THEAPPRENTICE

10

TOP GEAR #

Graduated ND filter

THE castle and

foreground are much

darker than the bright sky,

which will lead to this area

being overexposed in the

final image. While Drew

suggests that sky detail

can be brought back in

Lightroom using the

Graduated Filter Tool, he

says it’s best to capture

the exact tones you want

in-camera. To do this he

uses graduated ND filters

from Lee that fit in to a Lee

filter holder. These vary in

strength and also come in

hard and soft gradients.

HOT

SHOT

TECHNIQUE

ASSESSMENT

Drew shows Ronnie how to set

up his camera for landscapes

SWITCH OFF ‘IS’ WHEN USING
YOUR CAMERA ON A TRIPOD

CANON’S lens-based Image
Stabilization is great for allowing
you to get sharp shots at shutter
speeds slower than normal when
shooting handheld. But on a
locked-off tripod the system
still has the potential to move the
glass elements inside the lens to
compensate for movement that
isn’t there, so your shots may
come out blurry. As a result, it’s
best practice to turn off IS when
you’re using a tripod.

NARROW APERTURE FOR
SUPER SHARP DOF

AS YOU close down your lens’s
aperture you’ll restrict the light
flow to a mere trickle, extending
the shutter speed. The benefit of
closing the aperture down is to
get a greater depth-of-field (zone
of sharp focus), rendering more of
your scene sharp. You’ll then want
to focus about one-third of the
way into the scene to maximize
your depth-of-field, or use a
hyperfocal distance calculator to
squeeze the most sharpness out
of your landscape images.

Lens Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM

Exposure 1/25 sec, f/16, ISO