How to make a stunning, professional landscape...

Yes, finally the ultimate secret of creating a colour landscape photograph that will thrill everyone who sees it.

Prerequisites: Camera choice: A Canon 5D Mk II. Lens choice: a Nikkor 14-24 (yes, with a Canon mount!)

Step 1: Find the ideal location and wait for the perfect time of day - the 'Golden Hour' - dawn or dusk.

Step 2: Get all you gear set up (tripod, filters, cable release, etc) and take your brilliantly composed photos.

Step 3: Take your captures home and process the crap out of them - making certain that you turn up the saturation to the maximum extent that you reckon you can get away with.

Step 4: Stick 'em up on 1x.

Step 5: Wait for the accolades come flooding in.

Why am I saying all this? - I hear you cry, in your relentless search for photographic enlightenment. Well, I have just spent several hours over the last few days, looking at landscape photos on 1x.com. And there are some outstanding shots there, but so many of them are severely over-processed, over-sharpened and over-saturated. Most of them are shot with Canon cameras - and to a lesser extent, Nikon. The key factor is intense Colour - overwhelming colour! At thumbnail size they look like genuine little jewels - but up close - costume jewelery. Like I said, many of them are wonderful compositions and even fine art - BUT most of them are just overdone - even a little cheesy.

The fact is, I prefer Foveon colour. Why? Because it looks so much better straight out of the camera. It doesn't need all that extra fake depth and sharpening added. And it doesn't need to be totally over-saturated.

Go and have a look at 1x.com and make up your own mind.

Here are a couple of examples:

http://1x.com/photo/44709/category/landscape/latest-additions/valley

http://1x.com/photo/44790/category/landscape/latest-additions/glowing-rim

End of rant.
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Regards,

Vitée

Capture all the light and colour!

http://www.pbase.com/vitee/galleries