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Make the most of midday light for landscapes
Techniques
24 October 2007 14:08
After about 10am when the sun’s really high in the sky, most landscape photographers start heading for home. Admittedly, the blue skies and bright lighting are not great for producing moody or atmospheric images – colours can look washed out and short shadows make scenery look flat – but these conditions can still produce striking photographs.
On dull overcast days it’s worth searching out natural details in the landscape. Look out for features such as waterfalls or unusual rocks and plants that don’t rely on the sky for their impact.
Sometimes the build-up of haze and cloud during the day can make the sky dull and featureless, especially near the horizon. When you’re faced with these conditions look instead for details in the landscape that work on their own, without the sky in the shot. A short telephoto zoom such as 70-300mm (or 55-200mm on most smaller-sensor DSLRs) is ideal.
If it’s sunny, the simplest way to boost the landscape colours is to use a polarising filter. These either screw into the front filter thread of your lens, or slot neatly into a filter holder. Make sure you get the circular polariser for all modern cameras, to ensure the metering and focusing systems will still work with the filter attached.
All of the different types work in the same way – by rotating the filter you’ll see reflections disappear, a general increase in colour saturation and darkening of blue skies. The blue sky effect is one of the most useful for landscapes photographed during the day, as it increases the contrast between sky and clouds, giving them more impact. The effect is most pronounced on areas of the sky at 90 degrees to the sun, with other areas showing less darkening.
It’s worth packing a plain 2 or 3-stop neutral density filter (not graduated) for cutting down the amount of light during the day. This will allow you to use longer shutter speeds, or wide apertures that would otherwise be impossible in bright conditions. This is great for shooting waterfalls or other frame-filling landscape details.