Landscape Photographers: DON’T Make This Beginner Shutter Speed Mistake (VIDEO)

Danish pro Mads Peter Iversen has spent years polishing his skills and developing a unique style of landscape photography. Like all accomplished photographers he’s made a few mistakes along the way, and in the video below he explains how to correct a common error so you don’t make it yourself.

The topic at hand has to do with selecting the proper shutter speed for optimum results. Iversen explains the mistake he made as a novice landscape photographer, and the approach he now recommends when shooting with long exposures.

As Iversen says, while photographing the largest waterfall in the Faroe Islands from the upper plateau, “You either love long exposures or hate them.” If you fall into the latter category, it may be because you don’t know how to properly use this powerful technique.

After watching this behind-the-scenes episode, you’re likely to change your mind, as Iversen explains when and how to use long exposures to capture attention-grabbing images. And you can see a list of the gear he uses in the description beneath the video.

While explaining his approach to exposure, Iversen also provides several important tips on composition, camera position, and vantage point. One of his goals is to create a specific look by utilizing leading lines, and properly rendering the fast-moving water from the falls and stream below. He explains how to use neutral density (ND) filters to accentuate the effect.

As Iversen says, “When you photograph water you want to play around with shutter speeds, because that’s where you can really perceive the motion.” As you’ll see, he uses one setting to capture the waterfalls, and another for the stream in the foreground. In both instances he employs long exposures, but sometimes it’s “slow,” while other times “slow-slow.”

Iversen’s YouTube channel offers a wealth of information for landscape photographers, so be sure and pay a visit. And check out another of his tutorials we posted not long ago, revealing several more secrets for making epic landscape photographs.

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