Recipe: Landscape

Today I will walk through the manual camera settings to set the exposure for taking a landscape photograph. I need to say up front that this is the method and thought process I use and readers might have other ways which might be better. You should be able to use these methods with any camera that has manual settings.

I will need to back up just a bit and explain some background. It really starts with some definitions and the infamous Exposure Triangle. Exposure which is the amount of light that gets recorded. Recording light is really all it comes down to.

• Aperture: along the light path, usually inside the lens, is an adjustable diaphragm opening. Even though this can control the amount of light that comes through that is not it's role. It's role is to control the Depth of Field.

• ISO: this is the "volume control" for the light sensor. Higher settings makes the sensor more sensitive to light.

• Shutter Speed: the length of time the shutter stays open. The longer it is open, the more light comes through.

This is the exposure triangle. These three variables need to be balanced to get the desired exposure. When one is changed, the other two must change as well to maintain the same exposure.

Ok, with that knowledge firmly in place, let's get back to our main topic of setting up for a shot. I almost always start with the aperture to set the depth of field (DOF). For a landscape shot, for example, a deep DOF is usually desired. In other words, you want everything in focus. You might want to put some interesting rocks or other detail in the foreground so DOF will start just a few feet out and extend to infinity. For that, you will need at least f/11 and possibly f/16.

Selecting the aperture is really not a complicated process. For landscapes, you simply use f/11 by default and vary it from there. However, you need be a little particular on where to set the focus. Let's say your foreground detail is 3 feet away and your composition requires the field of view of a 24mm focal length. To get everything in focus, you will need to focus on a spot that is 6 feet away. How did we arrive at that distance? We use a DOF calculator of course! There are many free DOF apps that can be install on your phone. More on that in a later article.

Now that we have the aperture side of the triangle set, we move on to the next which is the ISO. This is an easy one if you are using a tripod. If you're using and a tripod (and you should be) just set the ISO to the lowest your camera allows. That is usually 100 or 200. The lowest ISO means you will record the most detail and the least amount of grain. Instead of using the word "grain" we use to call it "noise". Back a few years ago, when digital wasn't as good as it is now, the high ISO grain looked really bad. You really wanted to keep the ISO setting at 400 or below but now it's no problem going to 3200 or even 6400. At ISO 3200, digital still looks better than 35mm film these days.

The third side of the triangle is the shutter speed. As I stated before, you are using proper technique and using a tripod to allow for any shutter speed required for the proper exposure. You will use the camera's light meter to determine the shutter speed to use. The light meter measures the amount of light entering your camera and you will adjust the shutter speed up and down until the indicator is centered. However, the light meter evaluates and averages the entire scene to 18% grey and the camera might not have the dynamic range to properly expose the brightest areas and the darkest areas. Therefore, you as the photographer, can make the choice of which one is the most important to your image. You can under expose to bring down the bright areas or over expose to bring up the shadows.

Below, the light meter tells you if the shot will be over exposed or under exposed based on the aperture, ISO and shutter speed. The last variable, the shutter speed is adjusted to center the indicator.

Once the picture is taken, learn to use the histogram to check the exposure. The buttons for viewing the histogram differ from camera to camera so you just have to look it up in the manual. Don't use the LCD on the back of your camera to check the exposure. The brightness setting for the display is at some arbitrary brightness and is unrelated to the actual exposure. Below we have 3 examples and how the corresponding histograms will look.

Under Exposed:

Well Exposed:

Over Exposed:

This article is a bit over simplified but not much. You will develop an intuitive feel for depth of field and how to set the exposure. Learning to meter a scene is a photographic skill in itself. At least with digital, we can review a shot just made and make corrections. If the histogram shows over exposed, then pick a faster shutter speed and a slower shutter if it is under exposed. If you're using a tripod, you don't have to worry about shaking the camera with too slow of a shutter.

A camera on automatic can't make these decisions and it has no idea how you want it to look!

1. USE A TRIPOD! Use a wide angle. Set the aperture to f/11. Set your focus to just beyond your foreground subject.

2. Make sure the ISO is at 100 or 200.

3. Adjust the shutter speed until the light meter is centered.

That's it! Well, at lest that will get you started. No recipe will work for every situation. Experiment and have fun. That's the whole point.

Look for more recipes in the near future!