Edited 3/3/2013. In the March, ’08 tip I discussed “the only filter”—the polarizer—a filter that hasn’t gone away with digital, and whose hallmark is a deep, blue sky. Of course, if this was the only thing a polarizer was good for, it would go the dustbin route of other filters. But a dramatic blue sky […]
APS-sized sensors for wildlife are touted for their ability to extend the reach of telephoto lenses, making, in the case of APS-C (e.g. 1.6x multiplier for Canon 40D), a 300mm lens into a 480mm equivalent. This is a enormous asset for hard to reach wildlife, or for trailside flower photography when you can’t step off […]
Another once unthinkable shift for outdoor wildlife shooters is handholding the big lens. Tripods have always been the rule for telephoto work, but in good light—even in the film days—handholding a medium-telephoto 300mm f/4 or 400mm f/5.6 for flight shooting was commonplace. Shoulder stocks or other aids helped smooth performance, as did electronic image stabilization. […]
In days of pre-digital yore, outdoor photographers carried a bunch of filters. The essentials were warming, split-neutral density (ND) and polarizing. But with different filter thread sizes for various lenses, additional filters or adaptor rings were often required. Then to top it off, serious shooters carried as many as four split ND filters—or certainly at […]
Photographers carry a lot of photo gear, so a big-volume sea kayak logically meets the need. A long, large kayak can be fast as well, but can also be a heavy lift solo, and a bear wrestle in wind or in surf. Most photographers aren’t burly-burly men. They just want a kayak to get them […]
Edited 03/15/2013. I often carry a Bogen Super Clamp or a tabletop tripod on kayak trips. The Clamp attaches to kayak U-bolts, rudders, or in camp from tree branches; the tabletop tucks under deck bungie for an action shot or gets the low-angle perspective while ashore. The Clamp weighs a full pound, so I never […]
Out on a woods walk one spring, I observed a pair of chickadees holing out a nest in a snag. Significantly, it was five feet off the ground, an eye-level dream that sent my photo-obsessed brain a-buzzing. Would they nest at that elevation in my backyard? What potential! The following spring I tested the idea. […]
A missing element to make many a great scenic saleable can be pretty obvious. It’s an element that’s also ignored, overlooked, forgotten and even belittled by us nature photographers. Yet it’s an element we find endlessly fascinating, an element that grabs the attention in every scene. That element, of course, is people, and there’s no […]
When shooting wildflower or floral portraits — pictures of single flowers or small groups of flowers — it’s often difficult to achieve both sharpness in the flower(s) and pleasing, poster-like, out-of-focus backgrounds. In the past I ususally went for the pleasing background, picking the most important floral part, like the stigma or edge of a […]
The Northwest (US) where I live features some of the planet’s grayest skies, a nightmare of gray on gray for sometimes unending weeks at a time. In summer, on the coast, it mostly ruins photography while kayaking, but those same gray sky conditions present opportunities as well. Just ask Ansel Adams. A gray sky provides […]