DSLR Photography Forum

Full Version: Photography Workshop: Places and Landscapes
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
Hey all, I attended a 3 hour photography workshop over the weekend, for how to take better photos of landscapes, places and holidays. It was conducted at a very picturesque pier on a sunny afternoon, and we sat under the shade of some trees.

I must say I was a bit disappointed at the course execution. From the course notes handout, the actual content was quite good it covered things like ISO, shutter speed, aperture, focal point (subject) selection, composition and stuff like foreground, lines and perspective which was what I was looking forward to.

However, the instructor spent almost on principles of exposure and getting us to do simple exercises like shooting and high and low ISO to compare the grain, and setting ISO to 100 and aperture to F/8 and adjusting the shutter speed in manual mode. His final exercise was to "pick an object and shoot it from as many angles as you can" and that brought us to the end of the 3 hours. All the while, we didn't leave the shady area and it was away from the nice scenery.

Anyway, some key points I picked up / thought were beneficial:

- Shooting in manual - I must admit I rely on auto exposure more than I should (read almost exclusively) and it was a good exercise to force myself to think about exposure and consciously choose the right settings.

- Shoot with a higher aperture - for landscapes you want things to be sharp and in focus from near to far

- He talked a bit about filters, which was interesting - using ND filters to cut out light to allow a slower shutter speed to achieve effects like blurred water and even blurred people in a busy scene. Also talked about using graduated filters to avoid the sky being blown out

That's pretty much it... I enjoyed it for the opportunity to practice shooting in manual mode and also my brother and his wife (who are relatively new to all these concepts) were able to learn about the basics.

I think next time I might look for a photo walk or something similar which assumes you already know the basics...
Now the pics...

[attachment=177]

[attachment=178]

[attachment=179]

[attachment=180]

[attachment=181]

We even got an uninvited visitor from the nearby Grand Prix....
Nice crisp pics; too bad about the course. Sounds like it was misnamed - "basics of exposure" would have been more appropriate. If this was sponsored by a camera shop, I'd file a complaint ... but that's just the way I am. Wink
Thanks! Yeah, you're probably right Mitch... we picked them up heavily discounted from a group buying site but it's all water under the bridge now... Big Grin