PhotoNaturalist - nature photography tips and tutorials
nature photography tips and tutorials
Today, I’m happy to announce that the new edition of my eBook on wildflower photography is now available.
The eBook is a complete guide to photographing wildflowers with a digital SLR. It will teach you how to take stunning photos of wildflowers, and how to post-process them in Adobe Photoshop (CS 4 or later and Elements 8 or later). [Read more…] about New eBook on Wildflower Photography!
The photo above is a good example. The dragonfly is pretty bright, but the background is much darker. This strong contrast of brightness helps emphasize the edges, making the outline of the dragonfly appear much sharper.
This is actually how most sharpening algorithms work in post-processing software: by increasing the contrast of brightness between edges it makes those edges stand out more and appear sharper. That’s why oversharpened images have those ugly halos. [Read more…] about Quick Tip for Getting Sharper Closeup Photos
As always, if youʼre also interested in writing a guest post, please feel free to contact me. Thanks!
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My state of Western Australia is wildflower central for the known universe. For years, I was entranced by their potential as photographic subjects, but could not figure out how to do it. Eventually I bought a book called “Field Photography” by Alfred A Blaker, which showed me how to get decent shots of wildflowers.
Although the techniques presented in Blaker’s book were originally written for film photography, I have been able to also apply them to digital photography and ETTL flash.
The photo above is an example of what you’ll be able to do with these techniques. The flowers in the photo are Blue Lechenaultia. This image shows the detail and depth of field (DOF) we can get with these techniques. It was shot at f/32 and 1/200 with flash. [Read more…] about How to Photograph Wildflowers with Flash
But, sometimes it’s necessary to sacrifice a little sharpness for a better composition.
As an example, consider the photo above of a Desert Sunflower in front of a patch of Desert Sand Verbena (see original size photo too). There are three reasons why the sunflower isn’t as sharp as it could have been:
Of course, the wind was out of my control, so all I could do for that was wait for the calmest moment possible. But, the other two were in my control. Why didn’t I address these problems? [Read more…] about Why the Sharpest Photo Isn’t Always the Best Photo
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
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