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| Wells beach huts at sunset |
I've made no secret to the fact that I've switched camera systems for my landscape work. I have always used Nikon equipment, and still do for wedding assignments, but for landscapes, I switched to the Fuji X-T1 over a year ago. I can now walk around with a much smaller and lighter setup, one that doesn't feel as though it's damaged my back at the end of the day. Trust me when I say 16 mega pixels is more than enough resolution for printing A2 and larger prints. Correct technique, as always is key, and when used to its full potential, the little Fuji's X-Trans sensor, is truly astonishing.
I have been asked many times in the gallery about my technique when capturing landscape images, so I thought I would share a little bit about how 'Wells beach huts at sunset' was captured.
First up, preparation. Knowing where the sun will rise and set will be key to capturing the shot you want. The photographer's Ephemeris, a map-centric sun and moon calculator will help you plan your shots, and there are apps available, both for Android and Apple devices.
I always carry with me, a tripod and cable release, an assortment of Lee filters, a wide angle and standard zoom lens, and of course my Fuji X-T1.
Knowing where the sun will set and the type of shot I'm after, I look around until I'm happy with a particular composition. Some times it helps to not pick up the camera at this point, as I find it can restrict the way I see things. Once happy with the composition, I will set up the tripod and compose the scene. It's important to remember that the sky is likely to be a great deal brighter than the foreground, and will need to be darkened with a filter to allow the camera to capture information within that area. Things haven't really changed a great deal since film photography, where you may take readings from several areas of the scene to work out what filtration you may need. But it's fair to say, it's certainly easier with digital. You can now take a shot, assess the image on the LCD and check for any exposure issues. I normally take a reading from the foreground, and then a reading from the brighter sky, and decide on which filter/s would be best to use. A 2 stop N.D. graduated filter was needed to control the sun, and still capture the correct exposure for the foreground. The only problem was that the brightest part of the image was near the horizon, where the sun was setting, not near the top of the image. A standard N.D Grad is usually darker at the top, getting lighter towards the middle of the filter. This would have caused the image to look unnaturally dark at the top of the image, with the sun still blowing out. The only answer in situations like this, is to use a sunset filter. This filter is darkest towards the middle, gradually getting lighter near the top. The bottom half remains clear, allowing for normal foreground exposure. Lee don't produce such a filter, but Hitech do. It's quite a specialist filter, (mine is a two stop grad), and seeing as I don't shoot towards the sun very often, one I rarely use. But on this occasion, it was the perfect choice. Getting the transition right was tricky, I had to turn the filter slightly, for it to control the sun and the sky above the beach huts. It took a couple of efforts to get it right, but once in place, it did the job perfectly. Setting the aperture on the Fujinon 10-24mm F4 to F13 to ensure front to back sharpness, a shutter speed of 1/10 sec, I was good to go. A cable release eliminated any camera shake, (no mirror lock-up needed on the Fuji) and I tripped the shutter. The histogram showed no clipping across the frame, and I was happy with the finished image.
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| Hitech filter in place midway down the frame |
One final note, and something I have found to be incredible with the Fuji cameras, is their jpeg capability. I always shoot raw. Weddings with the Nikons are always shot in raw, and I shoot raw with the Fujis as well. But I also shoot jpeg at the same time with the X-T1, and the jpeg straight out the camera is superb. So much so, this particular image was a jpeg with minimal tweaking, only adjusting contrast and levels, and a slight bit of distortion correction to the left hand side of the image.
Brett
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