Derek T. wrote:Those are stunning photographs. But, can I ask, did the views actually look like that on the day or are we looking at the product of some very clever technology?
I've been up lots of hills and seen lots of views in different conditions but have never seen anything so sharp as these photographs. I'm not criticising here, I would just like to know what I am seeing
The main reason fr asking this question is that my very boring point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot A620 rarely captures a picture of a view that is better than what I was looking at with my own eyes. I would love to know where the optimum point is when considering a simple camera for someone who wants to point-and-shoot but also wants to capture the essence of what inspired them to take the picture.
Derek
Hi Derek,
A valid question. As Jtweedie above writes, an SLR with filters is going to work wonders. I think you'd be struggling to get the quality and colour depth with a point and shoot. The biggest weapons in the arsenal are the filters. Using a decent circular polariser (I'd put emphasis on decent - I've tried the £20 ones and they just give photos a blue or yellow sheen) can completely transform a photo when used correctly in the right conditions. It won't work in every case (see the first picture above - notice the mountains in the distance are still washed out and the colour is dull). To enhance the the colour depth it has to be at the correct angle to the sun - the three pictures of Loch Leven I was pretty lucky as I was at almost 90 degrees, which is what you want. The other filter I routinely use is a neutral density graduated filter - this is basically transparent grey at the top fading to clear as it goes down. The benefit of this is that is stops the camera from washing out the sky as it tries to balance and brightness contrast between the sky and ground.
I also try and take landscape photos in as narrow an aperture as I can get away with to help keep as much of the picture in focus as possible. This requires a slower shutter speed, which of course can be problematic due to camera shake. I have a little camera mount on my walking pole to help with that and two of the pictures above I used a tiny little six inch tripod on top of a rock.
Then there is the format in which the camera records the photos - as default most camera will use jpg format and it will also try and work out colour balance and contrasts itself. Using this format is going to hobble you from the start as unless the camera got it perfect (which is rare) then you don't have the full colour and contrast information recorded, just what the camera thinks it should be. Saving the pictures in raw format is much better as it stores the full information. The downside is it takes about four or five times the space on the memory card. A good test, if your camera will allow, it to set your camera to take a copy on jpg format and raw format and then compare them on your computer - most cases the difference in quality is night and day.
Then there is photoshop - yup, I use it - although never to the point of making the photo unnatural or something it's not. Ninety percent of the work is done with the filters and decent camera, but even then most digital photos have a slight greyish, dull sheen over them which kills the natural contrast that your eyes can see. I'll use photoshop to bring these contrasts back and sharpen the colour. I try and keep this to a very minimum though (not least because I'm actually quite lazy and if it takes more than 15 seconds per photo then I don't bother) and I never use HDR software or the like that, while may be nice from an art point of view, are not really an accurate representation of actual scene.
That's it basically - good kit. I can't claim to have any great talent, at best I aspire to be average, but with a good camera, good glass and some decent filters I can normally just about keep my head above the point and shooters.
Oh yeah, one other thing - lots of waiting around for the weather to do just the right thing - the difference between a good and bad photo can be ten seconds. Take the second to last photo above, that streak of light across the hills only lasted thirty seconds or so, when it was gone the scene went back to being rather contrast-less.
