For over 30 years, I have tried different camera settings for my landscape photography. With the settings I use today, not only do I feel more flexible, but they also allow me to technically edit each of my photos.
In my latest YouTube video, I answered one of the questions I often ask: what camera mode and settings do I use when out on location, capturing a great landscape? Let me give you more details on how I came up with the settings I’ve tried before and how I work now.
Have eyes to see the scene
When I was 12 years old, my dad allowed me to use my home camera to take some pictures of the beautiful architecture in Venice. This was one of the best days I’ve ever had in my life, and it was the beginning of a great passion. Back then, I had no concept of photography, but I fell in love with it from the first moment. My dad just told me to use “P mode” on his Minolta SLR, which is the automatic mode. He said that I should just think about the beautiful scenes around me and forget about all the buttons and settings the camera would provide. I didn’t understand that advice at the time, but today, I know it’s a really great way to get into photography. It’s not hard to use the camera to learn about all the different settings. Of course, it is important to know how to use your camera, but first of all, we should get into what we want to capture. This is why I think it’s not the worst idea to start with P mode. The camera measures light and depending on that, it chooses the right aperture and shutter speed and can maybe ISO. This makes it easier for beginners to shoot freely in low-light situations.
Your camera lord
When I lived in a place surrounded by mountains, I learned to love nature through a lot of hiking. We tend to shoot what we love, and so it’s no coincidence that I immediately started with landscape photography. At first I still used “P mode” because I wanted to be in nature and work on compositions, not thinking about technical settings.
But I face some problems, one of which is that I don’t know how to change my focus point to get the whole image sharp. As a result I shot an entire roll of film with different focus points, just to find out how important it was for me to focus where I was. This was an expensive project, especially since I had to repeat it many times, as the camera seemed to have its own behavior. P mode simply doesn’t allow me to control the depth of field.
Since my grandfather was a painter and art professor, I have been involved in composing since I was a boy. But there is no photography club in the village where I live. One of my school friends is also a photographer, and he is lucky to have a camera around. My friend seems to know everything about cameras and settings. And so we took each other’s photography to the next level. My classmate told me to forget about P mode and use M mode instead. I learned how to master depth of field by using the right aperture, and I started trying. Experiment with different shutter speeds to blur motion into my images, at least as my budget allows.
The biggest variation in landscape photography
I’m quite happy with using M mode, as it gives me one hundred percent control over my camera. For many years, I believe this will be the only exposure mode a professional photographer will also use. Who needs automations when they can handle all the settings?
Now, depth of field wasn’t the only issue I had in my early years of landscape photography. I struggled with getting the right exposure when photographing towards the light. I was a kid in the 70s: my dad told me to always take pictures with the sun on my back and I would never have trouble with low-light shots. This really works, but the dilemma is that the landscape looks a lot better the other way around.
I know that the only way it works is to measure the light and based on that, I decide on the right aperture and shutter speed. Light is the biggest changing factor we have in landscape photography. However, around dawn or dusk, the amount of light changes so rapidly that there is rarely a difference in stops within seconds.
Best exposure mode
This got me thinking about other exposure modes on my camera. S mode, known as shutter priority mode, is useful if shutter speed is the most important stylistic tool for my photos. For example, this can be quite useful in sports photography. But it is useless for most situations in landscape photography, in my experience.
In landscape photography, aperture has always been the most important styling tool for me, as it allows me to define depth of field. In most cases, we usually want to get the whole scene sharp.
This is why I ended up thinking about A mode, which is aperture priority mode. With that, I can define the aperture for my scene and control the depth of field. Whenever the light changes, the camera switches to a longer or shorter shutter speed. And I must say, using this mode has helped me a lot to perfect most of my images, at least from a technical point of view. I only had to use exposure compensation to adjust the amount of light hitting the film, and it’s even easier these days: digital photography allows me to use ISO as a configurable component for each exposure. So whenever I need a shorter shutter speed, but I can’t open the aperture more, I just choose a higher ISO. If I need a longer shutter speed, I use a neutral density filter and compensate the shutter speed with ISO. I can’t remember when I messed up a photo with the wrong settings.
How I work today
This is why aperture priority is my favorite exposure mode. I still used manual mode to photograph waterfalls for a number of years, because shutter speed is basic and I usually prefer overcast or rainy weather there. But in such weather, the amount of light always changes slightly. Mine Sony a7R IV supports the zebra function, letting me know if any part of my composition is overexposed. But to be honest, this has never been conspicuous enough for me, and at times, just small areas are overexposed.
In general, I have to say that there is no right or wrong. Other modes will lead to great photos. I know a lot of good photographers who use manual mode. I prefer aperture priority for the reasons mentioned. Leave me a comment below which mode you prefer for your landscape photography. To learn more about my camera settings, please watch the video above.
