APERTURE

beautify skies &

landscape photography f/2.8 f/4
Wide Aperture (more light)
f/5.6 f/8 f/11 f/14
Narrow Aperture (less light)
f/22

CHEAT SHEET With landscapes, you need as much of the scene in frame to
be in focus to create a sense of depth. You hence need to go
for a smaller aperture, preferably f/16 to f/22.

iso
100 . .. 200 . .. 400 . . . 640 . . . 800 . . . 1600 . . . 3200

Lower LIGHT SENSITIVITY Higher

In order to compensate for the smaller aperture, you may

need to bump up the ISO a bit, but then you want to avoid
noise in your landscape shots and to do this you will need a
lower ISO. Keep it under 400 and preferably at 100.

shutter speed

1/1000”
1/100”

1/125”

1/250”

1/320”

1/500”
1/25”

1/30”

1/50”
10”
30”

15”

2”

1”
Tripod Freeze
Blur Motion Handheld Ok
Recommended Motion

3
Use a tripod as the shutter speed will be too long to hand hold
due to small aperture and lower ISO. You do not want to risk
getting blurry shots.

1 CPL
FILTERS 2 ND
FILTERS essentials
the

Circular Polarising (CPL) filters are
one of the most essential tools for
a landscape photographer to get
those vivid colours in
the photograph.
3
ND filters stop or minimise the
amount of light that enter the
lens and these can be used
nd grad
to capture the movement of
water or clouds. Filters
ND Grad filters are a piece of glass
that have a gradient from dark to
light on them. Hence the name
graduated ND filter.

l
cp ND
ND
GR
Using a CPL filter helps deepen the
For example, waves in the ocean
or beach, a waterfall or fast
AD
blue colour in the sky, but do not over
moving clouds can be all
do it making it look very unnatural.
captured with a very smooth and
CPL filters also help reduce haziness
dreamy look.
in distant objects, increasing contrast These filters are used to darken
and enhancing the colours in foliage very bright areas while maintaining
and other objects. the correct exposure for the other
TIP: areas, usually the foreground.

TIP: To achieve this dreamy effect,

CPL filters also help reduce
reflections from objects such
as water, glass and other
shiny objects.
TIP:
you will need to mount the
camera on a tripod as you will
Holding the graduated neutral
have a very slow shutter speed.
density filter up, you can see
how the filter will darken the
scene.