PhotoNaturalist - nature photography tips and tutorials
nature photography tips and tutorials
So, how do you show depth in close-ups? Simple: just photograph your subject from an angle. This happens to be one way to show depth in landscapes too 🙂
For example, compare the photo at the beginning of this post with this one: [Read more…] about How To Show Depth In Close-Ups
When you think about photographing flowers, you probably think about capturing their vibrant colors and how they contrast against the landscape around them. Most things in nature have evolved to blend in with their environment, but flowers have evolved to stand out from the crowd by displaying some of the most wonderful colors found in nature.
So, the thought of creating black and white images of flowers might sound crazy. But, it’s a great way to draw the viewer’s attention to other aspects of the flower. By de-emphasizing color, you move that emphasis to other things.
For example, consider the black and white photo above of a Desert Sunflower and compare it with a few color images of the same type of flower: [Read more…] about Flowers in Black and White
One thing many of us forget to consider is the background in a photo. We focus (literally and figuratively) on the main subject and feel gratified that we can get the whole subject in the frame and it’s sharp and properly exposed. Let me show you an example of how easy it can be to make a significant difference in your photos. In this case, we’ll be talking about an application related to macro work and dragonfly photography.
When shooting macro we generally strive to get the best depth of field (DOF) we can get. The best and perhaps the easiest way to achieve this is by increasing our f-stop. When photographing a subject like a dragonfly, generally f/11 is a good place to start with f/16 being even better . . . sometimes that is. [Read more…] about Simple Adjustments For a Better Background
You 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
The 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
Close-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:
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