Cold and snow can cause a lot of damage to your camera gear. Something as simple as shooting outside and taking your camera inside your house or car can cause hidden damage that won’t show up until days or weeks later. The simple steps in this article could save you hundreds of dollars in repair bills.
Author Archives: Jim
How to See and Photograph the Northern Lights
As we head into fall the Northern Lights activity will pick up. The best time to view Northern Lights is from September to late March (although things may start up in August and extend into April). This article will tell you how to capture the Northern Lights with your camera. The Northern Lights come and go in an erratic fashion so this article will also show you how to know which nights are likely to be the best to go out and look.
My First Post At This Blog
My first post at this photography blog was December 9, 2004, 16 years ago today. The first thing that jumps out at me is the photo could have been edited for a better color balance and exposure. But it was a start.
POTD: Beth, Slip Bluff Lake

Another image from our lake series.
Review and Introduction: the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i

I just purchased the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i. I read several comparison articles before making my choice. I put it through its paces and decided to write a review with a basic introduction as to how to use it. Not only does it work, it works very well. This photo of the Andromeda Galaxy was taken on my first night out with clear skies.
The Best Panorama Gear: Living in Panorama Heaven

Really Right Stuff makes an excellent, simple to use panorama set up that won’t take up a lot of room in your camera bag. After using bigger, more awkward panorama gear, switching to Really Right Stuff’s set up was like being in panorama heaven. It is compatible with the Arca-Swiss-System.
December 21: the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is Coming!

December 21, is the “Great Conjunction” of Jupiter and Saturn. This is the closest they have been in 397 years. Start looking now. Go out and look in the southwest sky at dusk. Jupiter and Saturn will be the brightest objects you will see other than the moon.
The Best Star Trackers

Put a camera on a tripod and take a picture of the night sky. If the shutter speed is too long the stars begin to streak due to the rotation of the earth. A star tracker compensates for that rotation. A quality star tracker will extend your shutter speeds from seconds to several minutes so you can capture more detail in your night sky photos. A star tracker is the best way to do long exposures of the night sky without going to the time, trouble, learning curve, and high dollar expense of doing guided photography with a telescope.
Freedom from Want

Norman Rockwell’s classic painting “Freedom from Want” was created in 1943 and was part of his Four Freedoms series. It was inspired by FDR’s annual address to Congress, January 6, 1941. That address became known as the Four Freedom’s Speech. Contemporary photographers and artists have been inspired to create contemporary versions of the Four Freedoms. This is one of them.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I love Thanksgiving! When I was growing up, we spent many a Thanksgiving and Christmas at Grandpa’s house. Thanksgiving was a much anticipated and happy time. We would often leave home on Wednesday afternoon after dad got home from work. It was a long 7 hour drive to Grandpa’s house in those pre-interstate highway days, so it would be really late by the time we arrived.
Video: Celebrate What’s Right With the World!
“Celebrate What’s Right With the World!” with Dewitt Jones. This video is great!
The Best Photography Seminars, Workshops, and Photo Safaris

Thirty plus years go, when Mike Baroli (my favorite camera store rep) told me I “had to go” to my first photography seminar, I signed up, paid my $25 for the evening seminar and went to see Ernst Wildi. I was blown away.
Great Set of DVDs: Joel Sartore’s Fundamentals of Photography
I finally found an excellent series of photography lessons on video to complement my book, Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies, and it is by Joel Sartore, a world class photographer for National Geographic. He does stunning photography in amazing situations all around the world. You can see some of his work in the galleries at his web site.
My Favorite Photography DVDs
Photography DVDs can inspire your photography, give you new ideas, and teach you new skills and techniques. These are my favorites.
The Best Photography Magazines
There are a lot of photography magazines out there but some are clearly better, more accurate, more useful, and with better images. The magazines that follow are, from my point of view, the best of the best photo magazines.
Mastering Photoshop: Retouching, Part Two
Two essential and challenging Photoshop skills are Masking and Compositing. Fortunately for all of us out in Photoshop land, Katrin Eismann (along with Sean Duggan and James Porto) have written a masterful book on developing these skills, Photoshop Masking & Compositing (2nd edition).
Mastering Photoshop: Retouching, Part One
Katrin Eismann is a world class expert on photo retouching. She is one of the best of the best. In 2005 she was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. Anything she writes should be high on your reading list if you are serious about making the most of your Photoshop skills.
Mastering Photoshop: Advanced Color Correction, Part Two
Everything you need to know about Dan Margulis is in Mastering Photoshop: Advanced Color Correction, Part One. After you have devoured the book I recommend in that article, you will know why you need to get Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace (2nd edition).
Mastering Photoshop: Advanced Color Correction, Part One
If you want to master color in Photoshop, Dan Margulis is the best of the best. He is one of the first three persons to be named as a member of the Photoshop Hall of Fame. And the book to get is Professional Photoshop 6: The Classic Guide to Color Correction. It is well worth finding on the used market (which you can do via my photography store). What Margulis teaches you to do with color is amazing. The before and after images will make your jaw drop.
Mastering Photoshop & Lightroom: Adobe Camera Raw (ACR)
If you shoot RAW camera files (and you should), this essential book should be at the top of your list. It is far and away the best of the best. You will be amazed at what you can get out of your RAW files. Your images will thank you.
A lot of the quality of your final image will be determined by what you do with your RAW files when you open them in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) which comes with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and Adobe Lightroom.
The “Mastering Photoshop” Series
If you want to master Photoshop, a complete course can be found in the books recommended below. Think of this as a multi-book master class.
Lightroom and Photoshop: The Essential Books
If you are serious about digital photography and you use Lightroom and/or Photoshop, these books are “The Essentials”. These are the books you read when you are ready to move beyond the basics.
The Best Basic Introductions to Elements, Photoshop, and Lightroom
A Full Year of Photo Projects, Arranged by Season
Looking for a series of photo projects to inspire you for a full year? Tom Ang wrote a great book with 144 projects arranged by season. He also wrote an excellent companion volume arranged by topics.
The Best Digital Photography Books
Some well chosen books can make a world of difference in your digital photography. Some of the best books are about the camera side of digital photography, some are about the digital darkroom side, and some are about both. Out of hundreds of books in my photo library, I picked out the best.
Ansel Adams: Books by (and About) the Master
I have no idea when I was first entranced by the photos of Ansel Adams. There is a wonderful, luminous quality to his work. Small wonder he is America’s best known landscape photographer. Collections of his work would make a worthy addition to any photographer’s library. This is also the time of year that Ansel Adams calendars pop up like snowstorms.
“How To” Series: Astrophotography with the iOptron SkyTracker
You would love to take beautiful, long exposures of the night sky, but even with a 24mm wide angle lens the stars start to streak with exposures longer than 20 seconds. And with a 300mm lens the stars start to steak after just 2 seconds. Not that long ago it would cost you well over $1,000 to buy the equipment that would follow the stars and allow you to take longer exposures.
The Best Night, Astronomy, and Astrophotography Books
There is a whole world of things to photograph after the sun goes down. Cityscapes at twilight and after dark. Landscapes in the late evening light. Thunderstorms. Fireworks. And then of course, there is astrophotography. The simple stuff is simple to do (once you have learned how to do them) and all you need are a camera, lens, and tripod. For some astrophotography you will need specialized but not very expensive equipment like the $300 sky tracker used for the photo above. The challenging stuff is hard, complicated, and expensive to do if you want the kind of eye popping photos that you see in Astronomy and Sky and Telescope magazines (you should subscribe to one or the other or both if this is your thing). No matter what you want to do, the books below will get you started. And if you just like to look at the night sky, I recommend some books for that too.
How To Photograph Wildlife, The Best Books
If creating stunning wildlife images was easy, everyone would be doing it. Fortunately for all of us, some of the very best wildlife photographers have shared their secrets in some excellent books that will dramatically improve your wildlife photography.
How To Find Wildlife, The Best Books
The first step to photographing wildlife is finding wildlife and one of the best ways to find wildlife is to look at wildlife location books. They will save you hours of frustration by sending you to the best locations to find wildlife.