Category: Technology

Large landscape scenes are great fun to photograph, but they can present a problem: Where exactly do you focus when you want everything to be sharp? Since our goal is to create a great landscape photo, we will need to concentrate on how to best create an image that is tack sharp, with a depth…

If you ask any professional landscape photographer what their favorite time of day to shoot is, chances are they will tell you it’s the hours surrounding daybreak and sunset (Figures 7.8 and 7.9). Light comes from a very low angle to the landscape, which creates shadows and gives depth and character. There is also a…

Balancing the exposure in scenes that have a wide contrast in tonal ranges can be extremely challenging. The one thing you should try not to do is overexpose your skies to the point of blowing out your highlights (unless, of course, that is the look you are going for). It’s one thing to have a…

This probably seems like a no-brainer. If it’s sunny, select Day Light. If it’s overcast, choose the Cloudy setting. Those choices wouldn’t be wrong for those circumstances, but why limit yourself? Sometimes you can change the mood of the photo by selecting a white balance that doesn’t quite fit the light for the scene that…

When shooting most landscape scenes, the ISO is the one factor that should only be changed as a last resort. While it is easy to select a higher ISO to get a smaller aperture, the noise that it can introduce into your images can be quite harmful (Figure 7.2). The noise is not only visible…

Throughout the previous chapters we have concentrated on using the camera to create great images. We will continue that trend in this chapter, but there is one additional piece of equipment that is crucial in the world of landscape shooting: the tripod. A tripod is critical for a couple of reasons. The first relates to…

As you’ve learned in this chapter, the built-in pop-up flash on the 60D is a nice addition to the camera, and it can be useful, but as far as quality of light goes, it’s average. I don’t use this flash very frequently in my photography, since I find that there are other, more flattering ways…

The 60D has two flash synchronization modes: first curtain and second curtain. The term curtain relates to the opening and closing of the shutter—the first curtain refers to when the shutter is being opened, and the second curtain describes the point just before the shutter is closed (try to visualize a curtain on a stage…

When photographing people with an on-camera flash, one thing that we’ve all seen and would like to avoid is red-eye. This effect is the result of the light from the flash entering the pupil and then reflecting back as an eerie red glow. This is especially true when it’s dark and the subject’s eyes are…