Yellow Pin: GPS coordinates provided by my iPhone. Red X: Actual photo location.
In my last article (on figuring out the name for Antora Peak) I noted the discrepancy between the GPS coordinates provided by my iPhone and the actual location where I took the photo (graphic above). They were off by about 20-30 feet. You can test the accuracy of the GPS information provided by your camera/smartphone. This article will show you how.
Posted Jan. 28, 2016. Updated Jan. 30, 2017.
Dawn at Sprague Lake with GPS metadata. Click to see a larger version.
Should you join the growing number of photographers who “geotag” their photos (add GPS data). How do you do it? Are there times you shouldn’t?
“Mountain in Colorado”
What is the name of this mountain? Photo editors want to know. They like caption information. If you have a distinctive mountain in your photo, “Mountain in Colorado” won’t cut it with your friendly neighborhood photo editor. Here’s how to identify that mountain in Google Earth (and how to get GPS coordinates into Google Earth).
Posted Jan. 26, 2016. Updated Feb. 3, 2017.
Snowy Owl Sightings, January 2016
Winter is your opportunity to photograph Snowy Owls. When it is cold and snowy there are a lot of snowy owl sightings across the northern U.S. Don’t delay. If the winter turns warmer the owls will head farther north. On the other hand, if the winter turns colder they may move even farther south.
This is the first in an ongoing series of articles on Snowy Owl photography. Originally posted January 25, 2016. Revised and updated Dec. 24, 2017.
Photos Open in Adobe Bridge. Click to see a larger version.
Is your photo archive well organized, or do you have a hard time finding a specific photo? Can you quickly an easily find all of your elk photos from Colorado, or your cousin Harry’s birthday photos?
Grand Central Station by Ken Van Sickle
Excellent question. Ken Van Sickle’s answer is in this article and video that are part of the Brief But Spectacular series at PBS.
Jazmine, Photo © Adam Marc Williams
So you are doing a portrait shoot and you want an “edgy” look. How do you get it? Read this article by Adam Marc Williams for a quick introduction (and buy a spray bottle).
Selina, Downtown Columbus Ohio
You would think a windchill of 4° Fahrenheit (-16°C) would be too cold for a photo shoot, but not with some models. We 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. Here’s the story behind this image and how to work with a model when it is so cold.
The full seventeen minute speech is here.
Lori – email
Lori sent me some extended family group photos (I was not the photographer) and asked me to retouch them. I had to add a person to one photo and do some face swapping between some of the photos. The goal was to do it in such a way that you couldn’t tell I added a person and swapped faces.
Chamonix Needles & Lac Blanc, France. Photo © Art Wolfe.
Art Wolfe is a world class photographer. If I could pick only 5 photographers to go out and shoot with, Art would be on that list. His work is stunning. I own several of his books, some for inspiration and some for “how to” information. So I jumped at the chance to get his 30 minute video, “Ten Deadly Sins of Composition”.
Last Light on El Capitan, Yosemite National Park
In addition to all of the usual photographic challenges, winter provides some extra complications, especially in terms of metering. So I began my series of articles on winter photography. I just finished revising and updating the series. I also revised some related articles and added new ones. They are all linked below. They will help you meet the unique challenges of winter photography. So read the articles, get out there, have fun, and create some stunning images!
This series is updated every year in January. The January 2017 update is here.
Denali Sunrise from Reflection Pond
The Sunny f16 rule is really useful on bright sunny days in the spring, summer, and fall, but you can’t rely on it on snowy winter days. It will often lead you astray. There are much more accurate ways to meter in the winter.
Cascade, Barry, and Coxe Glaciers, Prince William Sound, Alaska
Exposure compensation is one of the most important keys to good exposures, great images, and the best colors your digital camera is capable of producing. Knowing your camera’s snow exposure latitude is one of the keys to using exposure compensation in a winter scene. It is different for every camera model. You won’t find it in your camera’s manual but it is easy to determine with a simple test.
Bryce Canyon After An Overnight Snowstorm
Cold and snow can cause a lot of damage to your camera gear. Something as simple as shooting outside and taking your camera inside 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.
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 you get a black, silhouetted skyline. In winter you have the possibility of including the highly reflective snow. For many photographers winter is their favorite time of year to photograph the night sky.
Snow Hummocks, Merced River
Just like metering daytime winter scenes, the key to metering evening winter scenes is knowing what to meter and deciding how much exposure compensation to use.
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 your camera’s auto 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).
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?
Kristina in the Snow
The white snow in a winter scene can and often does fool a camera meter into underexposing a portrait, so here are the steps to take to get the right exposure. I throw in a few portrait suggestions too.
Mount Hunter from a Bush Plane. Denali National Park. Alaska.
Metering for scenes with a lot of snow can be tricky since the bright snow fools the camera meter. I see a lot of winter photos with gray snow, which means the camera meter did exactly what it was designed to do and the camera owner didn’t know how to use exposure compensation. The solution is quite simple provided you know what to do.
Color Exposure Latitude Test for a Canon 7D.
Testing your camera’s color exposure latitude is a key to getting good color in your digital photographs. This is a sequel to The Best Colors Come From the Best Exposures. I would suggest you read that article first.
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.
RGB Histogram (upper right) and Luminance Histogram (lower right).
If your camera offers both RGB and luminance histograms, choose RGB. An RGB histogram is one of your most valuable exposure tools. A luminance histogram can lead to bad exposures and poor colors.
Last August I was in a back alley taking pictures against this brick wall. I liked the location and decided to come back and shoot here again. In August the light was pretty even. This time I needed to make some fill flash decisions.
Lara Fabian “Likes” my post.
If you write on your FB photography page about a famous Belgian singer (32 million records sold world wide and the best-selling Belgian female artist of all time), it is important to think about what you write. You never know when Lara Fabian might show up, read your post, and like it.
CWR Website The Film from Shervin Communications on Vimeo.
Life (and great photography) is about inspiration as much as it is about information. Whatever it is that moves you to do things is just as important as knowing how to do it. If you aren’t inspired, all the information in the world won’t help you very much. But if you are sufficiently inspired, you will move heaven and earth to find the information you need. It is about vision! This 22 minute video is about finding the kind of vision that inspires your life and your photography.
“The House on Pines Street” before and after color grading.
The colors you see in the movie theater are not the original colors that came out of the movie camera. It is rare that we get to see clips from a movie before they have been color graded. This is your chance. The difference is dramatic and impressive, as you will see in the video clips below.
Silent Night, Moraine Park
Snow glistens in the last light of dusk.
Distant clouds glow with the fading light from the sun, long since set.