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Landscapes

A Simple Trick To Eliminate Lens Flare

September 6, 2017 by Vic Berardi 12 Comments

Lens Flare

I recently acquired a Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 Lens to use with my Canon 80D body for tree photography. The lens is considered a wide zoom, but it doesn’t go so far as to give a fish-eye effect. It does capture a very wide angle of view, however— with its widest angle at 107°. As wonderful as this is for capturing the full width of a large area, it can also come with some tricky conditions to deal with. One of those is glare. Since I’m somewhat new to using this lens, I ran into this issue recently while photographing the crowns of large trees and pointing the camera directly upwards.

Here I am pointing my camera directly up towards the crown of the tree you see directly behind me. I wanted to capture as much of the trunk and crown as I could: [Read more…] about A Simple Trick To Eliminate Lens Flare

Filed Under: Landscapes, Tips Tagged With: glare, Landscapes, lens flare, light, sky, sunlight, trees

How To Show Depth In Landscapes

July 24, 2017 by Steve Berardi 23 Comments

Mojave DesertOne of the common goals of a landscape photograph is to show depth—either to show the viewer how vast a landscape is or to help lead the viewer’s eye from the foreground into the background.

You might think that adding depth is as simple as using a wide angle lens, but it’s a little more subtle than that.

Here are a few ways to show depth in a landscape photo:

1. Focus on elements that lead the viewer’s eye

The general thing to remember with capturing depth in a landscape is to focus on elements that naturally lead the viewer’s eyes through all dimensions of the landscape. This could be things like a fallen tree that points towards the back of the frame and leads the eye to the base of a mountain, or a stream that serves a similar purpose. [Read more…] about How To Show Depth In Landscapes

Filed Under: Landscapes, Tips Tagged With: composition, depth, Landscapes, nature photography, Tips

Three elements of a great landscape

April 23, 2013 by Steve Berardi 20 Comments

Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi

Landscapes are one of the most difficult subjects in nature photography. It’s always hard deciding what to include and what to leave out. And, it’s not easy translating a vast three dimensional space into a two dimensional photo.

Well, the next time you’re having trouble composing a landscape photograph, consider these three elements: [Read more…] about Three elements of a great landscape

Filed Under: Landscapes, Tips Tagged With: alabama hills, background, eastern sierra, foreground, golden hours, landscape photograph, Landscapes, nature photography, perfect light, sunrise, sunset, Tips

What To Photograph On An Overcast Day

June 12, 2012 by Steve Berardi 24 Comments

Photo by Steven Burke (used under the CC-Attr-NC-ND license)
Photo by Steven Burke (used under the CC-Attr-NC-ND license)
In Southern California, we have this thing called “June Gloom” where pretty much every day in the month of June is overcast or cloudy. Some people call it our punishment for having bright sunny days for the rest of the year.

But, I look forward to the overcast skies because although they produce some gloomy feelings, they also create some very unique lighting conditions that bring out some of the best colors found in nature. [Read more…] about What To Photograph On An Overcast Day

Filed Under: Landscapes, Tips, Wildflowers Tagged With: balanced light, clouds, cloudy days, diffused light, green, Landscapes, natural light, natural light diffuser, overcast, overcast day, rainy days, streams, Tips, waterfalls, weather, wildflowers

How To Get Better Control of Autofocus

October 27, 2009 by Steve Berardi 9 Comments

IMG_0482cSometimes autofocus can be really annoying. For some shots it’ll focus on the right part of your subject, but then the very next shot it may choose to focus on something far and away into the background.

In a previous post, I shared a few ways to avoid problems like this, but I just found a new solution that I like a lot better: back-button autofocusing.

Here’s how it works:

Normally, your camera will auto focus when you press the shutter button halfway, but with back-button autofocusing, you have to press a button on the back of the camera instead, giving you complete control of when autofocus is initiated. [Read more…] about How To Get Better Control of Autofocus

Filed Under: Landscapes, Tips, Wildflowers, Wildlife Tagged With: a i servo mode, ai servo, auto, autofocus, back button, birds, control, focus, focusing, Landscapes, manual focus, nature photography, plane of focus, problems, Tips, wildflowers, Wildlife

What mode should you shoot in?

July 27, 2009 by Steve Berardi 33 Comments

banner2modeHave you ever been confused by all the different modes on your camera? Maybe you understand what each one does, but you’re not sure which mode is best for what. Well, here’s a summary of the most commonly used modes for nature photography: [Read more…] about What mode should you shoot in?

Filed Under: Landscapes, Tips, Wildflowers, Wildlife Tagged With: aperture, aperture priority, av, camera, camera modes, exposure, exposure compensation, exposure mode, Landscapes, m, manual, mode, p, program, shutter priority, shutter speed, streams, tv, waterfalls, what mode, Wildlife

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