Sony Landscape Essentials

 

Sony A7riii and Sony 12-24g (click any image for larger)

Essential Gears and Tips for Landscapes with Sony Cameras

I’ve always enjoyed landscape photography.  You can shoot great landscapes with virtually any camera, ranging from a phone to full frame.  You can get some stellar landscapes even using a phone on automatic settings, but the right gear and right settings will take you further.   In my humble opinion, the Sony A7riii is the best camera currently on the market for landscapes, with the Sony A7iii not too far behind.  Let’s explore shooting landscapes with Sony cameras.

This post is not going to be a landscape tutorial in a single post.  Merely addressing the essential gear for shooting landscapes with Sony cameras, along with some settings that are particular to Sony cameras.

Essential Gear for Shooting Landscapes

Nikon D750 and 11mm lens

Best Camera

The above landscape was shot with the Nikon D750.  You can take spectacular landscapes with nearly any camera, certainly any modern APS-C or full frame camera.  That said, some cameras will have slight advantages over others.  Full frame typically allows for wider angles, greater resolution and more dynamic range: all important for great landscapes.   Meanwhile, Nikon and Sony sensors tend to offer a bit more dynamic range and ISO invariance than Canon sensors, giving more leeway in post-processing, greater ability to protect highlights and lift shadows.

The Nikon D850 is a fantastic camera with a couple of critical advantages over Sony options, particularly for landscapes.  It offers greater dynamic range at a base ISO of true 64, and it offers a bit more resolution than the Sony A7riii.

But I believe the Sony A7riii offers several advantages not matched by other brands.  While the D850 may have better base dynamic range, according to testing at DXOMark, the Sony A7riii is very close at base ISO and surpasses the D850 at higher ISO.  More critically, the Sony cameras have IBIS while most wide angle lenses from Canon and Nikon lack any stabilization.   The below image of Yankee Stadium was taken at 1/8th of a second and still required fairly high ISO.  On a Canon or Nikon dSLR, to get the same image handheld, I would have needed faster shutter speed and much higher ISO, reducing the image quality.

Handheld, 1/8th of a second and ISO 1600

Pixel shift is another advantage of the Sony A7riii, combining 4 images taken one pixel apart, to provide more perceived detail, better color, etc.  It’s not perfect for landscapes as even moving water or moving clouds can cause some aberrations, but when properly used on a tripod, it can indeed give you a bit more detail.

Landscape taken with Sony A7riii pixel shift

Finally, size and lenses.   It’s no secret that the Sony A7riii and A7iii are smaller than comparable dSLRs, but it is often correctly pointed out that once you add lenses, most of the size advantage disappears.  But a lot of landscape photography is done with wide angle lenses, and Sony wide angle lenses are much smaller than comparable dSLR lenses.  For example, looking at 2.8 trinity lenses, the Sony 16-35/2.8 is 680 grams while the Canon 16-35/2.8 is 790 grams and the Nikon 14-24/2.8 is 1000 grams!  Additionally, Sony is not lacking for landscape lenses.  Sony may lack some telephoto sports lenses, but a landscape shooter is flush with modern high quality options from Sony.

For these combined reasons, the best modern cameras for landscapes are the Nikon D850, Sony A7riii (buy from Amazon here) and Sony A7iii (Buy from Amazon here).  I would take the Sony A7iii over the Sony A9, due to better dynamic range.

Best Sony Landscape lenses

To be clear, not all landscapes need be shot at wide angle.   This image was taken with a 300mm lens:

Taken with Nikon D750 and Nikon 300mm F/4 PF

But any serious landscape shooter will likely shoot a high proportion of their images at wide angle.  A truly personal question is just how wide.  I’ve shot as wide as 11mm:

NIkon D750 and Irix 11mm f/4

Shoot that wide is challenging as it can result in too much dead space.  As in this shot I took with the Sony 12-24/4 at 12mm, some would say I went too wide:

Sony A7riii and 12-24 at 12mm

While the degree of width is a personal preference, I do think every landscape photographer needs to have at least one high quality lenses that is 24mm or wider.

Sony A7riii and Batis 25mm F/2 at F8

Fortunately, the Sony shooter has a multitude of wide angle options.  While there are others, the top choices:

Most landscape photography is done with wide depth of field, and night photography often on a tripod.   Thus, I don’t find wide aperture to be a priority for every landscape shooter.  If the lens is multi-use including for events, you might want to go with the Sony 16-35 F/2.8, but if the lens will be used exclusively for landscapes, I would save money and go with another choice.  If you plan on doing astrophotography, the fast aperture makes the Sigma 14mm F/1.8 the prime choice, or you should take one of the 2.8 lenses over the F4 zooms.   If your goal is a unique super wide perspective option, then the 12-24 f/4 is your best option.  (My review here).

Other options include the manual focus Zeiss Loxia 21mm , but for $1500, I would prefer wider and autofocus.   The Rokinon 14mm F/2.8 is wide, fast and affordable at just over $600, but it not a particularly well reviewed lens.  There are some other options from less well known brands as well.

My top 3 choices would be the Batis 18mm F/2.8, the Sony 12-24 F/4, or the Sony 16-35 F/4 (Great value, buy used here.)

Other Landscape gear

Unless you are always shooting in bright sun, you must have a good tripod.   (Read my article here on how to use a tripod of night landscapes).   Be wary of very cheap tripods that might use heavy materials, may be less secure, and may be more apt to break.  More expensive tripods are not just sturdier, they also can be made from lighter materials.  Balancing price, portability and quality, my favorite tripods are the Manfrotto BeFree series.  These are truly fantastic tripods for under $200.  (See the Manfrotto BeFree series here).

If you want to shoot waterfalls with the glassy water effect, then a neutral density (ND filter) is critical.  ND filters act as sun glasses for the camera, allowing slow shutter speeds even in day light.  I’d recommend a 6 stop filter, which allows a 6 stop reduction in shutter speed.   (Browse 6 stop filters here, match to the filter thread on your lens).

Great landscape photography rarely comes straight out of the camera.  Post processing is essential.   See my video here on using lightroom to process landscape raw files.

For an extra boost, I really love the Google Nik software, especially Color Efex Pro.  And the best part, download it and use it for free!

Raw processed in lightroom with extra pop from Google Nik Color Efex Pro

Setting your Sony camera

Just like any camera, go ahead and select your focal length, select your aperture in order to manipulate your depth of field.  AF-S tends to be most accurate for landscape photography, and using small flexible spot with the touch screen works very well.   But the Sony A7riii and Sony A7iii have some other settings that require additional for landscape shooting:

In order to keep file size down, I typically shoot in compressed raw which only minimally compromises image quality and only in some extreme situations.  But when I’m shooting landscapes is when I want no compromise to image quality whatsoever.  I want the maximum flexibility in post processing, I want the potential to make massive prints.  Therefore, shoot uncompressed raw:

Since you are shooting raw, you will do your own noise reduction in post-processing.  The camera does have a feature called Long Exposure Noise Reduction.  When taking a long exposure, the camera then takes a second equally long exposure in order to average out the noise.  This will significantly impede your workflow speed and add annoyance.  So make sure it is off:

Turn off Long Exposure Noise Reduction

I love Sony face detection, which overrides chosen focus points when there is a face in the frame.   Wonderful feature when I’m shooting people, really making a faster workflow.  But when I’m shooting landscapes, I wouldn’t want people wandering in the frame to suddenly become the focus point.   So turn OFF face detection:

Further to insure precision of your focus, whether using autofocus or manual focus, take advantage of focus magnification:

Set up focus magnification and assign to a custom button

High Dynamic Range (HDR) is a common technique for shooting landscapes.  Personally, I prefer simply taking advantage of the wide dynamic range offered by a single raw file.  If you set up bracketing for HDR, include a timer with bracket:

Self timer during bracket to prevent camera shake

Once set up, you can use the self-timer to prevent camera shake on a tripod.   Press shutter button, 2 second delay, and then the camera will automatically take all of the bracketed shots.

Of course, any time you are using a tripod, be sure to turn off steadyshot.

Sony A7riii with Sony 12-24 f/4
Spring with the Sony A7riii and 12-24mm

Conclusion

Opportunities for landscape photography are endless.  Shooting landscapes with Sony cameras offers amazing potential when combining the right gear and right settings.

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