Outdoor Photography How To

This eye-opening tutorial begins with a provocative question: "Have you ever found yourself, camera in hand in hand, staring at some incredible lighting hitting a scene, only to waste so much time trying to configure your settings that you miss the light altogether?" Unfortunately this dilemma is rather common, but we're going to make it a thing of the past in video below.

This tutorial comes to us from the Photography Explained YouTube channel, a great source for diagnosing a wide variety of problems that you may confront in the field. Today's episode will help you capture these fleeting moments by dialing in a handful of key camera settings and changing or disabling a few others.

Our unnamed instructor puts it like this: "Mastering five essential camera settings can absolutely transform your landscape photos from meh to WOW." And to add insult to injury, here's the worst part: "If you've spent a load of money on camera gear and get these settings wrong, you might as well be shooting a flip phone from 2004." Ouch!

So go grab your camera, click the Play button and let's explore the five "most important" settings than may actually revolutionize every image you shoot in the great outdoors. This discussion includes High Dynamic Range (HDR), why Raw is your best friend, back-button focus, embracing the histogram, and long-exposure noise reduction.

Our instructor reveals the concept behind each of these important parameters, describes the options for each, and provides practical examples of when and how to put them to work, depending upon the specific task at hand. Follow his straightforward advice, and you may never miss a great photo opportunity again.

The point is this: "While your camera can do lots of awesome stuff on its own, it needs these settings dialed in to really make the shot work." Be sure to watch until the end where you'll learn a counterintuitive bonus tip that will "instantly improve the quality of your landscape images."

One you're done watching, pay a visit to the popular Photography Explained YouTube channel where you'll find much more great shooting and post-processing advice.

We also recommend watching the earlier tutorial we featured with another accomplished camera expert who demonstrates a quick-and-easy test to determine the ISO limit of the sensor in every camera you own.