I took a vacation to Tucson Arizona where I went to shoot landscapes. I’ve been shooting street for the past several months and out of habit I was shooting everything wide. I was shooting on feeling vs. shooting the center of interest and making compelling composition. In street you are so close that you fill the frame and you are right in the middle of the shot. With a sprawling landscape it can be difficult to exclude those things that are uninteresting when shooting wide. Sometime there are physical limitations to getting really close to your primary focus. Just because you are shooting a landscape doesn’t necessarily mean using a wide or ultra wide lens is the way to go.
I was test driving my ultra wide, so I intentionally kept it mounted. This further exacerbated the issue. Things got even smaller and less interesting. It was a good lesson. One of the things we have to remember is that we must always keep learning. A bad shot can present a great lesson. As you keep raising the bar you have to remember to enjoy your experience. Not all images are going to be “perfect”. This is especially true for your vacation photos. I sometimes forget to capture the experience vs. capturing that compelling image.
Back to lens selection. Wide angle lenses accentuate the foreground while diminishing the background. Telephoto lenses pull the background closer in comparison to the subject. So if you want big mountains that are far away in the background you want to use a telephoto. For wide angle shots you need a foreground dominate subject.
If your star is in the background you do not want to use a wide angle lens unless you are doing so for effect. It will get dwarfed in the process.
Going Wide here . . . Mount Lemmon
This a more compelling image
A better use of Ultra Wide with good foreground dominate subject and a huge background. (Saguaro National Park)
An example of using telephoto lens to enhance a the background subject. Great for sunsets!
Summary: Get in the correct mindset, use the correct focal length for the job at hand, always be open to learning and remember to have fun.
One final note: These shots are vacation shots. In the Pro world these shots would due for scouting with the understanding there would probably be a number of visits that would be required to get the right time of day for an image that would be worth the effort of re-visiting. Landscape photographers have the patience of saints and make the necessary sacrifices to be there when Mother Nature chooses to share that magic moment.