Recommended Landscape Photography Gear and Accessories

Check out our Landscape Photography course where we teach you how to use the accessories and filters shown below

A polarizing filter helps in cutting down glare and reflections and is especially helpful when you are shooting water bodies like waterfalls, lakes and rivers. Buy the biggest size filter you will need for a lens you intend to buy/rent/possess. The bigger filter can be accommodated on smaller lenses too using step-up rings. Some of best brands include LEE, Cokin, Tiffen, Marumi, Hoya, NiSi.

A Neutral Density (ND) filter helps in cutting down light coming in the camera. This is useful in situations where you want to use a slower shutter speed for long exposure shots; for example, shooting silky looking waterfalls, blurring the movement of ocean waves and clouds, etc. Make sure you buy quality filters since cheap filters can leave bad looking colour casts as shown in the course. Some of the best brands are NiSi, LEE, Cokin, Formatt Hitech, H&Y, Hoya.

If your camera does not have a weather sealed body, even a little amount of water can pose a risk. It's best to use a rain cover in situations where there is a chance that your camera might get wet. Even if you have a weather sealed camera body, it is still necessary to use a cover if you intend to shoot in heavy rainfall.

Best Budget Lens for Landscape Photography

There are a plethora of wide angle lenses out there and it does require a fair amount of research in buying the correct lens. The Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 is a great budget option for beginners because of the following reasons:

First of all, this is probably one of the cheapest wide angle lens out there.
Secondly, it allows you to shoot really wide at 11 mm.
The aperture opens up to f2.8 making this lens great for astro-photography (shooting milky way) and low light situations.
Unlike other expensive f2.8 lenses, this one has an ordinary front element to attach filters thereby enabling the photographer to use cheaper circular ND filters and not having to buy expensive square ND filters and holders.
Even though this is a lens meant for crop sensor cameras, it can be used with full frame cameras without vignetting at 16mm, thereby making it a great wide angle prime lens (16mm f2.8) for full frame cameras.

Initially it’s always better to rent a wide angle lens from a rental company near you than buying it. That’s because these lenses can be very expensive and to find the right fit for your needs and your camera can sometimes involve a bit of trial and error.

Best Budget Tripod for Landscape Photography

**** This exact tripod is only available in India. For international users, we would recommend searching for professional tripods on Amazon. Some popular brands are Vanguard, Manfrotto, Benro, K&F, etc.

Always buy a sturdy and good quality tripod for Landscape Photography. Never go for very cheap tripods which won't be able to hold the weight of the camera and the lens. The above tripod is a good quality budget tripod but to be frank, when it comes to tripods, usually the more expensive it is, the better. Some of the things to keep in mind are the load capacity of the tripod, the material is is made out of, whether the legs open up to allow for low level shooting and what kind of head the tripod has (Ball head or Pan/Tilt head). For Landscape Photography, we recommend a Ball-head tripod. Some the best brands are Manfrotto, Vanguard, Joby, Digitek ,Doilca, Induro, Benro.