No# 1: What camera should you use
It really doesn’t matter what camera you own.
Of course, it’s nice to have a professional camera that has many megapixels, and for landscape photography a wide-angle lens is a common tool – but you should only upgrade your equipment when you reach its limits.
Once you realize that you can do and want do more than your camera can provide and need better equipment to keep up with you, you can upgrade.
Also, you don’t need a ton of lenses or accessories. At first I couldn’t get enough different focal lengths – but eventually you find your comfort zone of focal lenghts and stick with it.
It seems like there is a “war” in the photography world between Nikon, Sony and Canon fanboys. Who has the best dynamic range, who has the least ISO noise aso.
To me, the whole thing is pretty irrelevant – it doesn’t matter which brand you want to go with. All professional cameras are at such an extremely good level that the differences are small. Take the camera that you like best and whose operation you can handle best.
I’m a Canon girl because I like the colors, the look and feel and the ease of use most – any Sony or Nikon user would disagree with me here. You do you!
No #2: Get to know your Camera
I believe this is so important in the process of taking good images. Get comfortable with whatever you are shooting with because the more familiar you are with it, the less stress you are going to face when the picture perfect moments happen. Also it never hurts to know your camera and its buttons so well, you can use it in the dark.
And also as part of this tip: Get comfortable shooting in manual mode.
I can`t stress this enough. Learning to shoot in manual is going to be one of the biggest things you can do to level up your photography.
Understanding what each of the three points on the expoure triangle affect is key.
Familiarize yourself with shutter speed, aperture and ISO. The best way to understand and learn about those three points is to practice shooting everything in manual mode.
It might be a lot of trial and error, but it will truly help and belive me, every good photographer has been at this point at one time or another.
No #3: Quantity over quality
I’m a stickler for quality over quantity, but at the beginning of your photography journey, it’s the other way around. Photograph as much as you can – train your eye, find what kind of photography you like and enjoy. Challenge yourself.
The easiest thing you can do is to take your camera everywhere.
No #4: Learn the basics
On Youtube there are hundreds of videos about photography basics. What is a golden ratio, why is a good composition so important, why do you use a tripod in landscape photography?
This free content is definitely worth recommending and also useful. And perfect for the beginning.
But if you’re serious about photography, I recommend buying online tutorials from good landscape photographers.
It’s proven that workshops you buy are much more effective to learn and absorb than free content. Because you appreciate the value more and also want to get something out of it, so the money spent was worth it.
Is there any landscape photographer whose style you like, who you would like to learn from, and who offers online courses? Find out if they offer free content somewhere – not every good photographer is a good teacher.
If you like what you see, invest in your education!
No #5: Light is key
Surely you have already noticed that the majority of landscape photography images are pictures of the sunset, sunrise of the blue hour or night.
Rarely or never you can find daylight images or even images during midday.
And this is not without reason so because: Light is key!
We don’t want hard light, we chase sunsets and sunrises for that soft golden light, the colored clouds.
There is a reason why this time of the day is also called the magic hour.
Use it for yourself!
No #6: Get Inspired
The world is full of talented and incredibly skilled people who do landscape photography.
There`s a few photographers out there that really inspire and motivate me to improve my skills.
For example:
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Find out who inspires you and fill your feed with them. Nothing helps you get better at photography more than following talented people who motivate you to get better because you think: I want to do that too!
No #7: Be patient
Please understand that you won`t go from an amateur skill levelt to an advanced professional overnight.
Patient is such a valuable quality to have throughout the photography world. Wether it be waiting fort hat light you want or practicing and grinding til you «make it».
Pretty much anything of worth takes time and constant practice so don`t be discouraged when you are not advancing as fast as you`d like. Keep grinding and be determined. It will pay off to keep it up.
