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.
Metering Evening Winter Scenes
Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part Two
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).
Metering Wildlife in the Snow, Part One
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.
Metering People in the Snow
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.
Your Camera Loves “Middle Gray”
Sarah, Professional Fitness Trainer
Your camera is in love with middle gray. The quicker you learn how to deal with this infatuation, the better your photos will look, including all of your color photos.
Metering Daytime Winter Scenes
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.
This Made My Day
Kristina, IMDb
One of my portraits headlines Kristina’s bio and resume pages at IMDb and six of my portraits are featured in her IMDb portfolio.
Cold Weather Portraits
Kristin
When it is cold and breezy with the windchill in the 20s, do you stay inside by a warm fire? Of course not, not if you are a photographer. You go outside and do portraits. As long as you dress warmly in layers, you will be just fine.
Photo Data: Canon 5D Mark III. Canon EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens at 35 mm. 1/1000 sec, f/8, ISO 400.
Manheim Steamroller, “Still Still Still”
Thomas Jefferson Memorial: Taking Pictures From A Moving Car
Thomas Jefferson Memorial photographed from a moving car.
I don’t usually recommend taking pictures from a moving car, but we were coming up to the Jefferson Memorial and I liked the light and the rippled reflection in the water. In the busy DC traffic, asking the driver to stop the car in the street was a recipe for disaster (and there was no place to pull over). I had to grab this shot on the fly which, from a fast moving car, is harder than you might think.
Lest We Forget. Two Years Ago.
Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies Receives Apogee Photo Magazine’s Highest Rating
Michael Fulks, the publisher of Apogee Photo Magazine, wrote at an excellent review of Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies and gave the text an A++, the magazine’s highest rating. The review follows.
Getting Started with High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography
Sunrise, Gibraltar Island. HDR Image.
Compared to the human eye, digital cameras have a very limited dynamic range. Your digital camera simply can’t capture the range of tones from light to dark that your eyes can see. That is why HDR photography has become so popular with so many photographers, and absolutely essential for some commercial photographers.
Update, November 19, 2017: A revised version of this article is here.
How Long Will Your Photo Lab Prints Last?
Estimated Print Life from Wilhelm Imaging Research
Would you rather pay $3 – $4 for an above average to poor quality 8×10 inch print that will fade in 18 years, 9 years or less, or would you prefer paying $2.00 for a very high quality 8×10 print that will last 50 years? People pay more money for prints with a short life expectancy all the time. Why? Because they don’t have the right information, and they may have no idea that prints have such widely different life spans.
The Best of the Best Photography Magazines
My Favorite Photography Magazines
There are a ton of photography magazines out there and it seems like there are new ones every time I go to my favorite newsstand. 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.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Painting by Norman Rockwell.
Best Digital Cameras of 2014 (Including 2010 – 2013)
Canon 5DMark III camera. Canon EF 17-40 mm f/4 lens. Really Right Stuiff L-Bracket.
The holiday season is here and I am getting the usual questions about which digital cameras I recommend. The camera lists below will point you to the highest rated models. There is also some information and advice on choosing a camera. The lists will be updated throughout the holiday season as new, highly rated cameras become available.
My Favorite Photography DVDs
Photography DVDs
Photography DVDs can inspire your photography, give you new ideas, and teach you new skills and techniques. These are my favorites.
GoPro Hero4: Amazing, Small, Inexpensive, HD Video Camera
New GoPro Lineup
Looking for a small, mountable, “ideal for sports and action”, inexpensive, high definition video and still camera with a waterproof housing and image quality that Lucasfilm (the Star Wars people) calls “amazing”? This camera will go anywhere and mount just about anywhere. Prices range from $499 to $129, depending on the model (which is a lot less than your typical DSLR with HiDef video).
The Best Digital Photo Storage
Part of my DVD photo storage library.
Don’t lose your digital photos to disc-rot or a hard drive crash. Choose the best archival storage options.
Continue reading
Books and Calendars from the Master: Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams: Half Dome, Merced River, Winter. © Ansel Adams Publishing rights Trust
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.
Beautiful 2015 Calendars
Just a few of the many beautiful calendars in my Amazon.com photography store.
Each year I choose an extensive selection of beautiful landscape, nature, and astronomy calendars from the finest sources for my photography store (which is powered by Amazon.com). Most of them are in the $10-$14 range. I pick several to hang on my own office walls as a great source of inspiration for the whole year.
Tripod Head Recommendations: Some of the Best of the Best
Kirk Enterprises BH-3 Ball Head with Arca-Swiss style quick release
The short list.
3-Way Tripod heads:
Manfrotto 056 3D Junior Head (replaces 3025)
Manfrotto 3025 (older model)
Manfrotto 115 3D Super Junior Head (replaces 3028)
Manfrotto 3028 (older model)
Manfrotto 410 Junior Geared Head
Ball Heads:
Slik Pro Ballhead 800
Kirk Enterprises BH-3
Kirk Enterprises BH-1
Really Right Stuff BH-40
Really Right Stuff BH-55
Tripod Recommendations: The Best of the Best
Looking for a tripod? Choose wisely. Other than a camera and a good lens, nothing can make a bigger difference in your photography than a good tripod. This is the place to find information, recommended models, and links to more information.
Inexpensive ($9 – $117) Gifts for Photographers
Flash adapter and umbrella for an shoe-mount electronic flash.
There are a lot of practical and inexpensive gifts for photographers. Here is a nice list of items from $9 to $117. To make it easy to track them down, most of these items can be found at my photography store (which is powered by Amazon.com with Amazon’s terrific ordering, shipping, guarantee, and service). Most of the items below are in the Photo Goodies section. Prices are current as of this update (Nov. 20, 2014) but prices do fluctuate.
POTD: Margarita
Margarita
It is all about the eyes, the eyelashes, and the shadows from the eyelashes. The studio flash units had to be set up very precisely to create these shadows.
Tim Grey Recommends Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies
Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies
With 12 books, hundreds of magazine articles, over a dozen instructional videos, and numerous workshops to his credit, digital photography expert Tim Grey really knows his stuff. In one of his eNewsletters, Tim gives this excellent recommendation for Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies:
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 has written a masterful book on developing these skills, Photoshop Masking & Compositing.
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.