Mulga Well 1, South Australia

I love photographing the outback country. These two images here have been captured at Mulga Well, in South Australia.

For these two images a Nikon D700 and 24-120mm lens has been used.

Capturing a good landscape is all about capturing excellent lighting at the right time of the day and generally the best time is early morming or late evening. A cloudy sky can also assist in giving a landscape a boost.

I prefer my landscapes to be uncomplicated, and by that I mean a landscape having a simple composition and not too busy.

Mulga Well 2, South Australia

A variety of lenses can be used for landscape photography, ranging from wide angle to telephoto. A wide angle lens will give a wide view and cover many parts of the scenery, with a wide lens it is a good idea to include some foreground object to give the scene some depth. With a telephoto lens you are able to isolate a small part of the landscape to highlight some part, it may be a distant mountain range or some trees in the distance.

With landscapes it is critical to get the image as sharp as possible and some of the aspects to consider are as follows;

• Use a higher aperture to give a reasonable depth of field,
• Use a reasonably high shutter speed to avoid camera shake,
• With landscapes, if there is a breeze beware of any moving foliage and  ensure that you use a sufficiently high shutter speed to avoid blur,
• Consider using a tripod to give additional camera stability,
• Also use a cable release with the tripod.

Sometimes doing a panorama with several images will give as good, if not better results than a very wide angle lens. The reason for this is that many wide angle lenses will give quite a lot of distortion to the image. However a longer focal length lens with the images stitched together will give less distortion. Even successful hand held stitched images can be obtained if there is nothing in the close foreground, so give it a try.

I am keen on using neutral density filters particularly when there are moving clouds or moving water in the image as interesting blur effects can be obtained.

Interesting effects can also be obtained with HDR (High Dynamic Range) effects, particularly when the landscape is lit by high contrast lighting.

There are some reviews of some of the Nikon cameras and lenses suitable for landscape use here, Nikon Camera Reviews and Nikon Lens Reviews.

Binna Burra

Landscape photography is something many photographers aspire to. There are many opportunities for this type of photography of your surrounding area, no matter where you are.

Landscape Photography Definition

Landscape photography is generally aimed to show different spaces and objects within the world where you are. They can be distant or close up micro objects.

This practice of landscape photography is practised by professionals and amateurs alike. The landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature and can sometimes include man made objects. Landscape photographers can give an appreciation of the scenery that is being photographed.

Many landscape photographers show little or no human activity in their photos but strive to attain pure, unpoluted landscapes, that are devoid of human influence.

With landscapes it is good to include subjects such as strongly outlined landforms, selective ambient lighting. However the definition of landscape photography is very open and broad. There are urban, industrial, macro and nature landscapes. A beach with parasols, sunbathers or chairs can be a landscape photograph.

There are many techniques to help you improve your landscape photography and some of these are summarised below:

1. In landscape photography, sharpness is paramount. Sharpness is all about technique and many issues need to be taken into account such as camera stability, subject movement, that is right sometimes landscape objects can move for example trees and leaves moving in the breeze.
2. Include some object in the foreground to give the image some form of depth. This can be trees rocks or some other object.
3. Polarising filters can give a real boost to a landscapes, particularly to the sky. The filter will give a nice saturated boost to the blue sky.
4. Neutral density filters can allow you to use slower shutter speeds. This can enhance images to give them a different feel by blurring moving water or blurring moving clouds.
5. Using High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques can really assist in increasing the range of tones in the image. This is very useful where bright and high contrast lighting is illuminating the scene.
6. Stitching images together can be very effective in showing a wider angle of view which is often required with landscapes. This can be a very good decision as stitching images will save you the cost of extreme wide angle lenses. A stitched image with a longer lens will often give an overall image with less distortion than the same image taken with an extreme wide angle lens.
7. Many landscape photographers will only use wide angle lenses for landscapes, however some very effective landscapes can be captured with telephoto lenses, even super telephoto lenses to help isolate a section of the landscape.
8. Make use of Depth of Field in capturing your landscape. Stopping down a lens will give you greater depth of field which can be critical in a landscape. With some lenses stopping down the lens by a couple of stops may improve the sharpness with some lenses.
9. Some post processing may give a real boost to your landscapes such as slight sharpening or a saturation boost over all of the image or apply it selectively over certain areas of the image.
10. A tripod and remote shutter release will help improve the sharpness of a landscape image.

Trees at Eagleby Wetlands

When capturing landscape images there is not really one category of lens required to form the image. It really depends on where you want to place the emphasis in the images. As an example in the image above, a 300mm lens has been used with the main aim to capture the silhouette of the trees against the greying sky in the background.

In general there are many options with lenses in capturing landscape images. I favour wide angles for wide expansive landscapes, however when using wide angle lenses, I like to include some part of the landscape as an object in the foreground of the image.

When using Nikon DX cameras, wide angle lenses in the range 10 to 24mm can be very effective with landscapes, but to get a similar effect with Nikon FX cameras, lenses in the range 14 to 35mm will be required.

When using wide angle lenses of 10 to 35mm a great depth of field can be obtained which helps to keep the whole scene in focus.

Generally when  taking landscape images, low aperture lenses are not required as it is better to aim for a wide depth of field to ensure that both the foreground and distance is in focus. I would often use an aperture of around f/8 to f/11 to ensure a satisfactory depth of field in the image when using a wide angle lens.

Rules are meant to be broken and for the image above, I used a long telephoto lens to select just a small part of the landscape, effective images can be obtained by selecting small parts of landscapes. For the above image an aperture of  f/13 and a shutter speed of 1/125 second was used at an ISO of 1600.

Very often with mountain scenery a long telephoto lens can be very effectively used, to select a very small part of a scene similar the the way I have with the above image. Bear in mind that using a telephoto lens for landscapes will provide a much narrower depth of field than a wide angle lens, so be very careful in framing the image where there are foreground objects in the image.

When selecting a telephoto lens for landscape images, I would choose a lens in the range 100 to 300mm.

We have extensive reviews of the range of Nikon lenses available and it may be useful to refer to our Nikon Lens Review section to help you choose a suitable lens for your landscape images.

In choosing a lens also think of other applications in which you may also use the lens, for example many landscape photographers also have an interest in nature and animal  and bird photography within the landscape.

One very important aspect of landscape photography often neglected is to use a tripod or monopod where possible to help obtain the sharpest image quality.

Glasshouse Mountains Tone mapped

These images of the Glasshouse Mountains, have been photographed with a Nikon D2H camera and a wide angle zoom lens.

The above image has been tone mapped using Photomatix software, this software is very good for bringing out detail and texture in the image, it also improves the range of tones by using HDR (High Dynamis Range) techniques. In the above image it has really brought out the detail in the clouds and also in the foreground scenery.

Glasshouse Mountains Panorama

The above panorama image is a stitched image to take in the extreme wide vista of this scene.

In all the images here a Nikon DX camera has been used and a zoom lens at 20mm. With a DX camera a lens in the range is the Nikon 10-24mm lens which is very nice for capturing wide vistas, another excellent lens is the Nikon 17-55mm f/2 lens which covers a longer range.

Glasshouse Mountains

If using a FX camera with the full frame sensor then the ultimate lens is the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.0 wide zoom, this lens has superb performance for landscapes, 14mm is extremely wide on an FX sensor.

Irrespective of the lens used for landscapes like this, it is best to use a good tripod to get the sharpest images.

Lake Hart, South Australia

Lake Hart is one of the many salt lakes in South Australia. Lake Hart is just off the Stuart Highway when travelling from Pt. Augusta through to Central Australia and Darwin. This main tourist route highway is known as the Explorer’s Way between Adelaide and Darwin, 3016 km, it covers southern farmlands, central deserts to the tropical north and its magnificent wetlands. It is a journey of many contrasts and natural beauty. The above image is a landscape looking across the barren lake Hart. There are a lot of different aspects to photograph in a location such as this. In the above image I tried to capture the wide expanse of the salt lake and still try to capture some of the interesting cloud formations.

The image below captures the main rail line crossing Australia from east to west and the wide expanse of the country. In this image, I have tried to capture and represent the expansive country, with the distant rail line disappearing into the distance. In this area of the country long distances are involved which are difficult to appreciate, until you travel in the area.

Railway, Lake Hart, South Australia

The following image shows the surrounds of Lake Hart and is very typical of the country in this area. This country is beautiful and offers great photographic challenges.

Trees, Lake Hart, South Australia

Generally landscapes require a great depth of field, which can be obtained by using a small aperture of around f/16. Also landscapes require components of the image in the forground and also in the background which are in focus.

Landscapes will have a more pleasing appearance if the lighting is low in the sky, which means that the best time to photograph landscapes is early morning or late in the day.

Several other conditions such as mist or dramatic clouds and lighting in the sky will add to make a landscape a spectacular image. When taking landscapes it is critical to elininate camera movement, hence it is advisable to use a tripod where possible.

Kakadu National Park

The above image shows the early morning as

the sun rises at Kakadu National Park which

was captured with a tripod.

Noosa National Park

The above image is from Noosa National Park,
Australia and illustrates the great depth of field
required in landscape images.

Glass House Mountains

The Glass House Mountains at sunset with a tripod to steady the
camera to improve the image sharpness.

Ubirr, Kakadu National Park

Late in the day, sunset is a great time to capture excellent lighting,
but ensure you use a tripod. This image was taken at Ubirr, Kakadu
National Park, Australia.