newbie help/advice

[Daman]

realy new to photography and been looking at this website for a long time but never realy posted much, could anybody give me a little advice on settings to use when taking landscape photos on a beach during sunset, my dad wants me to take a picture for his house so i want to try and get it as good as i can, so any tips/advice you can give me would be greatly apreciated,

thanks Daman

[Canonymous]

Welcome to the forums.

Firstly, use a tripod as you will need to take exposures from 1 second to 20 seconds or more depending on the available light.
Set your ISO to 100 to get the cleanest file and use raw if possible.
Have your aperture around f16 to get the maximum amount of distance in focus.
Try to bracket your exposures from -2 to +2. This basically means take multiple images with different shutter speeds. Start with 1/125 and as the you start to lose the light change your aperture to 1/4 sec 1 second, 2 seconds, 5 and 10 seconds. You will see the colour in the sky open up with the faster shutter speeds and the slower shutter speeds will blur the surface of the water for a smooth effect. As long as you are using a tripod for the different exposures, you can then use software like Photoshop or other 3rd party programmes to create a HDR image. Do a search for HDR imaging in google or on this forum. This is when you blend different parts of an image together to create a more even exposure.

Most of all have patience in trying to find the best composition for the scence. Something with a foreground, middle and far away element should work well.;)

[Daman]

thank you very much for the advice, thats a great help

[mustanglover]

this helped me out too thanks

[Mike]

Add to your tripod a remote shutter release cable like the RS80N3 (although cheaper ones can be had off ebay) This will stop you from shaking the camera after pressing the button. A must! Also, try setting one of the custom functions on - Mirror lock-up. This will further reduce vibrations as it gets the mirror up before the shutter is released. If you use it remember that you will have to press the shutter release twice - first to lock the mirror up and second to take the picture. Can get confusing! :)

[KandJinIN]

Do you have to have a tripod?

I mean, as the light decreases.. can't you just change other settings, and keep the shutter speed? I understand this is probably less desirable, but I don't really do a lot of landscape (would love too.. but I live in Indiana.. and corn excites for only so long)

[Mike]

Yes, you can increase the iso to make the sensor more sensitive to light and thus keeping the ability to hand hold until it's quite dark. However, with high iso you start to introduce noise which gets more pronounced the more you try to push the exposure.
Also you can widen the aperture to let more light in.

[bobdole369]

Do you have to have a tripod?

As Michael intimated, you can use other tricks to avoid blurred pics -

Exposure triangle consists of:
1. ISO speed (essentially the gain of the sensor or speed of the film - higher numbers gather light more efficiently or quickly, but increase noise or grain as a byproduct)
2. Aperture - the size of the lens opening - lower f/stops open the hole wider, but reduce the depth of field. In a landscape photo such as a sunset you are going to want a relatively small f/stop - to increase the depth of field - thus keeping everything in focus.
3. Shutter speed - how long the shutter stays open. The longer the shutter stays open the more likely you are moving the camera and inducing blur. You can likely handhold to about 1/60 and still get good sharp pictures, IS improves this on still subjects. You should be using at least the inverse of your focal length or shorter shutter speeds.
i.e. if your lens is at 100mm - you should shoot at 1/100 or faster (1/250, etc).
Any slower is likely to increase blur. This doesn't combine with the general handheld shutter max of about 1/60.

Having a tripod nearly completely eliminates the hand-held factor - letting you shoot at low ISO's like 200 and 100 and small apertures at long shutter speeds. Without it you will never get the shot.

In my experience you can usually compensate for about 5 stops and still handhold using aperture and ISO adjustments. It's usually not worth it - the ISO noise on my camera (350d) gets bad at 400 in the dusk.

[Canonymous]

Do you have to have a tripod?

As bobdole369 said it will help you eliminate any bluriness you would get from hand-held shots.

You don't have to have a tripod per say, but you do need some kind of a stable surface for the camera to site on. So a rock, a bag, the edge of a wall can all do the same job.

Its worth investing in a good tripod, it comes in handy for other things as well like portraits or indoor shots where there might be low light levels.

[mrbojangles13]

why do you want the shutter so slow? 1 to 20 seconds? huh?

[jsinon]

Lower iso = less noise. So, slower shutter speed to allow for the lower sensor sensitivity. With the lower iso you need a longer shutter open time to allow for more light to hit the sensor.

[mrbojangles13]

i know the iso shutter f stop deal. i just thought there was something longer shutter speed offered. like making water silky in waterfall shots