Top 10 Photography tips
How to capture great sunsets
Getting the most out of sunsets needs patience and timing. The best pictures are usually when the sun is close to the horizon and clouds are lit from below. And a telephoto lens can often give more impact than a wide-angle.
Use hyperfocal distance for depth of field
You can maximise depth of field in landscapes by focusing at the 'hyperfocal' distance. This is where the far distance is at the far limit of your lens's depth of field, and this also gives you the best depth of field nearer the camera.
Look for foreground interest
Wide-angle lenses are great for capturing wide, sweeping landscapes, but they can also capture lots of empty foreground, so look out for rocks, trees, gates or other objects you can include to add foreground interest.
Blur waterfalls and rivers with long exposures
You can capture silky smooth water or softly blurred moving clouds by putting your camera on a tripod and using a long exposure. And if the light is too bright for a long exposure, you can either use an ND filter or wait until dusk!
Use leading lines to draw viewers in
Use 'leading lines' in your landscape photos to draw your viewers' eyes into the picture. A leading line could be a jetty on a lake, a line of rocks or a footpath winding its way into the distance.
Use long lenses for more effective flower shots
It's tempting to use a wide-angle lens to capture a great swathe of floral color, but this can lead to individual blooms being lost. Instead, use a telephoto lens to pick out single flowers or clumps – this will also add artistic blur to the background.
Enhance your landscapes with reflections in water
Lakes and rivers can produce beautiful reflections that add foreground interest and a peaceful symmetry to a scene. If you get right down low, even a small pool or puddle can provide a reflection.
Check your exposure with the camera's histogram
Landscape photography can often mean balancing extremes of brightness in bright skies and shadowed foregrounds. Make sure you don't clip any highlights in the sky before you shoot by checking your camera's histogram.
Use an L-bracket for easier vertical shots
Not all tripod heads are well adapted to vertical shooting, especially with large and heave camera and lens combinations. The solution is an L-bracket, where you mount the camera sideways on the bracket, but the bracket attaches to the tripod head normally. This is great for horizontal 'pano' shots, too. Read more: 16 essential landscape photography tips