In last week's video,
I took you into the Australian rainforest
and showed you how you can challenge yourself
to use a portal lens for landscape photography.
Today I'm taking you back for round two.
It's the 85 millimeter prime lens
versus the Australian landscape photographer.
And it's coming up now.
Hi everyone, I'm Adrian.
And I'm here to show you the best tips and tools
to help your improve your own landscape
and outdoor photography.
In last week's video,
I shared with you the challenges of shooting with
a fixed prime lens in the Australian rainforest.
Today I'm going to show you with some patience,
and refining your composition, you really can
use a portal lens for landscape photography.
Make sure you stick around to the end
because I'm gonna show you my number one tip.
But with that in mind, let's head back
into that beautiful rainforest.
[Light Rainfall]
So frame of the first image,
I'm a long way back.
I've taken a photograph of this scene before
at probably ran at about 45 mil.
So I am a good
10 meters away
from this main tree here.
And the one thing about using
an 85 prime or an 85 mil lens,
or this focal length in general,
is the compression against those trees,
that presence of that Mountain Ash
and the Beech middle the side here,
that's another Beech middle there,
and further up I've got some other Mountain Ashes
in the distance in the fog and mist.
I think the other thing that I really like
about this scene is that obviously the fog
is being compressed as well.
And we've got a nice little bit of soft light
coming through here, through the tree canopy
on some ferns and bracken and stuff at the
base of this beech middle here as well.
So we're looking at mid-range aperture to start off with,
F8 one fifth of a second, ISO 640
slightly underexposed as well.
Let's take that shot now.
[Gentle Guitar]
First image I took an f8 so we're gonna
take an f11 as well just to see
how sharp it is and show you guys on the screen.
So we're now at F11 ISO 640 and 0.4 of a second.
So there's little bit of wind
at the top of the tree canopy,
but down here is a little bit of breeze now.
So we'll just wait for this breeze to blow through.
Then we'll take the shot
and then compare both those images.
So F8 and F11.
[Gentle Guitar]
Okay so what I thought I'd do now
is I'll frame up the next shot
at a lower aperture.
So I'm gonna go straight down to the wide open F0.14.
And I've turned the camera into portrait mode.
So similar scene. So I'm essentially going to
take a tree portrait, if you will,
of the trees over here.
So now there we're aperture of F1.4 wide open.
You can see the foreground is in sharp focus.
I've got a fade away to the trees in the distance there.
I'll take two and just,
I'll take one with the foreground sharp focus
and then we'll do one with the beech middle and
the Mountain Ash also in focus as well,
so we have a look at those as well,
see the difference too.
[Light rainfall]
[Gentle Guitar]
Such a beautiful rainforest.
In a second I'm going to share with you
my number one tip as to how
you can use a portrait lens for landscape photography.
But before I do, I wanted to check in with you
around your own landscape photography.
What tips would you share with our community,
around how to improve?
Leave a comment below
because I'm really keen to hear from you
around how you're improving your own photography.
Looking back over the photographs I took on that trip,
I realized how challenging it actually was.
I want to be transparent and honest with you,
and I often use a telephoto lens.
So I didn't think for a moment
that using a fixed prime lens at 85 mil
would actually be that challenging.
But as you saw in the first video,
it really was quite a struggle for me
to actually compose an image that I was really happy with.
Looking back at those first images
Some of the challenges I had
was you're really creating that separation,
getting that balance right in the frame.
And whether that was purely because
I was caught up in the moment, I'm not really sure
but it really did provide
a quite challenging experience for me.
And in today's video, you could argue whilst I'd
shot a similar composition at that location previously,
that it was going to be easier for me.
But I think the real difference where the two sessions was
was actually the fact that I stopped, I slowed down,
I really assessed the scene and I was much more patient in
how I approached what I wanted to compose within the image.
And by slowing down, you're able to really
decide what you want to include in the image
and what you want to exclude.
And I think that's probably certainly one thing
that contributed to my success in the second round.
So my number one tip is,
and portrait photographers do this so well is:
back up, back up, back up.
And I don't mean on your hard drive.
I really mean stop, walk back and assess your scene.
You can see in the second set of images that I took today,
that I was able to,
I was much further back from the subject.
I really sat and thought and composed my images to ensure
that I made the most of that situation.
I looked at the trees as though I was
taking their portrait.
I did the same in my own local for us a few months ago,
when I shot close to home.
I'd encourage you to approach forest and woodland
photography the same way.
Even if you're using an 85 fixed prime lens.
It does help to move past the chaos
and see more clear images.
If you enjoy Australian landscape photography,
I'm currently building out a playlist.
I'll link it up here on the YouTube card
and in the description below.
If you really enjoy learning
and watching landscape photography especially in
our beautiful country here in Australia
please consider subscribing
so you can see more videos like this.
I'll see you in the next video. Bye for now.