“ often what you see is different from the photo because the eye has a different sensitivity. I try to put in the picture what I see “
The perfect fusion of art and technology, photography, has particularly made its way into Roberto Stradella's heart. At a standstill about ten years ago, he decided to buy his first camera and start capturing the moment that nature offers us.
In fact, Roberto is passionate about landscape photography, in particular he loves to photograph sunrises, sunsets, and celestial bodies.
Want to see?
To get these results you need the right mix of experience, sacrifice (to get up even at 3 a.m.!), passion, and a pinch of luck, which never hurts.
It's not easy, in fact, to be able to find the perfect conditions for photographing a lake with the water calm enough to see the reflections mirrored on it, a star that comes out sharp enough in the photo, a sunset with the bright colors as you hoped. Sometimes it happens to come home empty-handed or to photograph the unexpected. The important thing, as Roberto tells us, is to become more aware of our size in relation to what surrounds and happens around us, appreciating and respecting it so that we can safeguard it.
Equally fundamental for Roberto is to edit the photos as little as possible, so that they are the most faithful to the original scene, without forgetting, however, that nothing can be reproduced 100 percent, because the eye has a different sensitivity than the camera, and perhaps therein lies the beauty of photography. A challenge won in the beginning by nature, but people can do their best to try to overcome their limitations and get better and better results, with the intention of preserving the beauty of a moment.
Using a few more technicalities, however, photography is also about light, colors, exposure... in short, it all depends on how you adjust your camera. Oh yes, adjustment, because Roberto shoots in manual mode, so the photos become his.
Want to understand a little better what we are talking about? Then word to the expert!
To take good landscape photos in manual mode, you can try these tricks:
brightness, ISO and diaphragm aperture are the most important things, so it is necessary:
-deciding the diaphragm aperture (i.e., what to focus on);
-adjust your lights in relation to the moment (the colors, the light, your position). In particular, the lens should be as bright as possible, so minimum 2.8 brightness (if you are looking for a fairly "universal" one, Roberto recommends the 17-50 2.8);
-ISOs, which are the sensitivity of the photo, should be kept low - depending on the light - so that the photo will look sharper if it is taken during the daytime. For night photography, on the other hand, which needs light, care should be taken not to raise the ISO too high if you have a non-professional camera, because it would also greatly increase photo noise
Depending on the lens you use, you have a certain number of seconds to let the camera record the photo so that the stars are not caught in the wake given by the Earth's rotation. The more time you give the wide-angle lens, the more time you have: the 400 rule explains this, which is that dividing 400 by the focal length of the lens gives you the time you have to take the picture:
ex: if you have a lens with a focal length of 10 mm, you do 400/10 so you have 40 seconds to take the picture
A tripod and remote control are also used for this type of photography, and it is good to be two people so as not to leave the equipment unattended and for the nocturnal animals that might be encountered especially in mountainous areas.
Another important aid is provided by trackers, objects that, by following the movement of the sky, allow you to photograph stars perfectly while keeping ISOs low
After leveling it, you point it at the North Star with a small telescope and position the camera by setting a time of 4-5 minutes per photo and holding it in place for an hour. In this way a substantial number of photos can be obtained that a program can superimpose while minimizing photographic noise and emphasizing all the details of individual photos.
Finally, remember not to shoot artificial elements that might clash in the photo and to edit them as little as possible to best convey the moment offered by nature.
Let us know if you have tried following Roberto's advice and let us see the photos you take!
If you are interested in taking photography courses for beginners, we suggest these two:
To find out more about Roberto and his shots:
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