Has this ever happened to you? You travel to a beautiful location or once in a lifetime adventure, take thousands of pictures only to find that they may be soft or not sharp. If so you are not alone. I think many photographers can relate. Let me share my experiences on how I learned to help ensure my sharpness is …
Why you should print
In this day and age, I think it is fair to say we consume most of our images online through our computers, mobile phones and tablets. We spend probably more time than we should scrolling through social media, perusing websites and if you are like me at times, rummaging through our digital libraries. I would like to share with you …
Exposure, don’t trust the LCD
We have all heard about the importance of exposure for photographs. If you Google camera exposure you will literally see 1,500,000,000 hits. Suffices to say, there is no way that all of these are specific to your query of exposure, but still, that is an astronomical amount of information on exposure. I would like to offer a more simplified approach …
We are privileged as photographers
Being a photographer, we have the privilege to capture events and moments that may only occur once in a great while. Capturing that moment for a memory is one of the great joys of photography. We also have the honor of actually capturing living history. I am a huge history buff, especially the era of Great War, WWII but really …
What you learn from the masters
Most photographers are familiar with the work of Ansel Adams. He was one of the those iconic landscape photographers that would travel to various places in the US to capture, at the time, were untouched pristine wilderness, capture an image and his techniques, still used to this day, are famous and foundation for many photographers. Ansel Adams was not just …
Nature will reward you
One thing that photographers are often willing to sacrifice is lack of sleep. This holds true for landscape photographers who often want to get the best light in the morning and the beautiful light in the evening. This definitely goes for wildlife photographers that often get up early or stay up late to catch specific behaviors. When traveling somewhere beautiful, …
What wildlife photography taught me
Photographing wildlife from birds to bears has been a humbling experience. Wildlife photography is one genre where just showing up is only a fraction of a successful photograph. Of course, like other niches, there is planning, but wildlife requires specialized gear (read: expensive) and more than just getting the subject in the frame. I have learned, after many mistakes and …
Change your perspective
One sure fire way to improve your photography is to change your perspective. Not just with your eyes, but with your actual camera. There are many well known photography evangelists that preach this in their seminars and practice what they preach. They often say that if you want shots that look the same as everyone else’s photo, just stand and …
Adjust your diopter
What the heck is the diopter you ask? Great question and it is often overlooked on the camera but it is a valuable tool for helping to see things clearly in the viewfinder. I know many photographers that have never touched or turned this dial. once I bring it to their attention, they are amazed at the difference it makes …
Redundancy is the key
I cannot tell you how many stories I have heard from other photographers that have had bad things happen. A failed hard drive, water damage, fire and all those images, often, a life’s work or a once in a lifetime trip, gone in an instant and totally preventable with a backup strategy. Doing something over and over becomes a habit. …
Custom Shooting Display
This overview is specific to Nikon brand cameras, but I know that other manufacturers like Canon and Sony, have similar functionality as well. By default, the monitor and viewfinder information presented can be overwhelming. The default is not only cluttered but also very distracting to the image. Most importantly, it is highly customizable. Personally, I want the bare minimum that …
Color grading to improve photos
With all the editing tools available to us from software to plug-ins, the one nuance that is often overlooked is how do we target the area where most of our photographs live. If you look at your histogram in your editing software, from left to right you have shadows, midtones and highlights. Hovering over any point on your histogram will …