The Pasty's have a trip to the Gower planned in a couple of weeks and i'm hoping to make use of the spare time and stunning coastal scenery to get some decent pictures to potentially turn into canvas wall art for around our house.

I've got a Canon 1000D with a normal lens, a zoom lens, and a wide angle lens, a monopod and hopefully a tripod but is there anything else i could lay my hands on that could help?

I'm thinking filters etc I've read harry thread here but don't think i can afford to go that extreme ao maybe the tricks towards the bottom of that thread but no idea where to start...

Help me oh wise ones!

save up for the big stopper

But seriously, buy a book on caostal photography maybe (Joe Cornish etc) and then just try to put into practice what they're saying. Get low, get some good foreground interest, lead in lines, rule of thirds etc.

Or look out for one of the mags running an item on coastal photography perhaps? Advanced Photographer is my current favourite.

Oh and buy a Nikon

sorry I just realised you said "scenery" not "coastal". The big stopper thing threw me. Go buy a book on Landscape photography and then try to follow all the tips and use somethign like flickr or ephotozine to get critique and improve your skills using the feedback you get.

Good luck

Coastal will serve the same purpose i'm sure dom the other half just looooves the beach

even a blowy south wales one in the midst of September

I think given the waether we've had recently if the wind isn;t strong enough to blow the tripod over i'll be happy

remember to let us see the results when you get back. Might want to think about fitting winter tyres given the temperatures today - got the first snowflake symbol and bong on the car this morning

Some simple basic tips for landscape.

If you have a tripod use it. They are a pain to carry round and set up but your results will be much sharper and if you’re going to take the same shot with different settings it’s much easier.

If you have a tripod learn how to use live view and mirror lock up again for sharper results. Also live view will give you an idea of how the photo will look over and under exposed if you use exposer compensation.

Turn on the one 1/3 grid pattern on your live view. You’ll find it in one of the menus somewhere. Check your manual if not sure. This will help you with composition and keep horizons level

Put some foreground interest into the shot; don’t just take big open areas of landscape with an open field in the fore ground. Find a place with a rock or tree which can be the front of the shot without blocking the scene. Another good tip is try and place the foreground interest on one of the 1/3 grid intersections and the horizon on one of the 1/3 grid horizontal lines.

Try to get everything In focus from front to back again a tripod will help here as you may need small apertures and slow shutter speeds.

Just a few tips for you to try which should give you good classic landscape shots. However a little creativity helps so if it looks good and doesn’t follow the classic rules just shoot it.

ok heres a few examples.

Foreground interest from the leaves, rocks at 1/3 intersection and horizon about 1/3 of the way down from the top. I even put the leaves on the rocks to add a bit of interest

IMG_9711print by mrhmclean, on Flickr

Foreground interest from the trees. Far side of the lake 1/3 up the picture and trees 1/3 in from the side.

IMG_1141 by mrhmclean, on Flickr

Foreground interest from the rocks and the rocks also act as an arrow pointing into the picture. Sharp from front to back.

Bassenthwaite lake by mrhmclean, on Flickr

One that sort of breaks the basic rules other than being sharp but still works.

IMG_6711 by mrhmclean, on Flickr

Thanks Harry

Definitely food for thought. I had no idea the 1000D did live view!

Are those pictures of yours camera lens image or are there filters/post production involved?

I'm just wondering if it's possible to get those kind of results in raw format by adjusting the settings.

They look HDR to me?

The sun must be really close in the last one! Shadows in all directions :-D

Nice nonetheless.

Edited 3 September, 201213 yr by Scuff

Agree with tripod - a must for flexibility around apertures and exposure times. Would also suggest a polarising filter, they don't have to be massively expensive. ND filters can also help with (e.g.) bright sky, dark ground or clouds.

Consider making a panorama out of multiple panned shots, can look good if you get a nice set.

No hdr work all were taken with a canon 10 - 22 lens and nd grad filters. Think the third one had the big stopper on as well

Cracking shots Harry. Really love the big stopper look

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Have ordered some filters in fo both the standard lens and for the wide angle.

UV, Polarising, Flourescent and a variable ND - who knows what the hell i'll do with them but the experimenting shoudl be fiun!

There's a lot of good advice above that will serve you well for a long time.

However if you follow 'the rules' your pictures will look like everyone else's...

Light.

That's the biggest make or break in any photo. If the lights no good you pictures will still be average no matter how good the composition and execution.

damn better set the alarm for dawn then :(

Or dusk.

Just depends upon which way you will be facing...

Unfortunately the coastal resort we were staying in faced due South so neither dusk nor dawn was of particular use.

Also seemed to be graced with either grey overcast days or bright sunny spells so have a mixed lighting conditions (although rainy grey days looked poo whatever i tried.

Having played with filters/settings/positioning/tripod/etc and am not sure if I've actually learnt anything or come out with better pictures than i could have before. The polarised filter does give the sea a deep green/blue colour but then i knew that from my Oakleys.

Here are a few of my selected favourites

any comments welcome

I played here with my ND filter set to its darkest setting and a long exposure. Although it proved massively frustrating as the variable filter needed to be clear to focus and then when turned to dark it invariably knocked the focus out every so slightly. I also struggled to get the right aperture size and pictures ended either too dark or too light. grrr.

That said the milky looking sea is a nice effect i think i'd just need to take 100 different variant to find which one that worked.

A spell of bright sunshine with some wet flat sand created some excellent mirror like reflections

I had been hoping that we'd see some of the pictures and you've had a good go.

Two things spring to mind: your lens isn't wide enough and your shutter speed isn't slow enough if you are going to try to recreate the pictures you see earlier in the thread.

I think you might have realised that photography is actually harder than it looks!

Focussing: read up on hyperfocal distance and put the camera into manual focus mode. You'll also need to read up on aperture for this.

Exposure: take a camera reading (but this will probably be wrong) and refer to an exposure chart to calculate the new exposure after you have the ND filter in place (use manual mode to set the exposure).

If you are anywhere near Herefordshire I do teach photography (I'm not a landscape photographer though) and can help you with the basic understanding if you'd like.

Thanks Karl.

Indeed I have realised that it takes time and knowledge to get great pictures and pointing & shooting probably isn't enough.

Most pictures were taken on our "small" lens (18-55mm) although some (the arch i think) were taken our "wide angle" (Sigma 10-20mm)

Shutter speeds and focus were (i'm almost ashamed to say this) whatever "landscape mode" selected for all but the dark slightly milky sea one as my method of taking those photos (trial & error i think they call it) frustrated me so much I left the tripod in the boot the rest of the time.

Being brutally honest I also don't think I know what i'm actually looking for nor have the patience to find out. or once i do know to wait for it!

We slogged down a massive cliff with the camera backpack and tripod to the secluded cove where the arch only was to find that someone with much better bigger and more impressive kit had already set up his tripod, camera and the rest of his fancy kit right at the foot of it.

I spent half an hour bimbling around looking at the scenery, exploring caves and wasting time with my trial & error method of sea photography all the time hoping he'd snap his picture and bog off out of the way.

In the end i got bored of politely waiting took some (relatively) compromised pictures "around" him and his set up and slogged back up the cliff.

In total we must have seen his actions for almost an hour and i don't think he actually took a pushed the shutter button once.

Commitment levels i really don't think i could summon

Don't get me wrong i am over the moon with the above (all bar the dark long exposure) and feel that planning composition, foreground interest, rule of 3rds etc have already improved me over the previous ""oh that's pretty" - point - click" level but it's just a much bigger step up than i anticipated