Shooting Nature Landscape and Travel Images
The 5D Mark II offers increased creative control for expressing your photographic vision with the assurance that the final image resolution will be excellent. The new CMOS sensor in the camera has a high resolution that's beyond 2,000 lines of strong detail for excellent prints from 24 x 36 and larger. The strong performance of the 5D Mark II with low noise at high ISO settings also adds another dimension of creativity for low-light shooting. And with a useable dynamic range in both JPEG and RAW capture, the camera gives wide latitude for excellent exposure in a broad range of lighting.
Landscape photographers especially will appreciate the new Live View mode, where with a push of the button to the left of the viewfinder, the scene before your lens appears on the 3-inch LCD. For compositional assistance, you can overlay a Rule of Thirds grid with 9 or 24 boxes. I also really like the new auto-adjusting LCD backlight. This auto-adjusting backlight works great in bright sun and lowers the brightness of the LCD at night. You can also manually adjust the brightness level of the LCD if you prefer. Couple the 5D Mark II in Live View mode with one of the TS (tilt/shift) lenses or a Lensbaby, and you're nearing large format view-camera functionality and workability. Ansel Adams would be so proud!
Creative as well as technical control over the final image begins with the Picture Style that you choose or modify. Especially if you shoot RAW capture, the 5D Mark II allows you to control color saturation and the look and feel so you get the image rendition you envisioned. With some RAW-capture shooting and processing experience, you can soon learn to evaluate the differences among the Picture Styles. For example, if you compare RAW images shot with the Standard and Neutral styles in the Edit Image window of DPP, you begin to see how the style affects image quality.
- 10.3 With one Speedlite positioned behind the ice cave formation set to fire once and the shutter open for 60 seconds, I used a second Speedlite to paint the scene with four pops of a flash set to manual/full power. ISO 400, f/16, 60 sec., with an EX 16-35mm f/2.8L USM lens.
Of course, renderings are affected by ambient light, but in general, you can see the differences in how sharpness, contrast, saturation (color saturation), and color tone (negative settings increase the blue/purple hue, and positive settings increase the yellow hue) affect the histogram. With a strong tonal curve such as is used for the Standard, Landscape, and Monochrome Picture Styles, you may experience clipping that blows out highlights. With the color saturation parameter, anything above a +2 setting tends toward color channel clipping and unnatural colors.
Other creative advantages of the 5D Mark II are the C1, C2, and C3 modes, where you can set and save your most-often-used shooting settings and return to them by switching the Mode dial to those icons. The range of light and shooting situations that landscape, nature, and travel photographers encounter run the gamut from exceptionally stunning to stormy and dull. Regardless of the variety, the challenge common to outdoor shooting is always getting the best exposure and satisfying your mind's eye.
10.4 Beautiful morning side light brings out the texture of these islands off the coast of Makapuu Point, Oahu. A polarizing filter adds contrast and saturation to make the colors pop. ISO 200, f/16, 1/500 sec., with an EF 16-35mm f2.8L USM lens.
10.5 Soft morning light graces this hibiscus flower in Hawaii's Kapi'olani Park. ISO 200, f/8, 1/125 sec., with an EF 28-70mm f/2.8L USM lens.
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