my landscape photos are awfull. Whats your top tips?

Fundamentally, my advice is to tell you to slow down, look, and think. It's better to take five good shots than 50 bad ones. Additionally, landscapes involve working with the land, a rudimentary understanding of geography and fieldcraft, as well as reasonable stamina is useful.

1) Spotting the scene. Firstly, understand that light is best at dawn and dusk on a clear/clearish day. On a cloudy day, midday gives a little more contrast. Avoid shooting into the sun (even on a cloudy day) as this helps with exposure (more explained later). Look for points of interest, and appealing contrast from the light. This is something that is the hardest to learn and will come more with experience. Software such as The Photographers Ephemeris (free on PC/Mac, paid app on iOS) will help you determine when the sun will set at any given coordinate, and the bearings of the sunset. Useful to have a compass for these calculations.

2) Get off the beaten track. Avoid the most obvious shot, get to a location some time ahead of schedule and scout it out, look for interesting angles, and new places to shoot from. You need to be comfortable with walking some distance, and maybe doing some light scrambling. Landscape photography is not for you if you have bad joints. Always wear suitable clothing and footwear. Layer clothing appropriately and plan for the worst. Food (dextrose tablets, energy bars and chocolates) and water are advisable. Sometimes it helps to scout out locations without being fully kitted out, as helps you to be more mobile.

3) Persistence. Don't be afraid to revist a location if conditions aren't appropriate, and be patient with your shots. You can get unlucky and will take you five or six separate attempts to get that shot you seek, it's normal as you can't moderate god's will on the weather. Also don't put off by adverse conditions, nothing makes me get out more than storms and snow, as it produces a totally different landscape. Does help to have a proper off road vehicle with winch and snorkel, althought this is only for the most hardcore of photographers.

4) Composition. Follow the rule of thirds at first, this will provide more interest. Additionally, lines of reflection should be placed centrally, and you should use lines formed by fences, roads, etc to lead you from foreground to background.

5) Exposure. Use manual mode, and spot metering. Learn Ansel Adams' Zone System. Shoot in RAW for extra exposure latitude. Avoid shooting into the sun (even on a cloudy day). Use a compass to work out the sun's location if you can't see it. Always shoot at the base ISO (100 for Canon, 200 for Nikon).

6) Depth of field vs. diffraction. At f3.5 your depth of field will be somewhat limited, so best to stop down to f/8 or f/11. At f/16 you'll lose sharpness

7) Use a tripod. Landscapes won't run away, and most of the time the conditions will stay consistent over a period of minutes or hours, and a tripod will also give you more stability, meaning you don't need to worry about your shutter speeds falling below 1/focal length.

8) Don't forget you can get some unconventional landscapes if you take a trip to the city. Again same concepts of light/exposure/composition apply.

9) A note on atmospheric conditions. Seasonal weather will produce different effects at different times of day. Rain or humidity on a warm/hot day will produce heat haze this generally makes for a more colourful sunset. Due to higher night time temperatures, summer sunrises are generally clear and serene, whilst during autumn/winter cooler temperature allows mist to form making for more interesting sunrises. Again read up on meteorology.

10) Note on focal length. I notice that many of my colleagues believe (falsely) that landscapes must be photographed with a wide angle lens. Conventionally they are, however there is no rule saying you must. Sometimes you need to open your eyes to the possibility of a telephoto lens. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciao_chao/6073294773/... Shot with a 135mm lens.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciao_chao/ Any more and I'm going to have to write a book.

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Composition - have something of interest in the foreground & something that leads the eye into the middle or distance.

Pick a day when there's something of interest in the sky (sunset/rise; clouds).

Use a wide angle lens - your 18mm, or invest in a 10-20mm lens.

Pick a suitable time when the lighting is warm in tone & at a low angle - this will produce warmer colour tones and will define texture in the landscape better - don't shoot at midday on a bright day, or if it's flat grey light (unless you want to convert to a B&W).

Use a tripod and a remote release. To reduce shake even further, use 'mirror-up' if your camera has it.

Shoot at apertures smaller than f11 (ie larger f number).

Most importantly, the sky & the landscape will have different exposures - if you matrix meter on the whole scene, you'll get a bland average of both. Better to meter on the sky (& maybe drop the exposure a stop) or better still, use a graduated neutral density filter to 'even out' he exposure - this will give you richer sky colours.

An alternative method, if you don't want to buy a grad ND is too take two exposures (or more) & either exposure blend in post, or use HDR techniques.

What aperture are you using? Use a small aperture for a larger depth of field for it to be in focus. If they're not sharply focussed is it camera shake or the camera's selecting the wrong focus point?

Are they spectacular scenes that aren't coming out right or what? What are the landscapes of?

For a photo to be interesting it needs a point of interest. This could be a reflection, kneeling down to get a different perspective, clouds, an object in the foreground, looking along something (road, line of trees, railway), something with a pattern (crops in a field, vineyards, orchards) .

A few of mine attached. No claims for brilliance.

1. Learn about the Rule of Thirds, and composition generally. 2. Learn about exposure. 3. Learn about the relationship between aperture and depth of field. 4. Use a camera/lenses with good weather sealing. (Pentax K5 with Pentax wr lenses is a good combination, but there may be a few higher-end Nikons that match it).

Tripod, setting the camera to vivid and getting a good long look at a book on composition then going out and making images using the new knowledge you get from the book on how to compose your images.

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A good tripod, good lighting and good composition skill. Helps to understand exposure and DoF as well.

A good online resource about grape growing: http://www.goobypls.com/r/rd.asp?gid=419

Bye

use wide angle... 18mm

use a tripod...

use the light (early morning or dusk)...

find something "interesting" in the landscape...

read magazines and books and websites about landscape photography...