I would recommend the following:

- Find a good, sturdy tripod...preferably carbon-fiber because those are the lightest. Most of these tripods will allow you to attach a counter-weight (like your backpack) to provide additional stability. Gitzos are nice but expensive; there is a Chinese brand called Benro that has the same specs as a Gitzo but at a third of the price. At home, I use Bogen/Manfrotto legs, but when I travel, I use the Benro...it's great, but you wonder if Gitzo's intellectual property has been compromised. Avoid plastic tripods...they bow and vibrate with the wind.

- Find a good bag or backpack - try them out in the store first before buying (I've been through dozens before finding one that matched my needs.) Start with Lowepro or Tamrac. Most of the backpacks should have holsters for your tripod. Be careful not to buy a pack/bag that is bigger than you need, or is proportionally larger than your size or strength...on long hikes, oversized bags will take its toll. For shoulder bags, I like the Lowepro Nova AW series and the Lowepro Magnum AW if I have a lot of equipment. For a pure camera backpack, I settled on the Lowepro Microtrekker AW. For a hybrid camera backpack and daypack, I like the Tamrac Adventure series...but this holds minimal camera equipment. If you are not hiking, you will probably prefer the shoulder bag over the backpack.

Lenses: Unless you really need to travel light, avoid using the zoom lens that came in a camera kit (if you have it). Instead, consider a higher quality zoom or a fixed prime lens. These can be rented if you are not sure about purchasing. Wide (~28mm). Std 35-50mm, and a telephoto up to 200mm. I'm guessing that you will probably not use the telephoto as much. Avoid fish-eye wide lenses unless you like that look. Prime lenses offer the advantage of better edge-to-edge sharpness overall and usually with a larger aperture; however, some of the more expensive zooms can now rival that. Another small advantage of prime lenses is that they often can show you the hyperfocal range right on the lens...with zooms, you need to calculate hyperfocal distances using a table. When using the wide, avoid the temptation to 'capture everything'...compose carefully and crop out elements that are uninteresting or do not contribute to your vision.

Hoods: Get the appropriate hood for your lenses and use them whenever you can (even indoors). Hoods help reduce stray light from hitting your lens surface...stray light can compromise your contrast or cause flares.

Exposures: Familiarize yourself with the zone system (see link). If you don't have time for that, learn to use your camera's autobracketing function if it has one.

Depth Of Field (DOF): Familiarize yourself with hyperfocal focusing (see link). Sharpness and maximum DOF are related, but are not the same. Maximum DOF describes the maximum range where objects will be in focus. Maximum sharpness describes the crispness of the image...for most lenses, maximum sharpness occurs at around an F8 aperture, also known as the lens 'sweet spot'. Using the smallest aperture will give you maximum DOF, but might introduce refraction (image will be in focus, but will show signs of ghosting.) How would you combine maximum sharpness and maximum DOF? You would need to look into tilting the lens...but this is a different subject. For now, just concentrate on your hyperfocal focusing.

Filters: The filters I find most useful for landscape photography are:
1) Circular Polarizers - to reduce glare and help clouds stand out from the sky...some photographers say not to overdo this...but I love clouds that pop out.
2) Graduated Neutral Density Filters - If you are not shooting in the early morning light, or late before the sunset, these filters allow you to shoot high contrast situations without compromising too much dynamic range.
3) Regular Neutral Density Filters - These filters are helpful if you want to take longer exposures in bright situations...great for making water scenes more silky.

Film: If you are very comfortable at getting the right exposure, consider slide films like Provia or Velvia...I really like the somewhat exagerrated color saturations of these films. But for slide film, you will want to err on the side of underexposure because if you overexpose with slide film, you've lost the data. (If you overexpose with negative print film, you can bring it back.)

Misc:
- Giotto Rocket Blower - great for cleaning out lenses and SLR mirrors in a hurry (see link).
- Remote shutter release - preferably one that locks.
- Maybe a Cokin filter holder for your neutral density filters...but I usually hand hold these during the shot.

Hope this helps and have fun!

Answer 2

Have a lens with a short focal length, anywhere from 18mm to 24mm. That will allow a very wide, very pretty shot. Also a tripod wouldn't hurt if you want to get an evening or night shot. Have fun!

Answer 3

that's all you need. consider a couple different speeds of film for different tmes of the day. compose the picture with the horizon either above or below the midway point for a nice composition. And a lense with a deep aperature would be best.