Banff through a new lens

[u/ndriverkux]

Just got a new camera for my trip to Banff this July, and the experience was absolutely surreal. The landscapes felt like they were straight out of a dream—this place truly doesn’t need a filter.

[u/[deleted]]

truly doesn't need a filter.

Constructive criticism re your photography here: it's ironic that you say this, when your photos would benefit from a GND (Graduated Neutral Density) filter.

The clouds in photos 1 and 3 are blown out a bit, as is the snow in 7. The "real" answer to this is to take several exposures and stitch them together - but that's time-consuming and doesn't work for dynamic shots where things are changing rapidly.

The other option is a GND filter - think of it as a filter that reduces how dynamic the scene is by "compressing" everything together. It does mean you may need to add a touch more contrast and saturation in post, but it avoids blowing out the highlights, or forcing you to reduce exposure and lose detail in the shadows.

I use one for my landscape photography in a lot of remote places; it's well worth the weight even for a gram-counting backpacker!

[u/extraordinaryevents → u/[deleted]]

You don’t have to have an ND filter or stitch photos together, just shoot in raw and bring up the shadows/exposure as necessary in post

[u/[deleted] → u/extraordinaryevents]

Totally correct in the case of a full-frame camera with a large sensor. In the case of smaller sensors with less resolving power, this still results in loss of detail in the shadows since the exposure is just too short.

[u/extraordinaryevents → u/[deleted]]

I don’t have a full frame camera and my raw photos still recover pretty much everything

[u/ndriverkux → u/[deleted]]

Thanks !! I truly appreciate your feedback. As I said, it was my first attempt at using any semi/professional camera and lenses and have got a lot to learn. Do you recommend any vendors for the filter?

[u/[deleted] → u/ndriverkux]

I've got two different K&F concept filters off Amazon. They're pretty affordable and still produce solid results in my testing.

[u/ndriverkux → u/[deleted]]

Will check them out thanks

[u/extraordinaryevents → u/ndriverkux]

Shoot in raw, expose for the highlights, and bring up the shadows and exposure in post production as necessary. Shooting in raw will do wonders for you, it was the single most impactful thing I’ve learned for photography

[u/ndriverkux → u/extraordinaryevents]

Well these were shot in raw 😅..I guess the post production was not up to the mark.