PhotoNaturalist - nature photography tips and tutorials
nature photography tips and tutorials
A couple of years ago someone I know, a writer of three published books and numerous articles, came across some of my flower photos. He looked at them intensely and said, “Wow, you must have a really good camera!”
I stared at him looking perplexed then smiled and said that I thought his writing was excellent and that he must have a “really good keyboard and computer!” He understood. [Read more…] about “Wow, you must have a really good camera!”
Every lens has a minimum focusing distance: the closest point where the lens can get a sharp focus. Generally, the longer the focal length of the lens, the greater the minimum focusing distance.
Most of the time, this distance isn’t too important: with longer lenses you’ll generally be photographing a distant subject, because you just can’t get close to it.
But, sometimes you can get close to your subject and you’ll want to use a long lens to get that great bokeh (a result of the narrower angle of view). Good examples of this include wildflowers and butterflies. In these cases, to fill the frame with your subject, you’ll usually need to focus closer than that minimum focusing distance.
So, how do you make your lens focus closer? [Read more…] about How to get a closer focus with your lens
There are times, however, when that perfect exposure doesn’t exist. We’ve already explained how to fix blown-out highlights, but what if your flower photo suffers from shadows or underexposed areas?
You may think of taking two exposures in this case, but flowers bounce so much through the air that aligning these two exposures later will not be fun.
Fortunately, there’s a simple way to fix these underexposed areas of your photos, using Photoshop. Here’s how: [Read more…] about How to fix underexposed areas of your wildflower photos (using Photoshop)
In anticipation of a great spring wildflower season, we decided to put together a FREE 20-page eBook, 13 tips for better wildflower photography. It contains some of our existing articles, but also includes SIX brand new articles!
Here’s what you’ll learn in this free 20-page eBook: [Read more…] about FREE eBook: 13 tips for better wildflower photography
This weekend I read an article by Wendy L. Turner in Nature Photographer Magazine, and learned a new tip on how to get sharper flower photographs: position your camera so the sensor is parallel to the most important plane of the flower.
When photographing flowers, you will most likely use a telephoto or macro lens with a wide aperture (to get that great blurry background), so proper focus is very subtle and extremely difficult to achieve.
Positioning your camera so the sensor is parallel to the most important plane of the flower will help put all important parts of the flower at the same distance from your sensor, so all those parts will be in sharp focus. [Read more…] about How to get sharper flower photographs
Are you tired of having a bunch of nameless wildflower photographs?
Well, below are some tips to help you put some names on those photos! And, don’t worry–you don’t need to become a botanist to identify flowers. [Read more…] about How to identify wildflowers