10 Best Landscape Photography Tips That Every Beginner Should Know

Every photographer has a natural eye for shooting awe-inspiring landscape shots. Each shot brings an exquisite experience. Also, gives inspo for the next shot. If you ever feel stuck. Don’t you worry! You’re truly at the right destination.

This guide covers key landscape photography tips to capture your first-ever scenic shot. Every tip is beginner-friendly and will give excellent results. So, grab your pens and paper, as this is all you need!

Great Photos Start Before You Click

Photography requires a peaceful mindset and an obsession with capturing landscape photography shots. To achieve that, you need to preplan your shoot. It saves you time and helps you avoid the frustration of forgetting any requirement.

Check apps like Google Earth and PhotoPills for landscape photography locations nearby. For locations outside of your hometown, these apps will guide you to choose the best one for your shoot.

Why Scouting the Spot Changes Everything?

A useful tip for outdoor photography is to become familiar with the location. For that, you’ll need to scout the area thoroughly. Moreover, look out for all the angles and elements to bring out the best from the scenario. Knowing your location beforehand helps you to pinpoint where to set up the camera. Moreover, it also tells what equipment would be required, “Will it be better in the daytime?”, etc.

Do check out foreground elements such as the trees, flowers, water reflection, or any other element that will make it stand out more than usual. After thoroughly analysing the location, you’ll be able to unlock your inner photography guru. 

Don’t Let Bad Weather Ruin the Perfect Shot 

The weather is the actual game-changer for landscape photography. It can break or make your perfect landscape shot. We’ll recommend you check the weather beforehand. This gives you plenty of room to plan better, execute with freedom, and stay prepared regardless of the situation.  Plus, the actual benefits are reaped with mountain photography and seascape photography, where conditions can change rapidly.

The Magic of Golden Hour: Nature’s Filter

For beginners, the soft-warm light that is emitted during golden hours can be the best bet for your first gig! It will add a warm hue, ideal depth, and contrast to your RAW shots, which cannot be found at any other time.

Look out for times shortly after sunrise and before sunset. This is the time when light is not harsh but illuminates perfectly to light up your shot. It will make your trainee experience not only rewarding but also less frustrating.

Right Lens for Right Scene

The lenses you use for your landscape shots hold high merit in the photography industry. For landscape photography, a wide-angle lens is the way to go. It is 100% beginner-friendly and excellent for capturing diverse seeping views. On the other hand, you can use a telephoto lens for mountain peaks, chruch’s steeples, trees, etc. Each lens works differently; thus, tells a different story. 

Why a Tripod Matters for Sharp Shots?

Stability is the backbone of countryside photography! With a tripod, you can shoot sharp images without much lighting. The best part? You don’t have to worry about butter fingers or unstable hands! Just simply place a tripod where you’ll like to take the shot and easily capture it without any trouble. Also, with long exposure landscape photography, you can seize the beauty of silky waterfalls and reflections.

Choose the Right Filters to Transform Your Images

You might think of filters as optional equipment, but it's undoubtedly a ground-breaking invention. A polarizing filter brings out the best in scenic photography. It flawlessly amplifies the skies and reduces the glare from leaves to make the image softer. On the other hand, switching to an ND filter (Neutral Density filter) can acquire shots while delaying the shutter speed. This way, smooth waterfalls, rivers, and phenomenal cloud movements will no longer be advanced gameplay for you. 

While editing is also necessary. Using a filter can produce effects that software cannot replicate. It will for sure be the simplest way to enhance your images without requiring tiring hours of editing.

Experimenting with Creative Composition 

Composition may be an advanced topic for you, but trust me, it's the easiest. Learn about the different rules and theories of photography. Being a beginner, you should start using the rules of thirds in your landscape photography. It is the best starting point for your photography journey. 

Simply divide your image into nine equal segments. All by using two horizontal and vertical lines. So, if you place the scene or objects according to these guidelines, you’ll make it more visually appealing and mesmerizing. Another way to use them is to bend the rules. This will get you more surprising and bold results. Try to include a strong foreground as well. Elements like rocks, flowers, trails, etc., can add depth to your images, bringing life to them and making them engaging. 

Additionally, you can also experiment with leading lines. It will help you use rivers, fences, and other leading lines objects to bring out the best in your outdoor photography. It will help you grab the viewer’s attention and make the frame far less basic than usual. 

Shooting in RAW Gives You More Control

Among the various landscape photography tips, a highly impactful one is to always shoot in RAW and edit the images later. The reason behind this is that RAW files store more data than usual JPEGs. To attain more liberty while editing. It’s best to use this format. You can adjust the tone of color, exposure, and other aspects as well. Plus, the cherry on top is that it won’t compromise the quality of your image.

For beginners, it's undoubtedly the best landscape photography tip they can get as it will bring more flexibility and less to no regrets. RAW files will help you recover details and create the mood that you think fits right for your shot. Moreover, using AI photo editors like X-Design will surely take your landscape shots to a whole new level.  

The Final Touch to Your Photos

Lastly, never forget post-processing! Everything like editing, enhancing, and sharpening is the key to polishing your good work into something better. The images you see on the internet will look bland if not edited. You can use post-processing to fine-tune your shots, enhance their color, and increase clarity.

You might be thinking that you need a lot of practice to master editing. However, using an AI image editor you can effortlessly edit your photos to make them look more attractive. You can increase contrast to add depth, and adjust highlights to make the elements stand out. Also, you can enhance the textures or decrease to make them smooth. 

Landscape Photography Editing Tool— X-Design AI Photo Editor

Landscape photography shots are incomplete without editing and be little challenging sometimes. But using AI-based editing software like X-Design AI photo editor you can do the job with just a few clicks. It not only helps you edit professional winter landscape photography shots but also offers several features like upscaling photos to 8k, adding text to an image, and even extending the frame of the photo.

It is designed to speed up your editing process and save you hours from hectic editing that yields no results. Here’s what X-Design offers you:

• It instantly removes unwanted objects from your image in a single click!

• Improves sharpness and lighting that can make a huge difference in your summer landscape photography shots.

• Upscaling is another prominent feature of this editing tool. Allowing you to upscale your image up to 8K!

• You can apply creative filters to images to bring a unique touch to your image.

For beginners and professionals, if you want to enhance the lighting and sharpen details of your landscape shots, this tool would be your best bet! This will help your RAW file attain the subtle beauty of natural scenes. 

Summing Up!

Use these landscape photography tips to take your beginner shots to the next level. All of these tips are doable and will work wonders in your photography journey. You shouldn’t jump to do all of them at once, but begin small with changes like preplanning your shoot, using filters, etc., to yield the best results. 

Combining these tips with an AI-based photo editor like X-Design would surely leave your viewers in awe! It will edit your photos with excellence, helping you build a top-notch portfolio for your photography journey.