dSLR settings for Landscape (crash course)

I've had my new Olympus E-510 (first slr) for about a month and have taken quite a few photos. I've had a few good ones but most have been throw aways. I'm leaving for a trip to Sedona, AZ in a few days and was hoping to have a better feel for the camera than what I do. With a day trip planned to the Grand Canyon along with the landscaped around Sedona I'm sure to take a bunch of photos. Are there a couple of manual setting that are best for landscape, or should I just set in on auto or landscape mode and forget about it? Should I shoot in RAW then do some adjustment later, or try to shoot in jpeg?

My lenses I have available are listed in my signature. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for all the beginner questions.

Steve

RAW is always the best but on a long trip unless you have a computer to off load the photos, you either have to purchase more media or stop taking photos. But I would jest take samples at RAW down to the highest compressed JPG at the full resolution and see where the quality becomes unacceptable for your use. My DSLR lives in aperture priority mode for most of my photos unless I need flash, and some times it gets me if I don't look at the exposure information in the view finder.

For most landscapes you'll want the smallest aperture,(biggest #), you can get in most cases for dof

Landscapes are best accomplished with a wide angle lens, which is the smallest number you can find. Use your 14-42 mm lens on the 14mm end. Use the smallest aperature possible (usually around f22). This wil make for slower shutter speeds, so if you have a tripod, that's best. If not, try setting the camera on something stable and set it to timer. This will eliminate any shaking as you push the button.

Shoot in Raw if you have the memory available, and don't get discouraged if the photos don't seem to show the rich colors you see. There are reasons for this, and ways around it.

Most of all- Have Fun!!!!

- Joe U.

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Originally Posted by Medley

Landscapes are best accomplished with a wide angle lens, which is the smallest number you can find. Use your 14-42 mm lens on the 14mm end. Use the smallest aperature possible (usually around f22). This wil make for slower shutter speeds, so if you have a tripod, that's best. If not, try setting the camera on something stable and set it to timer. This will eliminate any shaking as you push the button.

Shoot in Raw if you have the memory available, and don't get discouraged if the photos don't seem to show the rich colors you see. There are reasons for this, and ways around it.

Most of all- Have Fun!!!!

- Joe U.

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I will be carrying a monopod to use and I'll have about 7GB worth of memory to use up so I think I should be ok for shooting in RAW. The shots I've been playing around with I've opend up the aperature some but not all the way to f22, I'll try that today. I'll try to post a couple this afternoon to see what ya think.

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Use the smallest aperature possible (usually around f22)

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Actually that's perhaps not the best setting.
Surprisingly lenses get softer as you stop them down all the way.

Whether that is significant depends how good the lens is to start with, and how large you're printing or viewing the image.
This looks quite good http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...hotography.htm because I can understand it :)

Got out this morning and went to Monte Sano State park to play some more. The outcome was much better. Settings ISO100 and f22 using my 14-42 lens. I took some shots of a waterfall and they were a bit blurry but overall much better. The only thing done to this photo is a bit of cropping. I'm not too sure I'm not expecting too much.

Thanks again for the tips

Steve

for waterfalls its 99% necessary to have a tripod, most need 1 sec or more exposure to blur the movement of the water, which is impossible to hand hold.

another thing that is very useful is a split ND filter so the exposure between sky and forground is alot closer and you get detail in both

I agree with the Wombat. Don't stop down all the way to f22, if you want the sharpest shots. You'll be better off staying between f8 and f16. With a wide angle, you will get plenty of DOF at f11. I would recommend shooting RAW, using aperture priority mode, and keeping an eye on your histogram. Don't let the highlights blow out and you'll be able to bring up the shadows in post processing. A circular polarizer and a graduated neutral density filter will help a lot if you have them.

Paul

Paul is right. I usally shoot around F/8 and F/11. I always try and focus one third of the way into the shot as well, hyper focal focus. It will make your pictures sharper from front to back. Try it, it works.....
I also agree and ND graduate filter is a must for good landscapes.

Yes Graduated ND filter is nice but depends on the sun and clouds, and a circular polarizer is a must to bring out the clouds and it also helps with seascapes by removing the glare. With the F stops, it depends on the lens. The F stop number is the focal length divided by the iris opening. With wide angle and large view camera lenses where the opening of the iris get very small you will get diffraction degrading the image. Digital photography you will not see the degrading as soon as the film users as the image sensor acts like a low pass filter, the sensor cell size is so much larger than the grain of most films, does not apply to 12 and 16 mega pixel 35mm sized DSLR.

Well, we're back from the trip. I ended up taking most of my pics in jpeg, to conserve memory space. Big mistake. I should have listened and shot all my landscapes in RAW, I now realized how much more can be done to them once you get them on the computer. For the most part the majority turned out pretty good, but I can only imagine how much better they could be. Here's one I did take in RAW. I need to get Adobe Lightroom to help with processing.

Live and learn :D

I posted a few others in the Viewfinder that I thought were pretty good.

Thanks again for all the help.

http://cruzthepug.zenfolio.com/img/v3/p116893602-4.jpg

Nice shot. I think you did very well and have a great picture to remember it by.