Photography tips to improve your 35mm landscape pictures

1. Take your camera with you as much as you can. It may sound obvious but coming back from visiting Aunt Gertrude, you could see the best sunset ever, so where you go so must your camera.

2. Take a light, compact tripod with you. When you mount your camera on a tripod you can use slower shutter speeds than if you hand hold it, allowing you to use smaller apertures (f11-f22) to increase the depth of field, ensuring the absolute maximum of your image is sharp. Use a cable release to reduce the chance of vibrations when you press the shutter and use a small spirit level to keep everything on the level.

3. Do your skies look pale and wishy washy? Bright skies with darker foreground can cause trouble. Solve it by using a neutral density grey graduated filter. Position the filter with the dark area over the sky to balance the light levels of the bright sky with the darker foreground.Neutral density grad filters come in different strengths from 1 stop to 3 stops. I have found that 1 stop is best at the beach because the sand is not that dark so does not need to have the sky darkened so much to balance the picture. Dawn and dusk need a 3 stop grad when the sun is lower in the sky.The use of neutral density graduated filters is probably the quickest way to make your photographs look professional. Different cameras' exposure meters work differently so try out different grad filters on a test film, but I have found that my Olympus when I get the right strength nuetral density filter because the image is so well balanced the built in metering system copes brilliantly on its own without the need for any exposure compensation.

4. Focusing can make or break an image, use a large aperture (f1.4 - f2.8) to isolate a part of the picture and throw everything else out of focus. If your lens has a depth of field scale use a small aperture (f16 -f22) and use the scale to make as much of the image sharp as possible.Wider angle lenses have a greater depth of field and telephoto lenses have very shallow depth of field.

5. Use a polarising filter to reduce reflexions and to saturate colours, they are adjustable by rotating them and by using them at 90 degrees to the direction of the sunlight. Never look through the lens at the sun, it will cause permanent eye damage!

6. Composition, learn the rule of thirds which dictates the best place to position the focal point of the image. Then ignore it totally. If you think that the focal point looks best smack bam in the middle of the picture then put it there!

7. Do not get hung up on trying to aquire equipment. The most basic 35mm camera set up is capable of producing amazing photographs. I am really happy with my Olympus OM10 which has given me over two decades of beautiful images.

8. It may be pleasant to go out to take photographs on nice sunny days but you are only seeing one facet of the countryside that way. Cold winter weather and storms can create stunning images, just don't get carried away are put yourself in harms way.

9. Don't pay too much heed to all the experts who have rules about composition and photographic styles, do your own thing. If we all followed the rules rigidly we would all be taking the same photographs and how boring would that be?

10. When you have taken some images that you are pleased with, don't hide them away, be proud of them, get them mounted and framed and hang them on the wall for all to see! Above all though enjoy your photography.

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