Good landscape pictures have good clouds. A certain portion of most of the landscape pictures is the sky. The sky is boring if empty. Good clouds adds more interest. In this picture, 50% is the sky. If it were just uniform blue, then this picture was only 50% interesting. Keep looking at the weather. Or get lucky. This was taken at Toadstool, near Page, AZ. Easy hike from the paved highway 89 north of Vermillion Cliffs, south of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The closest city is Page. The hike is not technical. No paved paths but there are few signs so you won't get lost easily. The paths change all the time when rains. (Sony A7R, Sony Zeiss 16-35mm FE at 21 mm, f/8, 1/400, ISO = 100, vivid mode)
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Sometimes you just have to be lucky. How often do clouds cover over Vermillion Cliffs? And no where else? Very rare. How often does it rain there? Very rare. How often does the cliff get sandwiched between the clouds and shadowed grasslands and get sunlight on the cliff? Very rare. Well you sometimes need to get lucky unless you live there everyday. On a photo trip, I constantly check weather but you still need to get lucky. I was lucky (Sony A7s, 55mm Zeiss FE, f/5.6 at 1/1000 sec, ISO=100)
This is one of the famous shots, looking at Watchman over Virgin River in Zion National Park. Though it's famous and attractive, it's extremely easy to get this shot. No hiking required. Driving from St. George, go north on IS-15. From 15 go east on 9 toward Hurricane and toward Zion. After Springdale, pay $25 to enter Zion National Park. Once you enter the park, drive about 1 mile and you will see a junction to go into the valley. People call it "Canyon Junction" but it's not on the Google Map. If you go left (or North) you will enter the main Zion Valley via Zion Canyon Scenic Drive, but hold your urge and don't enter the scenic drive (you can't go in anyways during the peak season anyways. It's only accessible with their shuttles). There is a small parking area right after the junction which fit about 3 cars. From the parking area go back towards the bridge you just crossed (it's only about 100 feet walk), then you have the view, facing south. There is not much space to stand on the bridge, so be careful with the cars. You can walk down along the river on the paved trail but you won't see any better view than this (I tried). The map below is not accurate because I can't point it to the junction but the place is past Springdale. (Sony A7R, Zeiss 16-35 mm FE at 35 mm, f/20, 2 sec, ISO = 100, JPEG in Vivid mode, with tripod)
White pocket (there are multiple pockets but it's singular) is probably the most amazing place I've ever been to. Southern Utah and Northern Arizona have the most interesting formations in the world. That means good photography opportunities. But these places are not easy to get to. For this picture, you need a 4x4 truck and really good sense of direction. People actually can get lost, stranded and die in middle of nowhere. Pictures would look nicer if water is in the pockets with all the reflexion. But it only happens few times a year. You really have to be really lucky. When rains, it's almost impossible to get there; but if you wait too long after rain, then the water evaporates quickly in the desert. I was so lucky to have this shot. To get this we had to drain 1/2 tank of gas from the 4x4 car to make the car lighter and take some air out of its specialized tires to get more traction in the mud. Despite all the trouble, It was so worth it. (Sony A7R with Zeiss FE 16-35mm at 16, f/8, ISO=100, 1/200 sec, JPEG in Vivid mode). Difficulty: 9
Bryce Canyon is one the darkest spot in the U.S. You can see the milky way with naked eyes! This makes taking pictures of stars more interesting. You get green, red, blue in the galactic center. With today's camera equipment, a shot like this is super easy....as long as you don't fall into the canyon or get lost. It's super dark and scary. Make sure to have enough battery in your flashlight. (Sony a7s, Zeiss 50 mm 1.8 at f/1.8. 20 sec. ISO 6400). Difficulty: 6
The main entrance of the Texas State Capital is on the south side but the best photo opportunity is on the back (north) side of the building, capturing the extension with the main building. Get your widest angle lens and capture things at near and far. Focus about 1/3 from the bottom. With the widest angle around 15-20mm, the depth of the field is large enough to make everything sharp at f/4. To minimize noise, get yourself a tripod and shoot at the lower ISOs. To minimize the camera shake on a high MP camera, a remote or timer is necessary. This was the 36 MP Sony A7R. With the slower shutter speed, pushing on the shutter button with the finger can blur the image. One other pearl is that you should turn of the grid to make sure that the image is nice and symmetrical. It's hard to correct asymmetry post-processing. (Sony A7R, Zeiss 16-35mm at 16mm, f/8, ISO = 400, 1.3 sec, tripod, taken JPEG, Standard mode, post processing for lens distortion correction)
I rather shoot at night than during the mid day. If you are at a decently dark place, not in the middle of the city, you can shoot stars with a reasonably priced camera. As long as you have a "manual" mode in your camera, you can capture the starry night. Must-haves are a tripod and a digital camera that allows you to set on the "manual" mode. You need a manual mode because you need to collect a lot of light into the camera's sensor without disturbing the image. Too get a lot of light into your camera, you need 1) a wide aperture, 2) longer exposure, 3) higher ISO (sensitivity) and 4) dark sky. If you can open the aperture to f/1.4, that's great but many of the decently priced lenses only go up to f/3.5-4.0. That's fine. You can decrease the shutter speed (or open the shutter for a longer time) to compensate for that. But, be careful not to keep the shutter open for too long. The stars move (or the earth rotates). If you keep the shutter open for too long, the stars become a line (not a dot). I don't recommend having the shutter open for more than 30 seconds. If it's still too dark, you can always increase the ISO. But, be careful. More noise will show with a higher ISO.
It is advisable to capturer something in the foreground. Having just stars would be boring. Here, I lit the flag with my flashlight placed right underneath my tripod. Also, I had my headlamp aiming at the flag. (Sony a7s, Sony/Zeiss FE 4/24-70 at 24 mm, f/4, 8 sec, ISO = 400, Tripod) Moving water is fun. The best examples are silky falls and misty shore, artificially created with long exposure shots. A part of what's fun about photography is you can create something you don't see with you naked eyes. Set your camera on your tripod on a calm cloudy day and shoot water falls with more than 1/3 sec exposure. The only thing moving is the water so you get this cool effect, the silky water falls. In order to achieve long exposures without washing out your pics, you need to lower your ISO, tighten up the aperture, pick a cloudy day and sometimes need a neutral density filter. Otherwise, it will be too much light going into the camera. This shot was taken at Bushkill Falls in Pennsylvania. It's located on the west side of the Delaware Water Gap. This is the main fall not much hiking required to get there. (Sony A7R, Sony FE 24-70 mm F4 Zeiss at 24 mm, 0.6 sec, f/11. ISO = 50, exposure compensation = -1)
If you want a masterpiece, copy the masterpiece. Well, not exactly. Today on internet you can find anything. There are a lot of famous photographs that you can mimic. For example, Ansel Adams' "Snake River". This is the same angle Ansel Adams discovered many years ago. You can find information on the internet where a picture was taken many times. Now, all you have to do is to buy a plane ticket, go there and take the same shot. With today's technology, you can mimic the masterpiece without too much effort. Of course, it won't be original. But, it would look good in your living room and can impress your friends who don't know many famous photos. (Nikon D800E, Nikkor 16-35mm F4 at 26mm, 1 sec, f/9 with tripod, ISO=200, Graduated filter to darken the sky)
My son is getting better at golfing. While recording a video is cool, I want some pics that show some motion. I slowed the shutter speed to 1/30 to get this shot. But when you do that, the aperture gets so small that the depth of field is so large. To make it look different from any of the iPhone picture, I want the depth of field small. I reduced the sensitivity of the sensor so low to compensate for it. (Sony A7s, FE70-200 F4 G OSS at f/4, 140mm, ISO = 50, 1/30)
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