Landscape Photography is one of the most enjoyable forms of photography that exists. Becoming immersed in landscape photography allows you to connect with nature at a deeper level. Traveling thru gorgeous locations with the intent to find the best photo spot is a pleasure that continues to attract photographers of all levels.
When preparing to go out and capture Landscape Photography, there are a few essential tools that every photographer must have. Here’s a detailed list of essential tools that must be on location.
Shutter Release Remote
One of the main goals in landscape photography is to print out the image at an enlarged size. With this goal in mind, it is extremely important to ensure most, if not all, of the frame is in focus. This is aided by the shutter release remote, which will eliminate camera shake from physically pressing the shutter.
Often when shooting landscape, your aperture will be stopped down past F.8 which will lessen the amount of light available for proper exposure.
To combat this problem, slow shutter speeds are used. It is not uncommon for a landscape photo to be captured at 1/20 of a second. This requires not only the use of a tripod, but also the use of a Shutter Release Remote
Tripod with Level
Tripods are essential in many areas of Photography, especially Landscape Photography. Stabilization is essential in all situations as the goal of Landscape
Photography is to capture crisp in-focus images. By using deep aperture settings and low ISO settings, it is by default that shutter speeds are slow. This of course calls for the need of a tripod.
A tripod not only stabilizes your camera, it also opens your creative options immensely. Camera tricks like Bracketing, Time – Lapse and Cloning all require the use of a tripod.
Lenses
Nothing is better than a good piece of glass to a photographer. A good lens can last well over 15 years if well taken care of. That is one of the many reasons why it is important to use a high quality lens for landscape photography.
What’s great, is that high quality lenses are becoming more and more affordable. Most entry level DSLR camera come packaged with a kit lens normally ranged 18-55mm or 70-300mm.
At its widest, the 18-55mm kit lens captures a wide view of your landscape scene. This is perfect to capture sunsets and mountain landscapes as it will keep most of the scene in view. In order to keep most of the scene in focus, you will need to stop your aperture down between F.8 and F.11, which is within the capability of most Kit Lenses.
Lens Filters
Filters in Photography have yet to reach the popularity as Filters on Snapchat, but that does not mean that are any less important. From Neutral Density to Circular Polarizers, there are many uses for filters.
The filter that is most commonly used in landscape photography is the Circular Polarizer. Which allows photographers to even the contrast in images by dimming the highlights in an image. Ultimately allowing for a larger depth of color range and contrast.
Conclusion
Although there are many tools and equipment available to Landscape Photographers, the most essential in my opinion are Tripods, Shutter Release Remotes, Lenses and Lens Filters. Tripods and Remotes are essential for stabilization, which is very important when aiming for crisp in-focus photos. Lenses and Lens filter are essential for image quality and color range, which are also very important to the final outcome of a Landscape Photo.
On your next landscape photography shoot, make sure you grab these essential tools. They will go along way in helping you achieve the type of photos you are looking for!
