landscapes ?

[ahmed]

I'm not very interested in this kind of photography but I love to learn and I love to know all about the photography .. In fact i don't have a really good imagination in the landscape pics but there is a lot of landscape scenes in egypt that i think that could be photographed so i would like to know how can I produce a good landscape picture manually and making the good exporture ..
Thanks
Ahmed ..

[Manfred M]

Ahmed - photography is all about light and shadows, and especially so for landscape work. I would suggest you explore shooting at "magic hour"; the time (roughly an hour) after sunrise or before sunset. Try shooting then. You don't have to try for the sunset shot; it's just that the quality of the light is great at that time of day.

The other thought about the scenery in Egypt; it has been photographed thousands of times; Google these images and see how other people have approached the shots and try to learn from what you like and avoid doing what you don't like.

[Polar01]

Ahmed I am with Manfred on this, one suggestion is everyone has seen images take during the golden hour mostly at sunset. I know a professional photographer who take most of his images in the morning, as most people are not up soon enough to see sunrise. People like shots that they usually do not get to see, so maybe shoot if possible early morning even before the golden hour, that time is called the blue hour as the sky changes from blue tones to the warm tones of early morning.

Cheers:

Allan

[Geoff F]

Have you read this CinC Tutorial https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...hotography.htm

And more at this site http://ronbigelow.com/articles/magic/magic.htm

Difficult to give firm advice on such a big subject though.

Some scenes require a wide angle to show everything while in other cases this method will only produce an over complicated scene.

Depth of sharp focus is another variable. Personally I tend to like having something sharply focused in the foreground.

I suppose my best advice would be to always photograph a scene from different angles and vary the amount of zoom.

Often, too often in fact, I find that my first shot when I am really just testing for suitable settings or my last 'just in case' wild shot without too much thought end up being the best of the bunch!

[rpcrowe]

Ahmed,

I can definitely echo both Manfred and Allan's comments regarding opportune times to shoot.

I'd like to mention one or two other things also:

When using a wide angle or ultra-wide lens try to position a significant item such as a rock, plant or tree in the foreground which will provide an illusion of depth to the image...

Don't automatically think that the wide angle or ultra-wide lens is the only tool for landscape photography. Longer lenses can be valuable in that you can isolate specific portions of the scene or made use of the long focal length lens capability to compress distances...

Bare skies are the bane of landscape photographers, clouds really add interest...

Finally, the "Rule of Thirds" can be broken but, generally an image is more interesting if that rule is followed...

Placing a human of animal in an image can portray the scale. As an example, a shot of the great pyramid might look more interesting with a camel or a man riding a camel close to it.

Using a tripod will provide the best quality imagery. It can be amazing the quality an inexpensive kit lens can produce if the camera is tripod mounted and the image shot around f/11. However, buying the best lens you can afford is a good piece of advice.

A good CPL (circular polarizer) filter is a valuable asset to the landscape photographer's kit. This can be especially true in desert environments. A GND (graduated neutral density filter) can also help but, I would recommend buying a CPL first. OTOH: good CPL filters are expensive and cheap ones can cause more problems than they solve.

Always use a lens hood when shooting outside (I always one one both outside and inside) preventing flare will help ensure the

There is a plethora of help all over the internet. A simple YouTube search for "landscape photography" will provide many more videos than you have the time to watch and a Google search will find an enormous amount of reading materials.

Finally, another valuable resource are the oil paintings of the old masters, available for viewing throughout the Internet...

Like here: http://images.search.yahoo.com/searc...x=wrt&y=Search

[Tringa]

I can't add very much to the advice above except to say the brain (unlike the camera) is excellent at concentrating your attention on one or two parts of a scene. What appears as an impressive mountain to us can become totally insignificant in a photo.
This is particularly true when using a wide angle lens and Richard's advice about including something in the foreground is useful here. Not only does it give a sense of depth but also helps to avoid vast empty areas in the photo.

One useful free program, used by quite few on here, is the Photographer's Ephemeris -

http://photoephemeris.com/

It shows the time and direction of the rising and setting of the sun (and the moon) for any day of the year and is very useful in planning shots at sunrise and sunset, both for photographing the event itself but also, as has been mentioned already, to plan other shots that take advantage the light.

Your location means you will not need to be up too early to get sunrise shots, but always give yourself plenty of time. I have lost many shots by not getting to the right place soon enough.

Dave

[Donald]

My contribution to the excellent discussion that has taken place above is - When you are considering a landscape scene, do not look at it as a landscape. Instead, break it down into a set of lines, shapes, colours and tones. In other words reconstruct it, in your mind, into an almost abstract, 2-dimensional, scene. And then assess it's value as a picture. Ask yourself - Will this combination of lines, shapes, colours and tones make a good picture?