A few of you have picked up on this really big mistake that i keep making and it's getting so
excited when the weather gets good i literally just get my camera out and fire off as many shots
as possible without thinking about the settings sometimes the iso is at 4 000 other times the
aperture is wide open and other times the shutter speed is so slow that i start getting blurry shots
now if you do this you're not alone
it happens to all of us and it normally happens when you get those fleeting bits of light
Oh yeah ... and if you use the peak design capture clip
make sure you always have it attached because when you forget it it's so
annoying i forgot mine i've got it on one of my other bags but it's really frustrating
I've just spotted a shot this winding lane in the distance looks quite cool
there's a hut behind it there's not much light on the scene but hopefully it'll work
it's been raining all night so there is a lot of moisture and dampness around
now there are a few patches of color in the sky but all around me there's some really low-lying
cloud i've got the clear sky above me but that looks like that's all that's there i hate tripods
that have rubber grips on them why is that not undoing oh it's already all the way and done
it's not going well this morning this is what i'm looking at i'm thinking
of framing somewhere here now with this i could go tighter and then raise it up
and that'll work as well the only downside to that is it's a bit squashed in so we've got this tree
right at the top of the frame and the road right at the bottom so that's why i like to come out
just a touch i also like the detail in the bottom with that grass you don't want it just sticking in
i want a bit of the land there as well so that's kind of why i've gone for that framing so i'm
gonna focus on the house got my self timer on two seconds i'm at one third of a second f8 iso 100
now i'm not sure if this shot is too busy have a look at it and
let me know in the comments below it'd be great to hear your thoughts
so i'm really missing my capture clip but how cool is this that's park house hill
we've got chrome hill in front of me now it looks kind of moody and hazy i think there's
a shot here as well looking up the ridge anyway back to what i was talking about
if this sounds like you and you completely forget your settings you're not alone but
how do you overcome that and are there things that you can put into place to kind of join
your memory into remembering those settings well i've been doing a little bit of research on this
and i've found out some interesting things i'm going to grab this photograph first
now in this shot i was trying to capture these three trees but the fourth one in the foreground
in the bottom right hand corner was getting in the way and there was no way of framing it
without losing the tree to the left so i went for a portrait orientation instead
i think this works a little bit better even though there are only two trees in the shot
so it does look like there's going to be no golden hour this morning whatsoever the cloud
is really closing in and i'm surprised chrome hill and park house hill haven't
been closed in by that cloud yet so fingers crossed it stays that way for the time being
now when i'm shooting on days like today there's no problem i do look at my settings
and i don't forget about them at all and i was hoping i'd get that sunrise this morning so
i could kind of test what i've been learning but it is kind of frustrating
that those moments that we get with that really nice light are so fleeting that it's actually hard
to practice and it's hard to put into place now with photography there's so much to think about
i think this has a lot to do with it you're kind of thinking of the composition
thinking about what you're going to have in your shot so sometimes the settings
almost get put to one side and then once the light comes through you look at your camera you're like
why was i shooting at iso 4000 a little bit like with my settings sometimes you can forget about
the compositional techniques as well and it all comes down to when that light is really good
at this location i got a much better angle of those three trees i was trying to photograph
earlier but a bit more mist would have helped give a bit more separation between these trees
so check this scene out you've got this like winding ridge and then you've got park house
hill in the background and the tree that looks like a massive afro at the moment
that's a nice foreground element now if i look at it at 17 millimeters on a full-frame camera
it's a lot of space lots of things this side and that side that i don't need
so i'm going to crop in on it something like
24 to 28 would look really good could see that boring sky there so i just come down
we're facing east so the sun would have risen just behind here so all would have been backlit
on a good sunrise but i'm thinking in the winter the sun will rise a bit further around
so that'll sidelight this subject a little bit more so i'm going to make a note of this place
and come back when the light is good what would be even better
is if it's covered in snow as well that'll be fantastic not asking for much i don't think
a snowy scene perfect sunrise perfect light it'll happen just got to keep coming back
and when it does happen i'll probably forget about all of my settings once again one of the things
to kind of break this habit is to maybe turn up to the location a lot earlier than you'd think
i seem to be turning up just as the sun rises when i arrange it it seems like i've left myself enough
time but then things get in the way you have breakfast you have coffee and before you know it
you've wasted a lot of time in getting to that location so it's better to get to the location
a lot earlier than you think and then you can kind of look around and try and find the best
composition before that light comes in now if you guys do anything to jog your memory about the
settings or about the composition let me know in the comments below be great to hear your thoughts
you might have heard that taking three shots and this is something else that i do
i sometimes put my camera in exposure bracketing mode then when i'm editing i end up using just
one of those shots the dynamic ranges of the cameras is ridiculous nowadays
that you hardly ever need to bracket your shots the time i find myself properly bracketing the
shots and properly using all of the shots is when the sun is in the frame but apart from
that the cameras can really deal with it well now when you do get that fleeting bit of light and
you've got it in that exposure bracketing setting especially when you've got the timer at the start
this is when it can get in the way i've done that a couple of times i've pointed the camera
at scene press the button and it goes through that timer cycle if you do find yourself doing this try
putting the histogram on the back of the screen or in your evf if you do that that will help you
get a good exposure the histogram is such a good tool to use and it's such a good tool to kind of
help you break that habit because you'll see it on the back of the screen and then you'll think
about your exposure now the light is looking quite interesting behind park house hills so i'm tempted
to go back down and maybe do some longer exposures although i've forgotten my 10 stop nd filter
it's not really going well at all today is it i've forgotten my capture clip i've forgotten
the little bracket on the side and now i've just realized i've forgotten my filters as well
now one of the biggest things i struggle with is picking the right location for the conditions
you're kind of being like a bit of a mystic meg in trying to predict what the weather's
doing weather forecasters can do it to a certain extent but they're not 100 accurate so you go to
a location you can have a fantastic forecast but then it basically does this last night i
looked at the forecast and it did look okay it looked like there were open patches to the east
and then that would have thrown that sunlight into the scene
but then i came to the location and it ended up being like this sometimes you will find it'll
keep going back to the same location time and time again and you just won't get lucky with
the conditions but you just got to persevere and this is part of landscape photography but the
more you go out the more you'll increase your chances and the luckier you'll get
now even though the golden hour's gone there are some fleeting bits of light coming through
and i'm completely in the wrong place if you look up there the light is breaking through
and shining down over here it has shone down on park house hill a couple of times
but yeah i mean completely the wrong place so i probably should have been a
little bit more patient over on chrome hill probably should have waited there a little
bit longer but then again i was feeling a bit hungry and breakfast is calling
on the walk back home i ended up getting this photograph of park house hill
which i'm quite happy with the light shone across the hill giving some interesting
shapes it's just a shame the sky didn't have more interesting clouds within it
but i tried to bring out as much detail in the sky in the edit
now getting control of your settings will get you technically better photographs
but if you want to skip all that you need to click on this video next to really focus on what matters