Landscape Photography With Medium format Cameras

Left Image: Pentax 67, 75mm
f-4.5 lens, Fuji Velvia 50, Bogen tripod and ball head. Average metering and opening up +1 stop, 1/30 sec at f-16.

You don't need any special equipment for landscape photography. A wide-angle and a standard lens should cover most situations although a moderate telephoto can come in handy. Medium format with their larger size provide much more detail in landscapes as do the smaller 35mm format. Vegetation or grains of sand for example, are much more visible. The horizon is often included in many landscape photographs, which makes most people to simply turn their focusing ring on infinity and take the picture. This is not a very good technique as you can loose a lot of depth-of-field. Focus on a subject much closer and use a small f-stop and still get everything in sharp focus. You can also use a tilt/shift lens for greater depth-of-field. These lenses allow movements for more control over the depth-of-field.


Pentax 67, 200mm f-4 lens, Fuji Velvia 50, Bogen tripod and ball head. Average metering and opening up +1 stop, 1/60 sec at f-11.

For wide open scenes a wide-angle lens can be used to decompress the scene. They can greatly alter the size in relationship between the foreground and background. Standard lenses are over looked by many photographers in landscape photography but these lenses are very useful for close details. Telephoto lenses allow you to concentrate on a small part of the scene and show closer details in a landscape. Take extra care when using longer lenses as they magnify faults. Camera shakes, focusing errors, are much more noticeable with these lenses. A sturdy tripod and cable release are also needed for better composed and sharper pictures. Mirror lock-up should also be used to minimize vibration caused during exposure.

See also Landscape for more information 

Recommended reading:  John Shaw's Landscape Photography