What camera should i get: Landscape photography

For landscape photography you are going to be shooting a lot slower. Especially with water or clouds dragging the shutter speed will produce that silky look. We are generally trying to limit the amount of light so it doesn’t come all in at once. you are going to want at least one Wide and  one telephoto. Here is where I can also recommend a long telephoto variable aperture. Because we often want everything in focus low apertures so bigger numbers on the f-stop which give us a larger depth of field.

For camera specs in landscape  you do not need eye tracking technology, you don’t  need fast shutter speeds, you do not need fast burst modes, most of all the fancy stuff you hear about the actual camera you do not need for landscape. what you do need some kind of remote. or a delayed timer mode on the camera at the very least. We want to avoid any camera shake while the photo is being taken and so we don’t want our hands on the camera. You need enough battery and storage space. Possibly an L bracket. And you may want some filters.

for mega pixels, the real question is do you plan on printing? yes I know I have asked this question before, and chances are ill say it again in the future, but that’s really what it boils down to. The only other thing you should need high megapixels for is cropping. If all you plan to do is post it online then the higher megapixel is just an unneeded cost. My current cameras are in the 20mp range. I can get great large prints with this and I could probably go smaller on the megapixel count.

tripods, Heavy sturdy, yes its a pain to lug around these heavy tripods but having that camera remain absolutely still during long exposure shots is crucial to getting that shot.

What is an L bracket?

An L bracket is a bracket in the shape of and L! Now normally when you attach a quick release plate at the Botton of your camera this allows your camera to shoot in landscape orientation. Now depending on your tripod head you may be able to switch to a portrait orientation but more likely it will be off center to the tripod. Well an L bracket attaches the same at the bottom of the camera but allows you to make a portrait orientation while still remaining center on the tripod. Shown below.

But why would I want to shoot in a portrait orientation in landscape photography? While you can still get great landscape shots in portrait orientation, the other great use for this is panoramic images. I personal favorite of mine. The reason you shoot in portrait orientation is because this give your final image more height and we are not worried about the width because we will be stitching a sequence of images in post here is where a high megapixel camera can kinda hurt you. The larger image files mean it’s gonna be more taxing your computer to stitch these together. Now I should mention about the nodal point or I will get chewed by other photographers. Yes there is a preferred way to shot panoramic photographs using the nodal point and you can get a special nodal point bracket but seeing this is for beginners throwing such niche cost right now seems criminal. That said it does exist, this is meant to get you started. Now if you can’t afford an L bracket you can place your camera sideways off a ball head as seen here, just know that its often hard to get it perfectly horizontal and when you are stitching multiple photos together it is really nice to have your camera as level as possible. So if you can’t afford it yet that’s ok, but I recommend you put this on your radar.

Filters

Nd fliters, more popular is the 10 stop nd filter, its called that because it slows the amount of light by 10 stops. is it the only nd filter you need, no, they make variable nd filters that can do a variety of stops on one filter. But we use these to slow the amount of light so we can prolong the shutter speed to purposefully introduce motion in things like water and clouds. Giving a dreamy etherial effect. Cpl filters, cut through the reflection. Namely in water. Allowing us to see underneath the water with a lot more clarity.

As you can see I have mention very little about camera specs. Landscape photography doesn’t need a lot of specs in the camera just a lot of help keeping the camera nice and sturdy and often trying to slow the amount coming into the camera with the help of filters.

Here’s what I usually have ready to go for landscape photography. a 16mm f2.8; 20mm f1.8; 24-105mm f4; 100-400mm f5.6-8. a remote shutter, a pack of Nd filters and my heavy weight tripod. and I carry all this in my whistler 450b camera bag by Lowepro.