Improve your Landscape Photography by avoiding these simple mitsakes

Want to improve your landscape photography? Simple mitsakes can ruin your photographs yet they are easy to avoid and just take a few moments to identify and therefore simple to prevent.
Come with me out into the English countryside where we discuss some common mistakes all beginner photographers (and many experienced ones too) will often make that can really ruin your images.
All it takes is a little more consideration when setting up your landscape photo composition and a bit of realisation on why some mistakes might happen time and time again.
#landscapephotography #photographymistakes #takebetterphotos
Affiliate links:
Kentfaith - 1st Choice for Photo & Video Products
K&F Concept Transverse Centre Column Camera Tripod: geni.us/KFTripod1
K&F Square filter system with polariser, 10 stop ND and soft grad: geni.us/KFSqua...
** Use coupon code "Andrew10" for 10% off at K&F Concept until 31/12/2023 **
-------------BUY A PRINT-------------
A wide selection of my work can be found at AndyBanner.com.
Find what you like and send me a message.
---- Support Me -------
Buy me a coffee: www.buymeacoff...
Send me a Superthanks - link above
Facebook - / andybannerphotos
Instagram - / andybannerphotography
My Web Site - www.andybanner...

[@laplu1955]

I found that very helpful Andrew thank you really look forward to your videos.

[@AndyBanner]

Thank you.

[@Arripa-777]

Thank you Andrew. Very interesting ! 🙏🏽

[@AndyBanner]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@SteveMorris1964]

Hi Andy, I'm very guilty of discarding something because I don't always spend the time to look, although I have in the past, shot a few gnarly branches against the backdrop of the sky, they can make for some striking B&W images. I always check my composition by removing all the technical data from around the screen, I have, like most people, ruined a good shot because I didn't 'edge sweep'. Another great video Andy and as usual, of great use to the keen amateur photographer 👍

[@AndyBanner]

Thanks, Steve. For many photographers with any experience and learning, most of these tips will be nothing new. The problem with most of us though is that whilst we know these things, we don't always implement them. We need to make these skills habitual.

[@uncle0eric]

It amazes me how many infelicities I miss out in the field but which reveal themselves with glaring clarity the moment I load them up on my computer screen. I can only blame part of this on the difference in screen size. It's mostly just failing to look carefully enough while composing and taking the shot.

[@AndyBanner]

Tell me about it. I think we get a better representation though the viewfinder and, crucially, I think the isolation of the VF plays a big part of that. But, yes, not looking properly is the key problem, that and identifying what in your comp won't work from an early stage.

[@luzr6613]

One of my favorite bits was when you were talking about that blot on your intended image being obscured by f/11, and this bloody great and pointy piece of dead tree kept jabbing you up the left ear-hole. It all seemed so apt - serendipity, or a brilliantly realized illustration of the problem you were riffing on? Have a great week, mon ami - may Autumn come upon you in spades. Cheers.

[@AndyBanner]

haha. Filming on your own with a Osmo Pocket 2 with it's postage stamp-sized screen is challenging. Framing isn't always perfect even when there's nothing on the screen other than what the lens is pointing at but when you have to set it up x feet away, there's a good degree of crossing fingers. I KNOW is screwed up framing from a shot in the next video. Thank you for the coffee also. much appreciated.

[@luzr6613]

@@AndyBanner I like the real world, so i liked the pointy stick. I was also intrigued by the dead tree adventure late on. We know that the whole thing is what draws us in - it's a calamity and chaotic, but our aesthetic sensibility (intrinsic or learned) insists on clarifying the scene... on reducing it for The Image. I struggle with this problem too, because i know that what i'm excluding is actually the essence of what attracts me in the first place. For the record, i had this battle with some new growth on a Mahonia in the garden this morning - spectacular in it's foliage and octopus-like tendrils... i gave up because i couldn't get a balanced composition - yet there it was: actual-factual Real Life! Maybe i'll get the step-ladder out tomorrow and have another go.... Cheers!

[@AndyBanner]

I wonder how you can make sense of a mahonia.... Lovely things but visually chaotic for a still. Don't fall off the ladder, those things are sharp... :-)

[@gemini2261]

There were 5 videos again that YT did not tell me when you published them. I had a binge watch today, all very good. I fancied buying a K&F Variable Grad, entered your code on the Australian site. It would not let me use the code because it kept applying a new customer 5% discount, damn it, tried everything and no good. I will wait a while for a solution.

[@AndyBanner]

I will ask my contact at K&F. Thanks

[@ledesclos5321]

Excellent advice. Thank you. Appreciate your talent.

[@AndyBanner]

My pleasure! Thank you

[@johnchastain4351]

At 19:13 you walked past a cool tree.

[@javaidiqbal3551]

You are a great teacher, and I love your videos!

[@AndyBanner]

That's very kind of you. Thank you.

[@chesslover8829]

My biggest compositional mistake begins when I pull my camera out of its protective case. 🙄

[@AndyBanner]

Haha. Sometimes, it can feel that way, I know. Part of the challenge in improving compositions is being able to identify what's wrong with them and that's not always easy either. I find it so much easier identifying the faults in images that I have no emotional attachment to (ie Other People's work!) :-)

[@chesslover8829]

​@AndyBanner With all kidding aside, your video emphasizes the most common mistakes novice photographers make when trying to compose an image. I've certainly made my share of photo blunders. For me, it's about being acutely aware of what's in the camera frame, and then asking myself the question, is that an image I would be willing to hang on my wall?

[@AndyBanner]

Sadly, I have a bit of a slap-dash approach to photography sometimes. It's most prevalent when my mind is not really on the task in hand and that's often when there's a video to be made as well and I am on some kind of deadline - normally the kind that has the light vanishing in a few minutes when panic sets in and I make mistakes. These errors mentioned in this video, sadly, go well beyond simple beginner mistakes in my experience! :-)

[@toine1915]

Hi, my friend. I hope everything is okay with you there in England. Another smart educational video, buddy. You always present these kinds of things in your own way and I just enjoy watching that. And I also learn from it. I also have this phenomenon when photographing still life work. It's annoying and difficult to fix on such a small scale. I have sometimes spent an hour trying to get it to my liking. Those are very beautiful trees there, what a colossus with their long twisting branches. Really shine. And in the beginning of the video, you complained that the sun had disappeared behind the clouds. But I think the sky you show in the first photo is very beautiful. That dead branch turned out very well with a very beautiful sky behind it. I watched your old video again. The video where you were taking macro photos inside the house with your sieve. I plan to go in that direction someday and appreciate the small learning. Thank you, buddy, for this video. Until the next opportunity. Antoine.

[@AndyBanner]

In still life, where possible, I try to leave the camera in a position as much as possible and rearrange the scene in front of the lens. Obviously, this isn't always possible or easy, but unless you have a geared head or salon stand, minute camera movements are pretty challenging. For the shot of the trees, the sun was beginning to set behind the clouds behind me and that crack of colour just off the horizon was reflected off of something and made a nice band of interest. The osmo Pocket 2 isn't nearly good enough to capture the scene properly in video which is why the sky is bland in the video, but the Olympus has great dynamic range and that data could be pulled back in Lightroom with good effect. Stay well, Antoine and thanks again for your weekly support. Andy

[@ianbrowne9304]

16:46 A photo I would have take , or have taken quite often . Food for though: we often hear that we have to see the photo ; but I feel everyone can see it but they don't 'notice' "the thing" as a subject to make a photograph from.

[@AndyBanner]

Indeed. We would all have seen this if we had walked pasts, but it takes attention and practice to see the potential of subjects and environments.

[@colinfoyle1856]

When you removed the levels from the LCD screen and then said they appear again when you recomposed the image, I don't see that on my OM-1. If I use the INFO button to remove the levels etc from the LCD, they stay gone, even after turning off the camera, and turning on again. They only come back when I press the INFO button again several times to cycle through the different displays. I had the EM1.2 and EM1.3 and I was sure they worked the same way. Anyway, interesting video. Composition is always a tricky one. The number of times I've come home to then crop the image to remove something I hadn't notice, is all too frequent. Perhaps I should just leave the LCD screen simpler as you suggested.

[@AndyBanner]

There are so many options in the menus, maybe I haven't found the one that tells the camera to leave the display blank unless I "info" it back into life. RTFM? It's a real bugbear of mine generally, but as I demonstrated too, I noticed the camera in HDR mode too and saved three shutter actuations in the process.... :-)

[@colinfoyle1856]

@@AndyBannerIt is possible there's a setting in Menu that controls INFO. Yeah. maybe RTFM!! LOL. Trouble is, the FM is so big that no one can be expected to remember it all. Gotta love the OM/Olympus cameras though. They are so advanced... It'll keep me going for many years.

[@laurielphotography1118]

These are things I see once I'm back and put the images on the computer. I always think to myself, "how the hell did I not see that" lol. Thanks for the video, Andy. Maybe I need to make a check list to take with me. Probably would help me to slow down and think things through a little better :) Be well~

[@AndyBanner]

A checklist might be a good idea. Two problems I would have with that: 1) forgetting to look at the check list and 2) forgetting to write a checklist. - not necessarily in that order :-)

[@laurielphotography1118]

😄@@AndyBanner

[@ianbrowne9304]

9:29 Someone may have likely mentioned this already ---- You can turn all that **** off. On my camera ; some as yours , push the INFO button a couple of times

[@AndyBanner]

Only temporarily. Data reappears the moment you refocus and then you have to press Info again.

[@MyRackley]

Avoid simple mitsakes.

[@AndyBanner]

Exactly.

[@MyRackley]

🤣

[@TheChrisdurkin]

Mitsakes? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@AndyBanner]

The last time I did this, deliberately I might add and on a thumbnail no less , I don't think anyone commented. Maybe, back then, nobody knew me .... You're now the second :-)

[@TheChrisdurkin]

@@AndyBanner at least someone is paying attention 😂