Hello everyone! Shooting in any genre has a number of features. The fine art landscape photography is no exception. Today we are going to talk about 7 main points to keep in mind when photographing a landscape.

1: use the right light
Most beginners shoot landscapes when they feel comfortable, and most often during the day. But this approach is not correct. Professional landscape painters know how important the role of light is. That is why they try to take their photographs after sunrise or before sunset, in the so-called "golden hour", when the light from the sun is as soft as possible. In order to determine the "golden hour", you can use the application on your smartphone - it will show both the sunset / sunrise time and the best shooting time. If there is no possibility or desire to use the application, then it is enough just to find out when, for example, dawn will be and count one hour from it - this will approximately be the "golden hour". It's the same with sunset - the hour before it is called "golden". In fact, it usually takes a little more or less than an hour and you can see it.

So, "golden hour" is the best time to shoot a landscape. Beginners make two kinds of mistakes when choosing the time - filming during the day (at noon) or filming after sunset / before dawn (during twilight or even in the dark). Of course, you shouldn't do that. During the daytime, we have too harsh lighting and problems with shadows because of this. And at dusk and in the dark, on the contrary, there is not enough light for shooting a landscape. This does not mean that high-quality photographs cannot be obtained under the described shooting conditions - I am just saying that it is much more difficult to do it.

2: Don't Forget the Rule of Thirds
The Rule of Thirds is a simplified rule of the golden ratio. We divide the frame with three lines into equal parts horizontally and vertically. It is recommended to place objects of survey at the points of intersection and on the lines to draw attention to them. In addition, the rule of thirds is used to set the correct sky-to-ground ratio in the frame. Usually this is 1 to 2. That is, either 1/3 of the frame is occupied by the sky, and 2/3 by the earth, or vice versa. This is a very simple rule that should be mastered by all beginners.

3: Don't overwhelm the horizon.
Seriously, don't. Yes, there are creative ideas when you need to tilt the horizon line. But more often than not, this is inappropriate. At the same time, this error is striking when viewing a landscape, first of all - and even people far from photography very often notice this drawback.

4: Remember Composition
Of course, going out into the field and taking a picture of the sky and the forest on the horizon is sacred, but you should be more careful about composition and frame construction. You need to understand that good landscape shots are rarely single planes. The fact is that if there is only one plan in a landscape photo, then such a photo looks flat. According to a number of professional photographers, there should be three shots of a landscape - foreground, middle and background. Then the photo looks voluminous and interesting. For example, when photographing the sea, you can put a stone in the foreground, water (waves) in the middle, and the dawn sky in the background. I think you've all seen pictures like this on the internet. They look interesting and voluminous.

5: Use the correct camera settings
When shooting a landscape, you need to cover the aperture to values from 5.6 to 11. Approximately. Because our goal is to get maximum sharpness and detail. It is more difficult to obtain sharpness throughout the frame at an open aperture, and the maximum sharpness at such values is usually not achieved with most lenses. That is, you should not shoot a landscape at f / 1.4. The same as f / 32 - because the quality of the picture starts to deteriorate due to diffraction. The second point is ISO. It is recommended to set the minimum value. This is usually ISO 100. On some cameras it is ISO 200.

6: Experiment with focal length
Many people think that you need to shoot the landscape at the closest possible focal length that your lens has. That is, if this is an 18-55mm lens, then you need to shoot at 18mm. This is completely wrong. The choice of focal length should depend on the composition and the frame you want to get. Travel photographers shoot landscapes with long lenses (like 70-200mm) and get amazing images with perspective. There are landscape painters who shoot landscapes exclusively for fifty dollars - it seems more convenient to them. In general, don't get hung up on the widest angle possible.

7: Use a tripod
I have already mentioned that it is recommended to use ISO 100 and a smaller aperture for shooting. But how can you not get a stir in such conditions, especially when shooting sunrises / sunsets? It's simple - you need to use a tripod, without it in landscape photography anywhere.

Conclusion
And that's all I wanted to tell you today about landscape photography. This information is sufficient to enable you to improve the quality of your images. If you already know about everything that I spoke about here and follow these rules, then I can only congratulate you - apparently, you are already well versed in landscape photography.