Sunset in Friedrichshafen – landscape photography tips

This beautiful sunset I could observe on the Lake Constance beach near the town of Friedrichshafen. In this post I’ll tell you how I made this photo. With not much equipment and a little of patience you can shoot very cool landscape photos.

Preparing

Preparation is often underestimated but in landscape photography is an important step. We, me and my wife go every year in March to Friedrichshafen. I knew that our hotel will be near the beach. Therefore, I have informed me when and where the sun will set. For this I used the great website suncalc.net. With google maps or similar services I couldeven roughly analyze the landscape and make some reflection about a location. So I knew more or less when and where I will photograph.

Tip 1: Study the area and find out sunset/sunrise time

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Equipment

I am not a professional photographer and make my living as a web developer. I do not need super expensive camera and lenses, I can not realize their potential. Two years ago I bought middle class camera with the kit lens. With every picture I have gained experience as SLR cameras work and what settings should I do to get the desired results.

For this shoot, I needed the following equipment:

• Camera: Canon EOS 600D
• Lens: EF-S 18-55mm 1:3,5-5,6 IS II
• Tripod: Cullmann ALPHA 20

Total budget for this equipment is $550 for camera with lens and $15 for tripod. For photographic equipment this is a very small sum. You can spend several thousands of dollars for equipment.

Tip 2: YOU take pictures, the camera is just the tool

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Settings

On my camera I use only three modes: AV, TV and M. First both modes are semi-manual modes. In this case the camera will change one parameter based on other. I take AV-Mode if I don’t care about a shutter speed but aperture is very important. Contrariwise I choice TV-Mode if shutter spreed is important and aperture don’t. M-Mode is total manual mode and I use it relatively rares. Only if I want other settings as the camera proposing to me.

This shoot I toke with the following settings:

• Shutter speed: 1/6s
• Aperture: f 11
• ISO: 100

For optimum sharpness in the image I put aperture on f11 in AV-Mode. Shutter speed is automatically calculated by the camera. The wind was not strong and the water was very smooth, so the shutter speed is not very important. If there were smaller waves, then I would have to turn up shutter speed so that the water would be smooth. I made a smallest ISO on my camera so no noise is visible in the photo.

Tip 3: Learn your camera and their settings

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Post-Processing

I make my photos in RAW format only. The biggest advantage of this format is the ability to edit the photos to the computer after. For post-processing I use Lightroom from Adobe. This software is relatively easy to use and license costs are not too high. This step should not be underestimated. The RAW photos must be developed and here begins the great magic. Post-processing is a very broad topic so I show only my settings that I have made in Lightroom.

 Tip 4: Make your photos in RAW-Format

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Result

This is a result Image in full size. All rights reserved. When using this image, please link to this post and qoute the author.