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I posted a photo today hoping to get a few tips.. I didnt get as much response

as I was hoping for.. Please could someone educate me to a stage where I know

what to look for when I take a Landscape shot.. Is a polarising filter a must

with digital Camera? .. I know about the rule of thirds but at times this cannot

be done .. is there another way? .. Thankyou for any advise ~ Regards Pete ~

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A polarizer is not a "must" with any camera, but there are certainly many instances where using one is highly beneficial to the final image. Whether or not it would have improved the photo above depends on the position of the sun. If it was at your back, it would have made little difference as far as deepening the color of the sky. If it was off your shoulder to the side, it would have.

 

"Rules" are made to be broken. Sometimes the most dramatic landscape shots can be ones where the "rule of thirds" is completely ignored, and the horizon is dead center in the photo.

 

My advice. Keep at it - practice makes perfect. You have some nice photos in your gallery. :-)

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Nothing is a must :) not the "suggestion" of thirds or a polarizing filter...but the effects of a polarizer can't be duplicated after the fact, whereas you can probably always crop to follow the "suggestion" after the fact :) A polarizer is my most (over)used filter, especially for landscapes.

 

For your particular photo, a polarizer could have optimized the reflection of the sky and clouds on the water. It may have also made the sky more blue with more contrast and detail in the clouds and distant hills. In the details, it says this was taken with a 70-200mm, it looks wider than that to me. If the photo was indeed taken with a wide angle lens, then the effect of the polarizer is likely to be uneven across the frame which may present some problems. - jeffl

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Forget the rules, enjoy yourself, use any filter you please. Read about them so you will use them intelligently, rather than randomly. If you are shooting digitally, you can experiment almost endlessly, quickly and inexpensively. That is the way to learn.

 

Eric

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Thankyou for your help guys, Greg your spelling is as good as my landscape :) ... Jeff You are right .. Sorry I have mislead you ... Details are ISO200 1/60sec f22 focal length 18mm (which accounts for the distortion).. I had the camera set to Aperture priority on f22 as I understand that smaller apertures make the picture sharper and give better DOF and only used a skylight filter on the camera. This may give you a bit more to work on for any more help or info.. The location is only a few miles from my home so going there to practice is not a problem.. I shall try again at a different time of day but may have the problem of too little light as this is in a valley which has a large hill to the east ... This was taken early afternoon so yes the sun was harsh.. I have read and hopefully digested several of the tips and Will use them next time..
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f/22 is not necessarily <b>sharper</b> than say f/11. It does give more depth of field (which you don't really need here). But you can also lose some overall sharpness compared to the same shot at f/11 or f/16 due to diffraction, particularly with wide angle lenses where the resulting aperture opening at f/22 is very, very small (that's also the reason why the short focal length lenses on small format P&S digicams generally don't have apertures smaller than f/8).<P>

 

Unless you absolutely need the depth of field (use your DOF preview), you may find you get better looking results for scenes like this one at the middle of the aperture range.

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Peter, especially on a 18mm lens which will have greater depth of field for a given aperture than a longer lens at the same, when you set the aperture way small like that, you're usually past the point of gaining anything. Diffraction is likely to be adversely affecting sharpness more than the greater depth of field you gain. I think for a scene where you don't have much in the way of foreground to background elements, f/11 or so would work fine, plus gain you some shutter speed so the leaves on trees, ripples in water, clouds etc are less likely to have motion blur if it is a breezy day.

 

For wide angle landscape photography, it is critical to think of the composition. Not only left-right up-down and rule of thirds, but also foreground-background, leading lines and other constructs to bring the viewer into the picture. It takes a lot of practice. My first wide angle taught me heaps about composition most of it by trial an error. I produced many rolls of boring grand vistas. - jeffl

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If you are serious, then a polariser is a must.

 

For example, I think it is possible that more contrast in the brightest clouds could have been extracted from your shot even if the sun was directly behind you.

 

You may however, have had a compromise between reflection in the water vs contrast/darkening of the sky. You can't have everything!

 

Also, I believe that for that shot you would have been better off with something like f8, or even less. There is nothing in the foreground that needs to be particularly sharp, so f22 is a complete overkill. At f22 you lose (have lost) a lot of sharpness as well as reduction in contrast.

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A UV filter can be useful as well. The camera tends to pick up more UV light than you can see which can make a mountain scene look more misty. In any case it can stay on the lens as general protection all the time anyway.

 

If you want to get clever you can think about neutral density grads to darken the sky in relation to the ground. There are also filters to create a warmer light, such as 81B, but this can be dealt with by the white balance or photoshop these days.

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