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nature photography tips and tutorials

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3 Tools To Help Prepare You For the Annular Eclipse This Weekend

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This Sunday, May 20th, there will be an annular solar eclipse, visible from parts of Asia and the western United States. I wrote a detailed post about the eclipse last month, which includes some great links to maps, but I forgot to list some tools to help you scout out a location to photograph this rare event. So, if you’re a procrastinator like me and still haven’t planned out your shot, here are some helpful tools:

#1 – Photographer’s Ephemeris

Photographer's EphemerisThe Photographer’s Ephemeris is an essential tool for any landscape photographer, because it helps show you where the Sun and moon will rise or set, and overlays that on top of a Google map. If you’d like to try and photograph the eclipse as part of a landscape, then this software can help show you where the Sun and moon will be in relation to a particular landscape feature (such as a mountain or lake). There’s a free desktop version, and an inexpensive iPhone/iPad/Android version as well. [Read more…] about 3 Tools To Help Prepare You For the Annular Eclipse This Weekend

Biggest Full Moon of the Year Occurs This Saturday

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Photo by Gregory H. Revera (used under the CC-Attr-SA license)
Photo by Gregory H. Revera (used under the CC-Attr-SA license)
The biggest full moon of the year will occur this Saturday, May 5th at 11:35 PM EDT. The moon will appear extra large on Saturday, because that’s when it makes its closest approach to Earth (also known as perigee).

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

How to Photograph Landscapes With the Moon

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Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi
Including the moon in a landscape can sometimes add a nice sense of balance or contrast to an image, like in the photo above (taken in the Colorado Desert of California).

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

Photographer’s Ephemeris now available for iPhone!

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The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE)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!

5 great resources for nature photographers

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When I started this website, I listed a few great resources on the right sidebar, but I just realized that I’ve never written about them in a post before. So, I thought I’d take a moment to list them here and explain how each one can be helpful on your journey to photograph the wonderful natural world:

mooncal

#1 – Moon Phase Calendar

This website will show you the moon phases for the current calendar month. It’s helpful when you’re trying to plan a landscape shot and need the moon to be in a specific phase (mostly likely full). I usually just use it as a sort of “quick look” planning tool, and then move on to the next site for more details. [Read more…] about 5 great resources for nature photographers

What went wrong with this sand dune photo?

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Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi
I received a lot of positive feedback the last time I discussed one of my “bad photos,” so it was easy for me to decide to continue these types of posts.

This time I want to talk about a photo I took last weekend while camping in the Mojave Desert. I intentionally picked this weekend because of the full moon–I was hoping to catch a few glorious moonrises and moonsets.

The first night I was there, I shot this photo a few minutes before sunset: [Read more…] about What went wrong with this sand dune photo?