How A Camera Changed My Approach To Landscape Photography

When I launched the Lightweight Photography Blog many years ago, I did so because I was fascinated with small, lightweight cameras. I noticed that people using camera phones and small cameras often produced more exciting photographs than those with expensive cameras.

My own photography then changed as I began experimenting with the early mirrorless and compact cameras. Often, I would find I could get into positions that weren’t possible when using a tripod. I would also try things that I wouldn’t when using my DSLR. Ultimately, I found these cameras more fun to use.

The ideal situation that I longed to achieve was to use a lightweight handheld camera with a single lens for my landscape photography.

Then, over the years, I’ve drifted back to using my camera mounted on a tripod. That’s probably because I began using cameras and lenses without image stabilisation or using the High-Resolution mode on Micro Four Thirds cameras. I’ve also tended to set my cameras to base ISO to minimise noise, increasing the need to use a tripod in many situations.

I now often find myself shooting with these small cameras as if I were using my full-frame camera 15 years ago.

Recently, as I’ve mentioned here, I bought a Nikon Z7 Mark II camera and a couple of lenses. One of these is the Nikon 24-120, which offers me what I consider the ideal focal range. Ironically, this camera and lens combination has given me what I longed for from the smaller cameras. It’s a single lens and camera that I can shoot landscapes handheld and produce high quality images. I have the camera set to Auto ISO with a max ISO setting of 3200. I also have the shutter speed limited to 1/15 second.

Using these settings I’m finding the new camera a joy to use and quite freeing. On my last few trips out, I haven’t bothered using a tripod at all, despite carrying it around with me. Everything has been shot handheld with my two lenses.

Here’s an example from Tuesday when I was at Padley Gorge in the Peak District.

Here, I used the wide angle lens set to 15mm to get in low and point the camera up at the tree. Trying to do this using my tripod would have been very difficult. The exposure is 1/25 second at f/11.0, and the Auto ISO was ISO 900. If you want to learn about my processing steps, I have included them in a post on my Instagram channel.

I hope you like the image and that it gives some food for thought.