The Dos and Don’ts of Landscape Photography

Seasoned landscape photographer Craig Roberts has some tips for the newbies out there, so get out your pen and pad and listen up: here are some top “Dos” and “Don’ts” for landscape photography.

Roberts covers a slew of topics in this 10 minute video. He starts with Location before moving on to Composition, Exposure, Depth of Field, Light, Filters, and a few other miscellaneous topics at the very end of the video.

And for each of these very important categories, Roberts dives into his own personal “dos” and “don’ts” that will help you become a better landscape photographer. We definitely suggest you check out the full video up top, because it’s impossible to summarize properly in a few bullet points, but here are the points in-summary, along with timestamps for reference.

• Do shoot locally. 1:10
• Don’t automatically grab your widest lens. 1:59
• Don’t shoot wide and then crop later. 2:24
• Don’t think you need a bag full of lenses, the kit lens is just fine. 2:43
• Do create a picture with a foreground, midground, and background. 2:53
• Do experiment with different metering modes. 3:12
• Don’t automatically focus at infinity, Do focus 1/3 of the way up your frame. 4:10
• Do occasionally try shooting wide open, with focus on the foreground. 5:43
• Don’t only shoot sunsets and sunrises. 6:01
• Do use filters to balance the exposure between sky and land. 7:14
• Don’t use a 10-stop ND filter unless it’s actually necessary. 8:49
• Do invest in a good tripod. 9:20
• Don’t worry about having the latest and greatest camera or lenses. 9:36

And that’s it! Like we said above, definitely check out the full video to hear each of these Dos and Don’ts properly elaborated on, and if you like what you see, subscribe to Craig’s YouTube channel, visit his website, or give him a follow on Instagram.