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Why you should keep your camera’s SENSOR super clean

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Last week, I wrote a post about why it’s important to keep your lenses clean, and included an example photo to help illustrate my point.

Well, it turns out I was wrong about what caused those dust specks in the photo: they were NOT caused by dust on the lens, but instead resulted from dust on the camera’s sensor.

I’d like to thank Eric Pohl and Michael Smith for kindly correcting my error (see their comments on the original post). And, please accept my sincere apology for being wrong about this!

As Eric and Mike pointed out in their comments, dust on your lens will rarely show up in the end photo because you’ll always be focusing much farther than the front element of your lens (which is where the dust is). Ron Brinkmann put together an excellent article with great examples that helps show this.

For dust on your lens to be visible as specks in your photo, you’d have to be focusing your lens to an extremely close distance (even closer than what most macro lenses can do). So, any specks of dust you see in your final image most likely were caused by dust on your camera’s sensor. [Read more…] about Why you should keep your camera’s SENSOR super clean

Photographer’s Ephemeris now available for iPhone!

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The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE)I’ve written about The Photographer’s Ephemeris before: it’s a free desktop application that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

It’s a tool that helps show you the exact position of the sun and moon on a particular time of day, overlaying their azimuths on top of a Google Map.

It’s hard to explain the entire program in one sentence because it does so much. But, it’s a tremendous tool for landscape photographers, because it can help you scout out areas and determine ahead of time if the sun will shine on a particular mountain peak at sunset.

Well, this great tool is now available for the iPhone too! Here’s a list of the app’s great features: [Read more…] about Photographer’s Ephemeris now available for iPhone!

Why you should keep your lenses super clean

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One of the consequences of shooting photos outdoors is that you’ll constantly be getting dust or dirt on your lenses and filters.

It’s easy to forget about this dust and just deal with it by removing any specks in your photos later in Photoshop, but sometimes those specks won’t always appear on a nice blue sky, so it’s important to keep your filters and lenses super clean at all times. [Read more…] about Why you should keep your lenses super clean

9 tips for photographing wildflowers with a point and shoot camera

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Photo by Steve Berardi (shot with a Canon G10 point and shoot camera)
Although wildflowers are best photographed with an SLR camera, it’s still possible to take some pretty good shots with a plain old point and shoot camera. And, sometimes this may be the only camera you have with you at the time, either because you’re backpacking far into the wilderness and want to travel light, or maybe you haven’t made the jump to an SLR just yet.

The biggest problem you’ll run into with the point and shoot camera is the large depth of field you get from the super small sensor. This limits some of your options, but there’s a few ways to get around it, and as always, light also plays a huge role in the success of a photo.

So, here are a few tips for photographing wildflowers when you’re limited to a point and shoot camera: [Read more…] about 9 tips for photographing wildflowers with a point and shoot camera

5 reasons to minimize your camera gear

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Photo by Martin Taylor
Have you ever felt like you were just one camera lens away from completing your ultimate collection of gear? Have you ever said to yourself, “if only I had that 600mm lens, THEN I could take those awesome photos I want.” Or maybe there’s some nifty little accessories that you’re just itching to get.

I think it’s pretty easy to get excited about new camera gear. I’ll admit it: I’d love to get my hands on a 600mm f/4, or that Canon 7D. And, I’m sure you would too 🙂

But, then we get reminded by great photographers like David duChemin that gear isn’t the most important thing. The photographer is what really makes the photo, and one of the best ways to improve your photography is to simply just go out there and take more photos. Experiment. Make mistakes. Learn from them.

I think as nature photographers, it’s especially important to minimize our gear, and here are a few reasons why: [Read more…] about 5 reasons to minimize your camera gear

How to create intimate portraits of nature

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Bigelow's Monkeyflower / Photos by Steve Berardi
Bigelow's Monkeyflower / Photos by Steve Berardi
Which of the two photos above do you like better?

They were both taken of the same flower, with the same camera settings. The only difference between the two shots is the position of the camera.

I’ll take a wild guess that you like the first one more. And, I think this photo is better because it has more of an intimate and friendly feeling to it. [Read more…] about How to create intimate portraits of nature