Landscape Photography - Don't Waste The Middle Of The Day

The 'wrong' time of day is a great time to practice and experiment

A really quick tip this month but one that I think is important.

We all know that the best time to get landscape images is in the period around sunrise and sunset. Call it the golden hour, or the magic hour, it doesn't matter. That's when the light is warm and directional and creates the nicest images.

Many landscape photographers only use the middle part of the day to location scout, or maybe to sleep if the've had too many dawn and dusk shoots recently :-)

But there is something else you can do in the middle of the day and, although you may not get any great images at the time, it can seriously help you to get better images when the light is great.

So what is this wonder activity?

Practice and Experiment!

If you take away the pressure of trying to get an image then you can be free to try things out without worrying that you are going to mess up a beautiful opportunity.

Do you fear 'going manua'l? Then why not practice shooting manual exposure in the middle of the day and get used to the tools and controls that your camera offers to help with that.

Not sure how your lenses perform at different apertures (most lenses have a 'sweet spot' when they are sharpest)? Then use the middle of the day  to take a load of shots at different apertures and then compare them later to see which ones are sharpest.

Not sure about what kind of depth of field you can get at different focus distances? The middle of the day is a great time to practice shooting at different focal lengths, apertures and focus distances and then you can analyse them later to see how sharp the background, foreground etc is.

By the way. Check out my video on Saturday 21st July. It's all about focusing. It all be on my channel (http://youtube.com/c/ralphgoldsmith) at 7PM Spanish time.

Not sure how to focus stack effectively? Then try it out in the middle of the day. If it doesn't work then you won't have missed out.

Not used to using filters? Then try shooting with them and see how you can get the best from them. Sure, there are some slightly different considerations with filters and the middle of the day compared to around sunrise or sunset but mostly the same principles apply.

Considering some more creative approaches, blurring the foreground or background, creating some movement with long exposures, looking at different perspective effects at different focal lengths? Then practice them when it doesn't matter so that, when you have great light you know how to use the techniques.

Not sure how to shoot panoramas? Then this is a great time to practice the techniques.

In short, the middle of the day can be a great time to hone your shooting skills 

So... that's it. I said it would be a short one.

I hope you enjoy this and find it useful. Don't forget to check out my video channel and I'll be back at the start of August with 'Life and Landscape Photography' look back at July.

I hope to see you then  

My Youtube channel is HERE