Hey Everyone! Hope you're having a great week! This week is Part 2 of our series on Landscape photography Gear. I have been shooting Landscape photography for quite a few decades and will try to pass on what I have learned by trial and error. And believe me there has been lots of errors! This week we will discuss the Lenses you will need for Landscape Photography. Through my travels and decades of shooting Landscapes I have gone through lots of different lenses from top of the line to the cheap kit lenses. I have gone through primes and zoom lenses and have come up with what I think you need in your Landscape photography lens Kit so lets get started. If you are new to photography you should match the correct lens to body. What does that mean? In the last blog where I talked about camera body and sensor size you should match the appropriate lens to body. You can't use a crop sensor lens on a full frame camera but you can go the other way around. If your confused get with a experienced photographer to help you through the process.

Zooms or Primes? Well during my time shooting Landscapes I have gone through phases where I shot only primes and phases where I have shot zooms only. After all of that trial and error I have come up with what I think its a good answer. You really might need both! LOL For over all general Landscape photography I think that Zooms are the best option. Let's say you're on a trail and can't get off of the trail a zoom is great at zooming in or out to get the composition that you want without leaving the trail. Zooms work great for this and the quality of zooms these days are fantastic. In years past it was primes that had the sharpness and contrast that you wanted but now with newer zooms you can't tell the difference. Now remember I said both. For general landscapes Zooms but for specialized I say Primes. What is specialized Landscape? I think that Astro/Landscape that a prime would be better. Mainly because you can get a wider aperture to get more light in for the shot. And also Macro I would prefer a Prime lens. But these are specialized areas of Landscape photography and are only needed if interested in those areas.

What Focal Length Lenses? Well this is a tricky subject and I will start and say it depends. I know that's a lame answer but it depends on what type of landscape photography you like. I would say look at some of your favorite photographers and their photos. Thats what your are going to try to emulate as a budding landscape photographer. So if your favorite photographer shoots wide angle shots I would get something like a 16-35mm lens But if you favorite photographer shoots isolated shots I would say a 70-200mm might work for you or maybe your in the middle and a 24-70 might be the ticket. Well look there I just named the holy trinity of lenses. the 16-35, 24-70, 70-200. These are all great choices to landscape photography. You need to find out what you like to shoot. Right now in my landscape kit I'm shooting a 20-70 and a 100-400 and that's all I'm carrying. On my last Fall Colors trip those are the only two lenses I took for a 5 day trip in West Virginia and they worked great. Now I have a 16-35 but haven't used it in a while. I didn't want for anything else on my trip . But that's me. You might be different. You need to find out what you like need. I do shoot astro occasionally so I have a 20mm that I use. Usually a 14 to 24mm primes are used for this. I only take this lens with me if I expect to shoot Astro. You may think that you need every lens that there is but honestly a two lens kit for Landscape is all you need a long and a short .  Say a 16-35mm and a 70-200mm would be great for most people.

What about Apertures? In an earlier blog I said that Aperture is the most expensive part of photography and it should come into play when buying and choosing a lens. The wider the Aperture the more you can isolate and blur or create bokeh in your photographs. Which is great if your taking portraits but in landscape you want as much of the scene in focus as possible.  So shooting at Wide apertures f/2.8 in zooms is not needed. These lenses are also very expensive. For example I have a Sony 20-70 f/4 lens cost is 998 on Amazon the Sony 24-70 f/2.8 lens newest version cost 2200 on Amazon. Big difference! So I'm saying if you are not going to shoot portraits you don't need the f/2.8 Zoom in any focal length . I think that if you get a constant f/4 lens you will be very happy in Landscape Photography. Most landscape shots are shot at f/8 or smaller like f/11 to get the most depth of field in focus. So spending the extra money to get the fancy lens for landscape is a waste if you ask me. I've had both and they are both great lenses but for what I shoot the f/4 lenses work best for me . Not only are they cheaper but they are lighter and smaller. Things I need when walking through the woods. Carrying around a 70-200mm f/2.8 is like carrying around a toddler all day. It just wears you out. With my prime lenses for Macro or Astro photography. For Astro I wouldn't get wider than f/1.8 a f/1.4 although is nice is twice the weight/size and cost where a f/1.8 will give you the results you need. For Macro a f/2.8 is the common Aperture. Remember the primes are specialties and not needed for general Landscape Photography.

Used or New? Well that depends on your finances. I would say that if you can afford newer lenses get them they are very sharp and any corrections are made in software. And they tend to be lighter. You can buy these used also but from a reputable  seller like KEH or MPB you still get a warranty although a shorter one. I like used and all of my lenses I buy used if possible since I'm on a fixed budget.

So in conclusion I would say get a short and longer zoom in your kit. Say 16-35mm and a 70-200. I would get them in fixed f/4 aperture. For specialty lenses like Astro or Macro I would get Prime Lenses as mentioned above. So until next week Get out and Shoot. 

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 post there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Everyone! Hope you having a great week. Me? Pretty good thanks for asking. This week I want to start a Landscape photography gear series. This will be a 4 part series going over what I think you need to take quality landscape shots. If you are into landscape photography you don't need to break the bank for photography gear to get great shots. It can be done very simply with minimal gear. This series in Landscape camera gear I will try to explain what is important and what is not. I have been shooting Landscape photography for quite a few decades and will try to pass on what I have learned by trial and error. This first part is on the camera body.

First let me start by saying it doesn't matter what brand of camera you get. All of the manufacturers of modern cameras (within the last 10 years) will work for great landscape photography. If you look through magazines or any photographs that have inspired you by any photographer to become a Landscape photographer probably took those photos on a camera that is quite a few years old. Those are fantastic photo's and you don't know what brand or how old the camera is they are just good photos. The most important factors in choosing a camera brand is how does it fit in your hand. Do you like the menus. Does it work for you ergonomically . Will you be happy with it in your hand. So if you don't already have a camera this is how I would choose brand is how does it feel in your hand.

Let's talk about sensor size. Camera sensors come in all sizes from Micro 4/3, APSC, full frame and Medium format. Let me be the first to say that sensor size in Landscape photography does not matter! You can take great photos on a cell phone with the sensor size smaller that your pinky fingernail. If you are just getting into photography I would steer you away from Medium Format because the size of the sensor and file size is just overkill for landscape photography. AMT2016-sony-a6300-review-0423-2Photographer: Anthony Thurston But everything from a cell phone to full frame sensor will work. Micro 4/3 cameras OM Systems (formally Olympus) or Panasonic will work just fine. These small camera systems will have small lenses which will be great for hiking into the backcountry for landscapes. APSC (Crop Sensor)  from Sony, Canon, Nikon or Pentax will all work great! Over 90% of the photos on my website came from a APSC sized sensor on various cameras. Full frame cameras give a little better low light performance due to the size of the sensor and also shallower depth of field which is not really a desired feature in landscape photography. But theses sensors may be better for Astro/Landscape photography. If that is what you are interested in. 

Should I buy new or used? If you are worried about warrantees then go new. But as I said earlier you don't need the newest or latest and greatest camera to shoot landscape. Landscape subjects don't really move much so high speed tracking and focusing isn't necessary. Mirrorless camera's rule the camera bodies now a days but DSLRs are still valid if you are trying to save a buck. An example is a Nikon D850. One of the best DSLR cameras ever made but just remember with the older cameras that if you upgrade you might have to upgrade the lenses also because when Nikon and Canon switched to mirrorless they also changed the mounts of their cameras. I personally use a Sony A7III that came out in 2018. They have came out with many upgrades since this camera came out but this camera still takes great photo's for me. I don't see the need to upgrade in the near future. So if you do buy used do some research take into account lens mounts and the source of your purchase. I would buy from a place that specializes in selling used like KEH or MPB they give smaller warranties on items purchased from them. Either way just know that simple gear works great for Landscape photography and all of the video stuff that they put on the newer cameras won't help you at all in Landscape Photography.

Like I said this is the first of a 4 part series on Landscape photography camera gear.  The next blog will be on Lenses used in Landscape Photography. So until next week Get out and Shoot! 

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 post there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

What's up Ya'll? Hope you're having a great day! This week I want to talk about something I have never discussed before. Because I just figured it out! LOL Shooting in different Aspect Ratio's. I have always just shot in what ever default the camera came in and cropped in post to the Aspect Ratio that I wanted. Sometime this works fine but others I end up chopping something off that I didn't want to like the top of someone's head. But if you shot in that Aspect ratio to start with you would not have that problem. Now if your not familiar with Aspect ratio's lets do a little review.

Aspect ratio in photography is the ratio of an image's width to its height, expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. For example, a 3:2 aspect ratio means the image is three times wider than it is tall. Most common aspect ratio's in still photography are 3:2 , 4:3 , 1:1 and most recently 16:9.  To put in more common terms 3:2 equals a 6x4 print you used get with film photography, 4;3 ratio is like the old computer monitors more square, of course 1:1 is square like old 6X6 film cameras and instagram loves this format. And more recently the 16:9 ratio is modern HD moitor and TV size. The latter is the one that I make all of my Title pages for the blog with the titles on them. They fill up the screen. Now there are other aspect ratios especially in printing. But cameras mostly shoot in these 4. My older camera only has two but my newer one has all 4.

Now that we know what aspect ratios are why would we change them in camera? Well for one reason is if you plan to print in a specific ratio you can make sure that it's framed correctly. When you look at your screen and your electronic view finder it's already cropped to the ratio that you picked. Lets say you picked 16:9 when you look at your camera there is a black bar above and below the photo giving you the aspect ratio of 16:9 when you view back on the screen its the same. If you don't like it and shot in raw and import to Lightroom you can go to cropping and put in original aspect ration and it becomes 3:2 again showing all of the photo that was in the black bar part of your camera screen. Older film cameras you used to get focusing screens that would show the lines where the different aspect ratio's would be. So back to the question why would I change ratios in camera? To me it puts a restriction on shooting which makes you think. Kind of like using one prime lens for a shoot for a whole day.  It makes you look at the world a little different making your creative juices flow again. And that's a good thing. If you're in a rut one way to get out of it is shooting restricted a little.  Say shoot 1:1 (square) all day. You will be surprised the shots you will get. And your mind will start seeing that way. It's much like shooting in black and white for a day the same thing happens. For a bonus it's a fun way to get your mojo working again without spending money!

Most camera's will have this feature you just have to look for it . I'm using older cameras and both of mine have it. The older one only has two choices but the newer one has 4 choices. I'm going to start experimenting more shooting like this. So until next week get out and shoot and experiment with Aspect Ratios ! 

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 post there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link