You don’t have to get out of the city (Montreal) in order to take beautiful landscape photos. There are plenty of parks and green areas in most cities, where you can capture beautiful landscapes.
I am blessed to live in Montreal, a city with many parks and a mountain right in the middle of the city.
Camera settings for landscape photography
When facing any new environment, we might be at lost and not know where to start.
Don’t be afraid to try automatic
For me, a good starting point is to take one photo in Automatic setting and see what the camera is telling me. If I like what I see, then my job is done, and I just start clicking. But most of the time I see room for improvement, and that’s where a photographer earns his keeps, on knowing how to improve on what everyone else knows how to do already, which is to shoot in automatic.
How wide should your aperture be
Ideally, for landscape photography, you want to have deep depth of field, you have vegetations, or mountains, or lakes at different distances, and you want all of those objects to be in focus. This is done by controlling how wide is the aperture. A wide aperture produces a shallow depth of field, while a narrow aperture produces a deep depth of field. In landscape photography, a good range could be something between f/5 and f/11.
ISO
Then next thing to adjust is the ISO. Generally, most landscape photography is done during the day, so a low ISO is preferable. The lowest most camera have is ISO 100. The ISO controls the light sensitivity of the camera sensor. Since there is plenty of light during the day, you want that sensor to have low sensitivity. At night time, however, you want your sensor to have high sensitivity.
Shutter speed
The final adjustment is the speed of the shutter speed. The shutter speed determines the speed at which the shutter opens and closes. The longest the shutter stays open, the more light enters the lens. For me, the slowest shutter speed, if I am holding the camera with my hand, is 1/60. Slower than that, and the slight movement of my hand could make my image blurry.
It is possible to have a slow shutter speed, but then a tripod will be necessary. If you are photographing early in the morning or late in the evening, then a slow shutter speed might be necessary. If you are photographing in a sunny day, then a fast shutter speed will be the best option.