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.

When travelling, the secret for an enjoyable trip is to travel light but also to have enough equipment to satisfy your photographic needs to achieve high image quality. Your needs may vary from wide angle lenses for  landscapes to super telephoto lenses for distant birds and animals.

For travelling the Nikon range of DX cameras and lenses are excellent as they are quite a bit smaller that the equivalent FX lenses. There are full details of the renge of Nikon lenses in the Nikon Lens Reviews section.

DX Prime Lenses for Travelling

If you are keen in prime lenses for travelling then a selection as follows may be appropriate:

• Nikon 20mm f/2.8D AF,
• Nikon 50mm f/1.8G AF-S,
• Nikon 85mm f/1.8D AF.

These three lenses will cover the range most photographers would require when travelling, however if a longer lens is required then you could add the Nikon 300mm f/4D IF ED AF-S which is an extremely sharp lens.

DX Zoom Lenses for Travelling

For the zoom lens traveller some of the suitable zoom lens selections are as follows:

• Nikon16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S DX,
• Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF ED VR AF-S.

The above zoom selection will provide an excellent range, however is a wider angle lens is required then the Nikon 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED AF-S DX lens could be added.

FX Prime Lenses for Travelling

For photographers using FX cameras and prime lenses you should probably be aiming for the higher performance lenses to get the best image quality. An excellent selection is as follows:

• Nikon 24mm f/1.4G ED AF-S,
• Nikon 50mm f/1.4G AF-S,
• Nikon 85mm f/1.4G AF-S  OR  Nikon 105mm f/2.8G IF ED VR AF-S Micro.

Again if a high quality long lens is required then you could not beat the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G ED VR II AF-S, this lens is one of the sharpest Nikkors available.

FX Zoom Lenses for Travelling

Some of the FX zoom lenses are quite large and they consequently can add a lot of weight to your camera bag. Some of the best zooms are as follows:

• Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S,
• Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S  OR  Nikon 24-120mm f/4.0G ED VR,
• Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II  OR  Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF ED VR AF-S  OR  Nikon 200-400mm f/4G ED ASF-S VR II

There are quite a few optiions for the above lenses and the final selection will depend on wheter you have a preference for the wide end or for the telephoto end of the range.

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

Loy Yang, Power Station, Traralgon, Victoria, Australia

An image of the Loy Yang Power Station at Traralgon, Victoria, taken in drizzling rain at night. This image was taken with the Nikon 24-120mm, VR zoom lens and the Nikon D700 camera, there is a review of this lens here. This image was captured using a tripod and a remote cable realease, to give an extra sharp image, avoiding any camera movement.

This lens is generally not highly regarded on the internet forums, but I find it quite useful as a general purpose zoom. It is only f/5.6 at the 120mm end and f/3.5 at the wide end. The VR function with this lens makes a great difference when taking static subjects at slow shutter speeds when the camera is hand held.

I love the performance of the D700 camera particularly at high ISO settings, although the above image was taken at ISO200, many images can be captured in very low light and with a low shutter speed when a VR lens is used.