How to make a landscape photo like Stanislav Perov?

Question

I am a beginner in photography. Could some one explain how to make this photo?

There are some things that I would like to know:

• what camera, lens(es) (eg shall I do it on crop camera, wide angle lens)?
• what camera setting shall I set?
• what filter (gradient, NDx, PL) shall I use?
• how to save camera from the sun light (if it might be)
• finally what Photoshop manipulations shall I do
• any other actions, conditions what I forgot and/or don't know.

Asked by garik

Answer

The differences in camera formats won't show up in an image that size on the web. If you want to print large then you need to be careful about lens selection and use the largest format available to you.

That image is almost certainly multiple exposures tonemapped / enfused into a single picture, I.e it is what's called an HDR image. No amount of graduated filters is going to let you expose for some backlit corn and not totally blow out he sun / sky. A polarizer might help but is by no means required.

Aside from the processing there are no magic camera settings for this or any other image, just what's required for the scene. A fairly wide lens was used, with the aperture stopped down to increase depth of field. As the foreground is really close to the camera focusing could be critical, however if I were shooting multiple exposures I would just focus stack at the same time.

Finally shooting into the sun with a wide lens won't damage your camera, just be careful of your eyes!

Answered by Matt Grum

Check more discussion of this question.