One of the questions I get asked most often about my landscapes is “What settings did you use?” Beginner photographers often feel that there is some magic combination of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO that will make their photos amazing. While there’s a lot more to it than that, understanding what settings to use makes it easier to take photos that match your vision. Let’s dig in.
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What Gear You Need for Landscape Photos
Landscape photography is incredibly accessible. All you need is a camera, any lens, and a landscape for your subject. Most landscape photographers favor a wide angle lens since it lets you better show the scale of the landscapes you’re photographing.
The good news is that the 18-55mm kit lens that comes with most DSLRs is, at the wide end, pretty firmly in the range of focal lengths that work really well. It’s equivalent to about 28mm on a full frame camera. If you get really into landscape photography, you can invest in a wider lens but, at least to start with, any standard lens will do.
With that said, you can even take landscape shots with long telephoto lenses. They will have a different look, but that doesn’t mean they’re not great shots.
When you’re taking landscapes, you are often working in the low light around dawn or dusk with narrow apertures. This means, as we’ll see in a moment, you can use a slower shutter speed than you can use handheld without getting blurry shots. Your first purchase if you get into landscape photography should be a good, stable tripod. It will open up a wide range of shots you otherwise wouldn’t be able to take.
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