Photographers who are just beginning will take portraits or landscape photos. Take landscape photography as an example. After taking pictures, they always feel that something is wrong. Landscape shooting seems simple, but in fact, it is not so easy to take a good picture. After all, the landscape will not leave there, and anyone can take it. If you want to stand out from many photos and be better than others, you have to think more. Generally speaking, it is the result of many factors.
1. The horizontal line is uneven
Although no rule can be used as a fixed formula, for most landscape photography works, as long as it is not a special shooting need, we should try our best to ensure that the horizontal line is parallel to the upper and lower borders of the picture. Sometimes our shooting angle may be slightly crooked, and it is easy to shoot an inclined horizontal line instead of directly facing the horizontal line. You may not feel anything when looking at the small screen, but once you zoom in, this uncomfortable feeling will be obviously revealed.
In the process of shooting, you should still pay attention to observing the distant horizon. Fortunately, many digital cameras now have electronic levels. We can directly observe whether our cameras are balanced on the screen, and just aim them directly when shooting.
2. Too far away
What lens should I use for landscape shooting? Maybe many people will choose wide-angle lenses. There is nothing wrong with this. The wide-angle lens can store more content, so that a wider scenery can be photographed into the picture. However, one thing is that the more content stored, the more messy it will be, and the higher the requirements for controlling the layout of elements will be. If you are not careful, the picture will fall into a disorderly disorder, which will also become very difficult for composition. Recently, I read an interview with Bresson, which mentioned the lenses he often carries with him. As a master street photographer, besides the conventional 50 mm and 35 mm lenses, he also carries a 135 mm lens with him for shooting landscapes. According to his words: When shooting landscapes, you often need a telephoto lens to exclude meaningless things in close shots from the picture. The telephoto lens can compress the depth of field of moving photos. I don't shoot things much with a wide-angle lens. Having so many elements in one frame can make things a lot more complicated with composition.
In fact, in every vast landscape, there will be a long view containing many details waiting to be photographed with a telephoto lens. Besides helping to eliminate interference elements in the picture, the telephoto lens can also make the background and the foreground closer by compressing the depth of field and narrow the distance between the background and the viewer.
3. Exposure
When shooting landscapes, the problem we often encounter may be that we measure the light in close range, which causes the sky to be too bright, resulting in overexposure and dead white. No matter how much we pull it, we can't pull it back, and all the details of the sky are lost. In fact, there are still several points to consider to solve this problem. The first is the dynamic range of your camera, and the second is to shoot raw files as much as possible to preserve details, so that they can be pulled back as much as possible in the later stage.
If the dynamic range of the camera is really insufficient, it can only be exposed multiple times and then synthesized with HDR. However, you should be careful with the scale when using HDR, otherwise if you overdo it, the photos will lose their sense of realism. Of course, another way is to use the gradient ND filter to block the sky part for exposure.
4. No center
The center here is not the center of the picture, but the theme of the picture. Many novices don't have the concept of theme. When they see the beautiful scenery, they directly pick up the camera and take pictures. However, the final result can only be that the whole picture is mediocre and there is no distinctive place at all, so such photos will naturally not be attractive.
When we convert a three-dimensional beauty into a two-dimensional picture, we must find a point that the viewer can lock at a glance. Not only landscape photography, but also in many forms of photography such as street photography, portrait photography, etc., the placement of the theme is a very important factor. The theme can be expressed by the subject. The subject doesn't have to be big, but it must be prominent, so that the viewer can smoothly extend his line of sight from the subject to the whole picture.
5. Ignore the prospect
The expression of the foreground is equally important. The significance of the foreground lies in guidance, and it is also a contrast. Through the contrast of the foreground, the background is highlighted. The foreground can be flat grass, flowers, or even an adjacent hut. Through the foreground, we can extend our eyes directly into the background.
