100 Ways Take Better Landscape Photographs. Guy Edwardes

of tones you are likely to encounter in the field.

      Glen Lyon

      It is important to work within the limitations of film and digital capture. I like to keep the range of tones in any scene within roughly 3 stops whenever possible, as this produces a more balanced result with plenty of detail throughout the image. I normally achieve this by shooting in low-contrast lighting conditions, or by using neutral density graduated filters to reduce contrast within the image. If I ever need to sacrifice detail in harsh lighting conditions in order to capture a specific scene, I always opt to lose detail in the shadows, as the human eye accepts dense shadows more naturally than blown highlights. This frosty shot of Glen Lyon, in Scotland, in winter was taken in very soft light. There was only a 3-stop brightness range in this scene, so the film has been able to record plenty of detail in both shadow and highlight areas.

      Canon EOS 3, 24mm lens, Fujichrome Velvia, 1sec at f/16

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      Master your metering technique

      You shouldn’t rely on your camera’s standard metering system. You will achieve better results by taking a spot meter reading directly from the most important tones in the scene. If your camera doesn’t have a spot-meter, attach a telephoto lens and fill the frame with the area you want to meter from. Once you have metered the most important tone in the scene and worked out an exposure setting that will record this tone at its correct brightness level on film (see page 32), meter other areas of the scene to make sure they are within the 5-stop brightness range that transparency film and digital sensors can handle. If certain parts of the scene, such as the sky, are outside this range, you might be able to reduce the contrast by using a neutral density graduated filter. You will have more control if you use your camera in manual mode. Handheld exposure meters are another option and many incorporate a spot meter.

      Larch sapling

      I discovered this lone larch sapling on the edge of a spruce plantation. Its bright yellow autumn foliage contrasted vividly with the monotonous green surroundings. Even though the overcast light provided soft and even illumination, the predominance of dark tones in the scene would still have fooled most in-camera metering systems into overexposing the image. I had two options: to take a spot meter reading directly from the yellow larch and increase the metered exposure by one stop to place it as a light tone on film; or, meter from an evenly lit section of green spruce and reduce the metered exposure by one stop so that it recorded as a dark tone. In such even light, both methods would have resulted in the same end exposure value.

      Canon EOS 5, 100–400mm, polarizer, Fujichrome Velvia, 1/2sec at f/22

      Capturing atmosphere

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      Add warmth to your images