The landscape photographer noob

By all means, sometimes I think that I am not suited for landscape photography because I do not have the :

patience : to wake up at 5am every morning (for dawn shots)

equipment : film / medium format / 24 Megapixel full frame /neutral density or graduated filters

There's a saying that it is better for a photographer to get one awesome shot rather than a few mediocre ones. I couldn't agree more.

3 exposures of +1, 0 , -1 were merged in photomatix to get these results.

Some 'smart' newbies think that they can convert a single RAW file to be 'HDR-like'. Of course this is possible, but the results will be sub-par. Olympus RAW files do not have much head room for image manipulation compared to a Nikon D3x RAW, for example. As soon as ORF files are pushed beyond +1 eV, noise starts to creep into the shadow areas, and makes the resulting HDR file riddled with noise.

As dawn broke, a beautiful orange light was reflected onto the office buildings. This window of opportunity didn't last long though; after 15 minutes, the sunlight became harsher, and didn't contribute to the effect I was looking for.

I used the 7-14 lens to get this perspective. When used appropriately, it enables me to keep the vertical lines at 90 degrees without much editing required in photoshop.


When's the best time to be in portrait mode? After landscape mode, of course!

Regarding personal satisfaction, I consider myself a noob as far as landscape goes, but I'm pretty happy with the results so far. Oh, how I adore Melbourne!

Time is running out.