PhotoNaturalist - nature photography tips and tutorials
nature photography tips and tutorials
Starbursts are a nice dramatic effect you can add to your backlit photos. They’re also a nice way to add leading lines to your image, to help direct the viewer’s attention. For example, in the image above I purposely captured the starburst in the center of the frame to help direct the viewer’s eye outwards equally in all directions.
So how do you capture these wonderful things? Well, luckily it’s pretty easy: [Read more…] about How To Capture Starbursts
On Monday, August 21, there will be a Total Solar Eclipse, visible from North America. The next one visible from North America won’t be until 2024.
A solar eclipse is when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth. This upcoming eclipse is special though because it’s a “total” eclipse, meaning the Moon will completely block the bright light of the sun, leaving only the outer edge (the corona) visible. If you’ve never seen one, they’re pretty cool to watch (just make sure you watch them safely!).
I don’t have much experience with photographing solar eclipses, but I did some research on how to photograph them properly, and below are some great resources I found: [Read more…] about Photographing The Solar Eclipse
Photographing the sunset is all about catching rich colors, interesting reflections, dazzling highlights, and dark silhouettes that emerge during this golden hour. As the day wanes, the color and light change minute by minute and elicit an enticing sense of addictive urgency.
The perfect shot is all about timing and the ever-changing combination of weather patterns, available light, and time of year ensure that every sunset is different. Be sure to stick around once the sun has vanished so you don’t miss a hue; but most importantly, take a minute to enjoy the show.
Here’s a short intro to the different types of light you’ll experience, along with a few ideas of what to photograph in each type of light: [Read more…] about Introduction To The Types of Natural Light
One of the great things about being a nature photographer in the digital age is that we have all these wonderful apps to help us plan our shots. And, now with the smartphone we can bring many of these apps along with us in the wilderness.
I’ve already talked about a few of these great apps, such as The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) and Stellarium. But, I just discovered another one that can be extremely useful in planning landscape images: PhotoPills.
PhotoPills actually does a ton of stuff, but there’s one thing it does better than any other app I’ve seen: it can tell you exactly WHEN the sun/moon will rise over a distant mountain (or lake, tree, etc) as viewed from a specific location. [Read more…] about PhotoPills – New App For Planning Landscape Images
Although they’re simple looking images, here are a few tips for photographing them:
With silhouettes, you’ll usually want an out of focus background to help draw attention to your silhouetted subject. A telephoto lens will help you here by reducing depth of field. They’re not always required though (the image above was taken with a 50mm lens). [Read more…] about 8 Tips For Photographing Silhouettes