In landscape photography its the little things that count. One of the most important aspects of creating a well composed landscape image is knowing where “level” is. This is especially true when your background is hilly or mountainous like the shot below. We use our sense of “level” so much every day that a person will look at an image on the web or in print and instinctively know if it’s not perfectly level.
Quiet Falls – Johnson City, Texas
Copyright © 2010 Jeff Lynch Photography
Shot taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II set on aperture priority (Av) using an EF 24-104mm f/4L IS USM lens tripod-mounted. The exposure was taken at 45mm, f/16 for 3.2 seconds at ISO 100 using a Singh-Ray Vari-ND-Duo neutral density filter. All post capture processing was done in Adobe’s Lightroom 3 Beta 2. Click on the image above for a larger version.
Luckily, the folks at Adorama sell a great little Hot Shoe Bubble Level 337 made by Manfrotto that takes all the guesswork out of finding a perfect “level” in our landscape images for about $33.00 (USD).
Texas Landscape Photography 
There’s a similar one available which also has one more level that reads the front to back (lens to camera back/film plane) level.
It’s only $6.50 and available at this link:
Thanks for the link Michele!
I always like this series of tips for landscapes Jeff, it is a perfect checklist. Of course I always lose the list but at least I made one.
Thanks for the level link I was thinking about one last week. Hope you all have a great time on the Safari wish I could join you.
Though they seem a bit expensive. These little levels have helped me a great deal. Seems my sense of level is a bit tilted to the left. 🙂