How to take photos in hills and mountains
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| Ptarmigan - By Peter Cairns |
Tips for upland photography - By Niall Benvie of the 2020VISION Project - Communicating the link between the restoration of the UK's natural systems and our own well being.
Read Niall Benvie's piece about preserving the Scottish uplands.
Don't be deterred by "bad weather" - it all adds to the atmosphere. You can shoot well before dawn and long after dusk to introduce a strong blue cast to the scene which heightens the sense of tranquillity. Close ups of grasses and flowers are enhanced by dew drops or overnight rain.
It may be a drag, but do take your tripod up into the mountains. While you may be able to hand-hold shots of more distant ridges, if you want to made wide angle shots with lots of depth of field, you'll need slow shutter speeds and a steady rest. Alternatively, if you are after wildlife, a beanbag supported on an old plastic beer crate makes an extremely stable rest for a long lens.
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| Upland photography - By Joe Cornish |
Graduated neutral density filters (to reduce the contrast between sky and land) are of limited use where the skyline is uneven; instead, use Lightroom's Local Adjustments Brush or create a Layer Mask in Photoshop to darken the sky. If the contrast is extreme you may need to combine a pair of identical pictures, one exposed for the sky, one for the foreground.
If you have to photograph the subject against a pale sky, you might try underexposing the daylight exposure for the background and light the subject with flash. One in a large softbox is ideal, but it that is not practical, fire a flash through diffusion material close to the subject. The flash should be twice as far from the diffuser as the diffuser is from the subject.
Take heart: you don't need to be a great mountaineer to get get shots of the uplands: rarely are the best photographs taken from the summit. But on days when there is a temperature inversion, push yourself to get above the clouds for some astonishing pictures.
Image by Niall Benvie
