Nature Photography How To

When heading out for a day of landscape photography, most shooters instinctively reach for a wide-angle lens. That’s because conventional wisdom dictates that capturing expansive vistas is the best way to go. Unfortunately, if you’re afflicted with this common reflex, many great photo opportunities will pass you by.

As you’ll see in the video below, telephoto lenses can be powerful tools for nature and landscape photographers; particularly those interested in capturing images that stand out from the rest. So if you own a 70-200mm, a 100-400mm, or a long telephoto prime, this interesting tutorial is for you. There are also several helpful editing tips in the last portion of the tutorial.

Danish photographer Mads Peter Iversen has almost 100,000 subscribers to his instructional YouTube channel, many of whom appreciate his straightforward, often inspirational approach to nature photography. And his trademark minimalistic style is particularly well-suited to isolating a compelling point of interest within a clean landscape scene through the use of a long lens.

To help guide you along the path toward dramatic telephoto landscape imagery, Iversen offers seven simple tips that will enable you view the great outdoors differently, and then capture what you see. He shares his personal thought process, favorite composition techniques, the camera settings he uses, a few editing tips, and much more.

Iversen often turns to a long lens when striving to simplify a complicated scene, or to “create order out of chaos.” And, as you’ll see, sometimes the decision whether to wide or go long depends upon the weather. Once you take the latter approach, you’ll have to think differently about the subjects you choose, and often modify camera settings accordingly.

While this very helpful tutorial includes plenty of technical information, in a sense it also involves the art of seeing. And that means good things for your landscape images in the future.

There’s plenty more to learn on Iversen’s YouTube channel. And be sure to watch another tutorial we posted recently, explaining how NOT to process landscape images in Lightroom.