I get asked “What landscape photography settings did you use?” often, and I don’t mind letting the cat out of the bag. But without knowing the lighting conditions, telling someone the settings for a particular picture doesn’t do that much good. You need a background in the fundamentals of landscape photography. If you know just a little, you should be able to guess the settings of any photo.

Here are the secrets to guessing what settings I used on a photo:

Setting the Aperture

Note that most of the time, but not always these tips for guessing landscape photography settings work. They also work when you are trying to decided what settings to use in your own photos.

Ask yourself this question: Is everything in focus from the foreground near where the photographer was standing to the background near the horizon?

• If yes, then that photo has a deep depth of field (DOF), which means that it was likely shot with a f/stop of 11 to 22. My sweet spot on my camera is f/11 to f/14.
• If no, then that photo has a shallow DOF, which means that it was shot with a f/stop of 5.6 or below.
• If maybe, then that photo might have been shot with an f/stop of 5.6 to 8 or was focused somewhere that created fuzziness.

Settings for Shutter Speed

Ask yourself this question: Is the action stopped or blurred?

• If stopped, then it was a fast shutter speed probably above 1/250th of a second. Faster action creates the need for a faster shutter speed.
• If blurred, then it was a slow shutter speed probably under 1/15th of a second.
• If it’s really blurred, such as with many of my Lake Superior pictures, then it was a super slow shutter speed probably around  5 and 30 seconds. My personal favorite shutter speeds for blurred water are around 1 to 3 seconds. I often use my Singh-Ray Bryan Hansel Waterfall Polarizer to achieve that on brightly overcast days. Use the code “thathansel” to save 10% on your Singh-Ray order.

Why These Landscape Photography Settings?

Aperture controls DOF, which is how much appears to be in focus in the picture. Apertures of f/11 and above make lots of the frame appear to be in focus. Apertures below f/5.6 often blur the background. For landscapes, you use f/11 to f/16 most of the time, and for portraits you use f/5.6 and below to blur out the background and separate the subject from the background.

Shutter speed controls action. To stop it, you use a shutter speed above 1/250. The faster the motion, the faster the shutter. To blur it, you use something below 1/15. Once you get out into 1.5 seconds or longer is when water starts to get that blurred silky look.