PhotoNaturalist - nature photography tips and tutorials
nature photography tips and tutorials
With a larger moon in the sky, it’ll be a great opportunity to get some good photographs. The moon will also be about 16% brighter than normal, so you’ll be able to use faster shutter speeds which will help make the photo sharper.
Here are some great articles from around the web to help prepare you for photographing the “super moon” this weekend: [Read more…] about Biggest Full Moon of the Year Occurs This Saturday
An annular solar eclipse is not a “total” eclipse, so the moon will not completely block the Sun. Instead, the Sun will look like a very bright ring (also known as an “annulus”), like in the photo on the right (which was taken during the annular solar eclipse of October 3rd, 2005). [Read more…] about Get Ready For the Upcoming Annular Eclipse on May 20th
In a total eclipse, the Moon turns bright red (due to the way the light from the Sun is scattered as it passes through our atmosphere), and it’s truly a beautiful site. In fact, it was a lunar eclipse that originally inspired me to get a digital SLR 
If you’re interested in photographing the eclipse, check out this great blog post by Michael Frye. He offers some good tips, especially about exposure. [Read more…] about Total Lunar Eclipse This Saturday
But, photographing a landscape with the moon is a little tricky and requires some patience.
One of the problems is that the moon won’t always be where you want it to be. And, since the moon is so far away, sometimes it’s hard to get both your foreground AND the moon in sharp focus.
So, here are a few tips for dealing with these problems: [Read more…] about How to Photograph Landscapes With the Moon
With mobile phones getting more and more powerful these days, they’re starting to become some pretty useful tools. They’re not just phones anymore. Many of them allow you to install different “apps” that can significantly help you take photos while you’re out on the trail.
For example, here’s a list of some great apps available for the iPhone:
I’ve discussed this app before (it also has a free desktop version): it’s the ultimate iPhone app for landscape photographers. It’ll tell you sunrise and sunset times, moon times, azimuth and elevation of the sun/moon at a specific time (useful for planning landscape shots), and tons more stuff.
The app easily lets you switch between dates, so you can see what time of the year the sun will set where you want it to, and all of this is projected on top of a Google map, making it super easy to visualize where things are going to be. [Read more…] about 5 Great iPhone Apps for Nature Photographers
I’ve written about The Photographer’s Ephemeris before: it’s a free desktop application that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
It’s a tool that helps show you the exact position of the sun and moon on a particular time of day, overlaying their azimuths on top of a Google Map.
It’s hard to explain the entire program in one sentence because it does so much. But, it’s a tremendous tool for landscape photographers, because it can help you scout out areas and determine ahead of time if the sun will shine on a particular mountain peak at sunset.
Well, this great tool is now available for the iPhone too! Here’s a list of the app’s great features: [Read more…] about Photographer’s Ephemeris now available for iPhone!