outdoor photography

Water Lilly with Circular Polarizer A Circular Polarizer (CP) filter is the only filter you absolutely need for outdoor photography.  Sure there are others that can be helpful in certain situations, but a CP filter is essential gear.  They are extremely beneficial for cutting down on reflections on leaves and flowers, water, and anything else that reflects light.  This allows you to take photographs with more saturated colors, and the difference can be rather striking.  CP filters are also used to make the sky a deeper blue, though in my opinion, this effect is often overdone.  There's no way to duplicate the effect of a CP filter in Photoshop, so you have to use it in the field.   Baltimore's Inner Harbor with CP Filter There are a few things you should know to make the most of this filter. Rotating Filter. The filter works by selecting directional of light--this means that the effect of the filter will change as you rotate it on t...

Trees with Circular Polarizer Filter (to remove reflections on leaves) One of the great benefits of digital photography is that you no longer have to carry around a vast array of filters.  Digital cameras have the ability to let you set your white balance for way your scene is lit, and many issues can be solved in Photoshop better than with filters.  Those of you starting out in digital don't know how good  you have it. I should begin by explaining what a filter is.  A filter is a thin piece of glass that is designed to modify the direction, amount or color of light entering the lens.  Usually this piece of glass is circular with threads on the edges so you can screw the filter right on the front of your lens.  This means that one filter will fit only one diameter lens.  Check the front of your lenses to find their sizes so that you can know what size filter to use with each lens you own.  I have a couple bits of advice about filters in g...

Using a tripod is a discipline often shunned even by very experienced photographers.  "It slows me down, I have to lug it with me, and I have an image stabilized lens, so why do I even need it?" Okay, I'm going to admit it.  For some types of photography, I've said the same thing.  My recent passion is bird photography, and I'm hand holding a 400mm lens most of the time, especially after the sun is up.  Using a tripod is a great way to miss photographs of birds.  They just don't stick around long enough for me to get my tripod set. And for birds in flight, a tripod is often useless unless I already have it set when I see the bird flying.  So there are legitimate reasons not to use a tripod.  There, I said it. But for much of outdoor photography, it's better to use a tripod, even if you're using great, image stabilized (IS) lenses.  There are a number of very important advantages: It slows you down.  Yes, that's an advantage.  By s...

We all take pictures, and we can often recognize that some photographs are "better" than others.  But what makes a photograph good?  There's a lot that goes into this question, and certainly to some extent, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  But at the same time, there are many things that distinguish photographs as being "good." There are at least three things that photographers should take into account: Exposure   is the amount of light that is recorded by your camera's sensor.  If too much light comes in, the photo will be too bright, and if not enough comes in, it will be too dark.  Proper exposure is the amount of light that gives you the results you want.  Your exposure is controlled by three factors:  the length of time the shutter is open ( shutter speed ), the size of the opening in your lens ( aperture ), and the speed of your camera sensor ( ISO ).  You can change any of these settings manually and balance that change by a...