Landscape Photography
Depends on PROPER EXPOSURE

For most photography, you the photographer, generally don't need to be overly concerned about proper exposure. Exposure is the amount of light that falls onto the image sensor of a digital camera.

Usually, the default setting for exposure is automatic. And, for the majority of photographs, the automatic default will produce beautiful pictures.

However, when the lighting conditions are challenging (as in landscape photography), the automatic setting may not produce an optimal photograph. The problem is that image sensors cannot record the entire range of contrast (black to white) that the human eye can see. And, landscape photography typically brings out a huge range of contrast.

Your digital camera performs the daunting task of recording as much information as possible. By doing this, the camera's "factory installed instructions" will try to average out all the light levels and expose the image accordingly. (For more details, you may want to review metering modes and auto exposure lock.)

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Proper EXPOSURE is a Critical Element
in Landscape Photography

Check your camera. You may find that there is a choice between center weighting, spot metering or weighted average. Unfortunately, none of the three metering approaches can guarantee a perfect result every time.

(By the way, if there is a mountain icon on your camera, that does not mean landscape photography. Typically it means pictures where the focus is set for infinity since the subject is at a great distance from you.)

We all get lulled into the temptation of thinking that your camera knows what it's doing. And, most of the time it does. The operative word here is most.

For example, have you ever taken a landscape picture that included a lot of snow and when you downloaded it to your computer, all the snow was gray?

This is a classic example of why we need to understand how the camera's meter reads a scene and why we cannot always trust the camera's meter and its auto-exposure feature.

Shutter speed is the length of time that the shutter is open. A shutter speed of 1/60 of a second allows twice as much light in as a shutter speed of 1/125 of a second.

Aperture is the size of the lens opening and is measured in f-stops. For example, a setting of f/8 has a lens opening that is twice the size of a setting of f/11 and so twice as much light is used.

The confusing part about apertures is that the higher the f-stop number the smaller the aperture.

Let’s see what happened in the snow example. Most camera's light meters will give a reading that will result in the correct exposure of a scene that is in a mid-tone lighting situation. So, what does that mean?

Your camera’s light meter takes multiple readings of the landscape photography scene, and in so doing reads the very dark areas, the very light (or bright) areas, and the neutral (mid-tone) areas.

What are examples of mid-tone objects? Gray rocks, green non-reflecting foliage, and the brown bark of trees are just some examples.

These mid-tome objects would all probably be properly exposed using the camera's light meter.

However, if the landscape photography scene has a lot of white (a.k.a. "snow"), the camera's light meter still wants to treat what it sees as mid-tones so will therefore give a reading that will under-expose the image. Voila… gray snow!

To correctly expose a landscape scene using your camera's light meter, do the following:

1. Focus on the scene you want to photograph

2. Without changing the focus, pan to a mid-tone area and note the meter reading.

3. Return your camera to the original position but use your manual exposure dials to set the reading you had on the mid-tone area.

Your camera will think you are overexposing the scene, but it will turn out correctly.

Here are some additional tips that you can use…

When you focus on a mid-tone, use your camera’s exposure lock capability (if you have that feature), and then quickly recompose the shot and shoot.

There’s also a very handy dandy little photography device that is cheap and easy to use. It’s called a gray card and serves the purpose of focusing on a mid-tone, but much better. It is calibrated to be what’s called 18% gray, the exact percentage that is neutral to your camera’s light meter.

So, place the gray card in the scene area you want to shoot (but not actually in the scene), meter off the card, use your exposure lock, recompose the shot, and presto… another perfectly exposed landscape picture!

Gray cards are one of those "professional secrets" that are very inexpensive (hundreds less than a good light meter) and useful for ALL photography, not just landscape photography! Find out where you can get them inexpensively on-line...