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nature photography tips and tutorials

Articles by Steve Berardi

New eBook – Nature Photography: Understanding the Camera

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Nature Photography - Understanding the Camera (eBook)Today, I’m very excited to announce the release of my new eBook, Nature Photography: Understanding the Camera. This eBook will teach you how to use your camera to photograph the wonderful moments you observe in nature. It covers all types of nature photography, including landscapes, wildlife, and close-ups.

I’ve been working on this eBook for years, and the reason it took me so long to write this book is that it was hard deciding what to include, what to leave out, and thinking of the best ways to explain some of the more complex aspects of the camera.

The concepts in this book apply to any kind of manual digital camera (any camera that allows you to change the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO), but many of the concepts apply to all types of cameras. The goal of the book is to give you complete creative control of your camera, without getting too technical. [Read more…] about New eBook – Nature Photography: Understanding the Camera

Questions to Guide Your Composition

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Trona PinnaclesComposition is all about creating pleasing images. It’s a difficult aspect of photography because there aren’t really any set-in-stone rules about it, and many aspects of composition are really about how you see the world uniquely from everyone else.

So although there aren’t any scripts you can follow that will always lead you to a good composition, I think there are some questions you can ask yourself that will help steer you in the right direction: [Read more…] about Questions to Guide Your Composition

The Best Camera Strap For Nature Photographers

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Camera Strap For Nature PhotographersIn photography, all the gear talk usually revolves around cameras and lenses. The lonely camera strap never gets much attention.

But, the camera strap is pretty important in nature photography, because it needs to allow you quick access to your camera and needs to be comfortable (and strong enough) to support larger lenses that are common in nature photography.

I’ve tried all kinds of camera straps in the last ten years, and was never really satisfied with any of them until last year when I finally found the wonderful straps made by Peak Design.

There are a lot of things I love about their camera straps, but the one thing that really stands out to me is how freely they move. They’re made out of that same material as the seatbelts in your car, so the strap slides across your clothes super easily. This is great for nature photographers because we always need quick access to our camera in case we’re walking around and see a butterfly land on a flower (it won’t be there for long!). [Read more…] about The Best Camera Strap For Nature Photographers

How Your Clothes Affect Your Nature Photos

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Western Fence Lizard / Photo by Steve BerardiYou probably already know that you can wear camouflage to help hide yourself from wildlife in order to get closer and photograph them, but there’s also other ways your clothes can affect your photos.

It turns out that something as simple as the color of the t-shirt you’re wearing can drastically affect how close you can get to your subject.

I read an interesting article last week about a scientist, Breanna Putman, who’s studying animal fear responses, and she recently published a paper about how the color of your t-shirt can affect how close you can approach a common lizard in southern California, the Western Fence Lizard (photo above). [Read more…] about How Your Clothes Affect Your Nature Photos

Sharpness – Relative vs Absolute

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ManzanitaThe more I photograph nature, the less I’ve been concerned about sharpness. It’s not out of laziness, but from the realization that relative sharpness is much more important than absolute sharpness.

Absolute sharpness is about making your subject as sharp as possible, within the limits of your camera and lens.

On the other hand, relative sharpness is about making your subject as sharp as possible relative to other elements in that image.

This also applies to depth of field, and in this article when I mention sharpness I also mean depth of field/focus.

For example, here’s a photo with a lot of absolute sharpness: [Read more…] about Sharpness – Relative vs Absolute

How To Make Any Lens a Macro Lens

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Yucca photographed with close-up filterClose-up and macro photography is one of the most popular ways to capture the beauty of nature: whether it’s photographing tiny insects to show their amazing detail or just a simple close-up of a plant (like the Yucca leaves above).

When you think of macro photography, you might think you need a special lens, but there’s actually a few options for turning any lens into a macro lens, saving you money (and space in your backpack!).

First, it’s helpful to understand what makes a macro lens a macro lens. Well, it’s super simple: the macro lens is built to focus extremely close to objects. That’s it. A macro lens is usually at least 50mm too, but the most important part is that it focuses close.

The good news is that there’s two simple ways to make ANY lens focus closer:

  1. Extension tubes
  2. Close-up filters

I’ve already talked about extension tubes a lot here on PhotoNaturalist, and they’re excellent options because they don’t affect image quality at all. [Read more…] about How To Make Any Lens a Macro Lens