[Newtophotos]

Many folks here have seem to mastered the skill of taking very dreamy landscape and architectural photos. Many of them of perfect colors, properly exposed sky and ground, smooth water, beautiful sunbursts, etc. What are some tips for taking these photos?

---Edit:---

Attached is a landscape picture that I took. The exposure is somewhere between correctly exposing the sky and land. The colors turned out very dull.

If I am allowed to link to someone else's photos; I find these images to have beautiful colors and exposure: https://500px.com/spiritofadventure/galleries/shorelines-1

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Last edited by Newtophotos; 01-01-2016 at 02:41 PM.

[Imp]

For smooth water take a long exposure. In fact for most landscapes, if you've got a good tripod, take your ISO down to 100, stop down to f/8, and perhaps even add a polarizing or ND filter, and take a long exposure. Or take multiple exposures and stack them.
For proper exposure, probably using the histogram is the best. If its a picture with dark shadows and bright highlights, take exposure bracketed shots and stack them, or process the raw to increase the dynamic range.
The most important part in landscapes is the lighting, and for that you have to by patient.

Could you link/post some examples to try and show the effect you are trying to achieve?

[dsmithhfx]

Many folks here have seem to mastered the skill of taking very dreamy landscape and architectural photos. Many of them of perfect colors, properly exposed sky and ground, smooth water, beautiful sunbursts, etc. What are some tips for taking these photos?

1. Go to dreamy landscape. 2. Take pictures.

[Imp]

amen

[Murfy]

can you post some links? it may be a lot of Photoshop or use of filters or various things that might be creating the effects you are interested in. I think a lot of dreamy and softness maybe be clarity sliders in lightroom, mixed with long exposure, a bunch of different techniques used before and after the shutter is released

[starjedi]

Many folks here have seem to mastered the skill of taking very dreamy landscape and architectural photos. Many of them of perfect colors, properly exposed sky and ground, smooth water, beautiful sunbursts, etc. What are some tips for taking these photos?

---Edit:---

Attached is a landscape picture that I took. The exposure is somewhere between correctly exposing the sky and land. The colors turned out very dull.

If I am allowed to link to someone else's photos; I find these images to have beautiful colors and exposure: https://500px.com/spiritofadventure/galleries/shorelines-1

A secret for those kinds of shots is the timing. You need to get up before sunrise or wait to close to sunset. Around the golden hours, the colors of the scenes/photos will be amazing. Another secret is that you need to keep shooting and learning. The more you took shots under the same scene with different time/season and composition, the more experience you will get. Some accessories like graduate filter, ND filter and cir-PL filter can help in some situations also indeed.

[zzeitg]

It's all about being in the right time at the right place with some know-how. And last but not least, having your camera gear always with you will make it possible.

[CarlJF]

In addition to what is said above, there's also a lot of PP work to do to get a great landscape. I've no no specific tip for this, it really depends on what you want to achieve. Playing with constrast, saturation, exposure (global or local), white balance will all greatly impact on how your final picture will look and feel.

For example, I've just taken your picture above and done some quick and dirty adjustments (exposure, saturation, contrast, WB), without any local adjustment. The final result is quite different from your picture. If you work from the RAW, you could achieve much better and dramatic results. It's yours to take it the way you want...



---------- Post added 01-01-16 at 05:34 PM ----------

BTW, I've just noticed that you were at f4.0. Usually, for landscape, you want a lot of DOF. It usually works better at f8.0 or f11...

[johngs]

Someone once said ... to get better photos you have to go to better places. Not always true, but worth a thought.

[Murfy]

Many folks here have seem to mastered the skill of taking very dreamy landscape and architectural photos. Many of them of perfect colors, properly exposed sky and ground, smooth water, beautiful sunbursts, etc. What are some tips for taking these photos?

---Edit:---

Attached is a landscape picture that I took. The exposure is somewhere between correctly exposing the sky and land. The colors turned out very dull.

If I am allowed to link to someone else's photos; I find these images to have beautiful colors and exposure: https://500px.com/spiritofadventure/galleries/shorelines-1

For the pictures you linked to, there are a few things I see
1 - time of day, these mostly look like they were taken during sunrise/sunset - google golden hour, blue hour and there are time tables of when to take photos during that time in your area
2. tripod and some are long exposure times
3. lots of post processing, some may even be multi bracketed shots combined with correct exposure to sky and then shot with correct exposure to ground and merged through HDR software

As for yours looking dull...do you shot jpg or raw? The best thing to do would be to shot raw and then edit in post processing software. Some of the images look like they had the clarity slider in Lightroom as added dreamy effect

If you do shot raw, the colors will look dull if you pull them into pp software, I think of it like negative film. It's always dull and flat and then it is up to the photographer to dodge and burn and color correct to their liking.

As someone mentioned to, you may want to shot at f/8 or above, the foreground looks a little blurry from the wide aperture. But from the pictures you attached I would guess it's about as much work in post processing as it is planning the shot.

I think there are post processing forum on here where they take a picture and members show different ways they post process an image to their liking, it might be an idea to look there to help with the editing images so the colors don't look dull.

[Imp]

Someone once said ... to get better photos you have to go to better places. Not always true, but worth a thought.

I would think either the lake in your picture or the hill to the right with its head in the clouds + long exposure (maybe) would be better locations. Although I don't know if either were accessible to you.

[Digitalis]

In that 500PX gallery you referenced has some hilariously bad photoshop in it, that fish jumping out of water pic is the worst thing I have seen this morning.

[ramseybuckeye]

I agree with the earlier posters, most of the landscapes that I have done and I think are good, were shot at those golden or blue hour times. Fog can also be used in your favor, especially when it has sun trying to penetrate it.

---------- Post added 01-01-16 at 09:40 PM ----------

In that 500PX gallery you referenced has some hilariously bad photoshop in it, that fish jumping out of water pic is the worst thing I have seen this morning.

I had to check that out, the fish looks dead...

[Glenn5995]

There are many elements to those "WOW" landscapes.

The first is experience and knowing your equipment. Just get out there and take photos, photos and photos. See what works and what doesn't.

Next you need to find something visually appealing and realize that what looks good to your eyes, does not necessarily come across the same in a photograph.

Plan for and wait for good light. Harsh mid-day light seldom creates a good landscape photo. Plan for around sunrise and sunset. Watch the weather forecast and wait for days with clouds. They make a landscape photo more dynamic than a clear blue sky.

Once you have a location, date and time, then work on your composition. Try to have a foreground, middle ground and a background. Apply the "Golden Rule" or "Rule of Thirds" (same principle).
Composition III: Composition in Nature Photography and the Elements of a Photograph
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

Use a tripod if possible. Keep your ISO at 100 or as close as you can get to it. Stop down to the F8.0-11.0 range to maximize your depth of field to keep everything in focus (unless you want bokeh). Use filters as deemed beneficial.

Shoot in RAW and work on your post processing skills. (There is a continuing post processing challenge here on the forum. It is a good thread to check out to see the different things possible with post processing and a good way to develop your skills)

Good Luck! Don't give up, keep trying.

[Bewatek]

You said you wanted "dreamy" landscapes - not "realistic"?

Most of my landscapes taken with the K10D (at low ISOs) turn out "dreamy", the images taken with new bodys turn out "realistic", with the same lenses and postprocessing.

https://www.google.de/search?q=k10d+landscape+photography
Many of those random images have a certain look to them which is hard to describe in technical words.

I wouldnt say that CCD is better or that its the solution to all problems but considering that a used K10D can be had for the price of some average accessories it might be worth a try.