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Top 10 PhotoNaturalist Posts of 2010

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With 2010 coming to a close in a few days, I thought it’d be good to check out the top posts of the year. So, here they are:

  1. How to Photograph Dragonflies (free ebook)
  2. 5 Reasons to Minimize Your Gear
  3. 5 Great Resources for Nature Photographers
  4. Why You Should Memorize the F-Number Series
  5. Quick Tip For Getting Sharper Wildlife Photos
  6. 9 Tips For Photographing Wildflowers With a Point and Shoot Camera
  7. How to Photograph Wildflowers With Flash
  8. The OTHER Reason to Use a Tripod
  9. How Do You Know When to Upgrade Your Equipment?
  10. What Went Wrong With This Sand Dune Photo?

I hope you had a great holiday season and a great year! And, cheers to a whole new year of capturing natural light 🙂 [Read more…] about Top 10 PhotoNaturalist Posts of 2010

7 Tips For Photographing Landscapes In Extreme Wind

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Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi
I recently found myself on an extremely windy mountaintop trying to photograph a distant rock spire. The wind was blowing at 45 mph, with gusts over 60 mph!

I’m used to dealing with some light 15 mph winds when photographing wildflowers, but this 60 mph stuff was strong enough to start shaking my tripod. So, I had to think quickly about how to keep my camera still and come away with a sharp photo of the beautiful sunset that was approaching.

Here are a few things I came up with to ensure I got an acceptably sharp photo: [Read more…] about 7 Tips For Photographing Landscapes In Extreme Wind

What to do when you get sensor dust

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In a previous post, I talked about the importance of keeping your camera’s sensor clean. The best way to do that is to be extremely careful when you switch out lenses on your camera.

But, what if you still get a little dust on your sensor despite being super careful? [Read more…] about What to do when you get sensor dust

Quick Tip for Getting a Faster Autofocus

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Sometimes autofocus can be really annoying: it’ll search and search for an object to focus on, and either never find it, or go through multiple cycles until it finally finds the right object to focus on. And by that time, you may have already missed the shot–especially if you’re photographing a quick moving subject like birds.

In previous posts, I’ve talked about a few ways you can get better control of your autofocus. But, there’s also a little switch on your lens that can help it focus faster. [Read more…] about Quick Tip for Getting a Faster Autofocus

What a TV Show Can Teach You About Photography

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TV
Photo by Michael Pereckas / Used under the CC-Attr license
A few months ago, I was lucky enough to have one of my favorite TV shows (Dexter) filmed right outside my apartment building. They filmed a scene in the alley of my building, and I was able to watch the whole thing from my porch! If you’re a fan of the show, pay close attention to that scene in the alley of Episode 4 in Season 5–that’s my alley!

Anyway, I watched them film the scene for a few hours and actually learned a couple of things about photography: [Read more…] about What a TV Show Can Teach You About Photography

Quick Tip for Getting Sharper Closeup Photos

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Variegated Meadowhawk (female) / Photo by Steve Berardi
Variegated Meadowhawk (female) / Photo by Steve Berardi
In a previous post, I explained a quick way you can get sharper photos by adjusting the “picture style” on your DSLR (if you’re shooting in JPEG). Well, another small way you can make your closeup photos appear sharper is by photographing your subject in front of a contrasting background.

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