Category Archives: Using Equipment

Rating Photos On The Road

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Adobe Bridge, partial screen capture. Click to see a larger version.

For a project I am working on, I opened my “favorite photos” folder with Adobe Bridge to look for my favorite portraits created in Michigan. I did a search for “Michigan” + “portraits” and in less than a second Bridge showed me all of my favorite portraits taken in Michigan. This is a partial screen capture of some the results. (Bridge found a total of 154 favorite portraits taken in Michigan.)  As I looked at the stars under the portraits of Anoush, it gave me an idea that became this article. My camera can rate photos with one to five stars. when I download the photos and open them in Bridge I see those star ratings. Sometimes that can be very important. 

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How to Photograph Christmas Lights with Your DSLR, Mirrorless Camera, or Smartphone

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Christmas Lights, Easton, Columbus, OH

Christmas Lights, Easton Shopping Center, Columbus, OH

‘Tis the season and there are a lot of Christmas lights out there to photograph. It is fun and easy, and with a few tricks up your sleeve there are creative things you can do. Many of these techniques can be used on other lights throughout the year, so this is a good time to practice your skills for photographing lights.

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Dance Recital: Create a Lot of Images and Choose the Very Best

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Screen Capture of Adobe Bridge. Click the image to see a larger version.

As a photo editor said long ago, “Take lots of photos and send me the very best.”

The “Living Art Studios” dance recital was Saturday night. It is one of the biggest events of the year in our little town. Yesterday I sent a small selection of images from the recital to the local newspaper which is published weekly on Thursday. I usually send 6 to 10 images and they usually publish from 3 to 6 and on really slow news week they post even more.  Today I am taking one last look at all the dance images for any additional favorites for this event.  Here in this screen capture from Adobe Bridge are the first 20 shutter clicks (one RAW and one JPEG image for each click) with one of my cameras.

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Review and Introduction: the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i

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Andromeda Galaxy in the Constellation Andromeda, photographed with a DSLR camera and 70-300mm lens mounted on a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer.

I purchased the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i so my camera and lenses can track the motion of the stars across the sky. 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.

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How to Photograph an Event and Choose Your “Selects”

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Graceland University: Ag FFA and Business Simulation

In a prior article I shared 11 photos from a project for Graceland University. I was in the process of choosing selects. Years ago a photo editor said, “Take lots of photos and send me the very best.” Most editors don’t want to go through all of your images. It is the photographers job to go through the photos from an event and choose the best images for the editor. They are called “selects”. The editor goes through the selection and makes the final choices as to which image or images will be published.

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Tutorial: How to Use the “Slow Shutter” iPhone app at Night

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My favorite iPhone photo apps, including the Slow Shutter app.

It started when a friend asked me how to use a long shutter speed on her iPhone. It was at night not long after the recent Northern Lights excitement all across the U.S.  I told her to get the Slow Shutter app.  This article is a brief tutorial to get you started using the app at night.

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Maroon Lake and the Maroon Bells in the Moonlight

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The Maroon Bells and Maroon Lake by Moonlight with the Milky Way. Colorado.

The Maroon Bells and Maroon Lake by moonlight with the Milky Way.

I had never been to Maroon Lake and the Maroon Bells, so I planned a trip. Ten years this evening, Bob (my brother-in-law and long time photo buddy) stood on the lake-shore.  I saw them for the first time. I was entranced. I see why this is considered to be one of the two most popular and spectacular scenic locations in Colorado.

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How to See and Photograph the Perseid Meteor Shower Tonight

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Perseid Meteor photographed from Rose Hill Cemetery west of Lamoni, Iowa. 4:55 am CDT, August 13, 2018. Cropped from the original image.

Tonight, August 11-12, you can still see the Perseid Meteor Shower. But you can also look for the next few nights. This article will tell you what you need to know to see and photograph the most popular meteor shower of the year.

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Photos: 4th of July Parade

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4th of July parade collage in chronological order. Individual photos follow.

Every year I photograph the annual 4th of July parade in Lamoni Iowa. In addition to the 14 “selects” I share below, I discuss the equipment I use, the number of photos, and at the end of this article I describe what I look for when I photograph a parade. “Selects” is a newspaper/magazine word for the best photos (the photos selected) out of all the photos created. An editor working on an event article might say to a photographer, “Send me a dozen of your selects”, so the photographer would send 12 images out of all the photos that were created at the event.

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How To See and Photograph the Blood Moon Eclipse, March 13-14, 2025

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Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse from Lamoni Iowa, May 15, 2022.

Don’t miss it. This total eclipse happens this Thursday-Friday, May 13-14 (depending on your time zone). This article will show you how to photograph it. To see it, just grab a lawn chair, a warm blanket, a cup of hot chocolate, and go outside and enjoy the show. A pair of binoculars adds to the show. Continue reading →

The Best Colors Come From the Best Exposures

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Gretag-Macbeth ColorChecker

Gretag-Macbeth ColorChecker

This has to be one of the best kept photographic secrets: The more accurate your exposures are, the better your colors will be. Why? If your exposures are off, the colors in your photograph will shift in different directions. You can correct the exposure in post processing, but you can’t correct the color shifts. Since the colors shift in different directions, if you try to correct one color (as you will see below), the other colors will get even worse.

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Winter Photography Safety Essentials

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Some of the winter travel items I carry in the trunk of my car.

Some of the winter travel items I carry in the trunk of my car. This is the “kitchen” and “furnace”.

I grew up in Colorado where strange weather can strand you in any month of the year. Even though it is rare, I’ve seen blizzards in the Colorado high country in July. So I learned to carry some safety essentials when doing winter photography in remote locations. You never know when you might be stranded for several hours, a whole day, or longer, until the blizzard abates and someone can come find you. This is what I carry in my car when I hit the road in the winter and pretty much any time I am going to be in the High Rockies. I include a few winter travel tips, too.

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How To Work With A Model (or Anybody Else) When The Windchill is 4°

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Selina

Selina, Downtown Columbus Ohio. Windchill 4°.

You would think a windchill of 4° Fahrenheit (-16°C) would be too cold for a photo shoot, but not with some models. Selina and I booked this January shoot weeks in advance so we knew it would be cold, but we had no idea how cold until the day arrived. Despite the frigid temperatures, Selina did no want to reschedule for later. When we created the image above the windchill was 4°. By the end of the shoot the windchill was 3°.  Incidentally, this image made it into my photography book (page 217). Here’s the story behind this image and how to work with a model (or anybody else) when it is so cold.

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Testing Your Camera’s Snow Exposure Latitude

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Cascade, Barry, and Coxe Glaciers

Cascade, Barry, and Coxe Glaciers, Prince William Sound, Alaska

The “snow exposure latitude” for every camera is different. You won’t find it in your camera’s manual but it is easy to determine with a do-it-yourself test. Why does it matter? If you don’t know the snow exposure latitude for your camera and how to apply it to your images, the color and quality of your winter photos will suffer.

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Metering Nighttime Winter Scenes

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Twilight, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Twilight, Rocky Mountain National Park. Sirius, Canis Major, Orion, Taurus, the Hyades star cluster, and the Pleiades star cluster are all visible in the fading light. Click for a larger version.

You can photograph the night sky year around, but winter brings an added bonus: SNOW! When you don’t have the benefit of moonlight, most of the year land forms a dark to black silhouetted skyline against the night sky. In winter you have the possibility of including the highly reflective snow. You can see both in this photo. Any place not covered with snow is very dark to black. Having reflective snow is why winter is the favorite time of year for a lot of photographers to go out and photograph the night sky.

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Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part Two

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Cougar

Cougar

Most wildlife are medium to dark in tone, making them a challenge to meter properly in the bright, white tones of winter. If you trust one of your camera’s automatic exposure modes, the odds are good you won’t get the best exposure. If you switch over to manual exposure and make the right decisions, you can get great exposures and better quality photos (more about that later).

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Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part One

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Elk in the Snow, Rocky Mountain National Park

Elk in the Snow, Horseshoe Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Metering dark toned wildlife in the snow is a major exposure challenge. It is usually best to avoid large “burned out” areas (washed out, featureless white) in a nature or landscape photograph, but with properly exposed snow, the wildlife can be so dark as to lose all texture. On other hand, metering for the wildlife can burn out the snow. So what do you do? And what about the complications of metering white animals?

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