Photo blog featuring outdoor, travel and nature photos.
From the category archives:
We have been fortunate enough to stay at some of the fanciest hotels in North America in places like Palm Springs, San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles and Vancouver, and have almost always paid less then $100 per night, sometimes much less. So how do we do it? Easy, by naming our own price on Priceline.com [click to continue…]
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A ferris wheel at night, Long Beach, California.
Well I hate to post the same photo twice, especially in the same week, but in response to my ”ask Ron” request, this was the most asked question. More specifically, Dennis Barton wanted to know how many tries it took to capture this image, while Sheri Lyons wondered how the photo came to look like this. [click to continue…]
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Palm Trees at sunset, Newport Beach, California.
Let me start by saying, you shouldn’t get your legal advice from friends and fellow photographers. Having said that, let me offer some advice. 
The place I turn to when I have questions is the Photographer’s Legal Guide
I have known Carolyn for a number of years now and consider her a friend – she is a wonderful person, and as a fellow photographer, she understands the industry and issues photographers face. We have hired her on occasions when we needed large contracts reviewed, and also successfully used her for a copyright infringement suit – who better to hire then the person who wrote the book! [click to continue…]
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Dry Lake Bed, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.
I have been a long time user of Singh-Ray filters, particularly their graduated neutral density filters. So I must say I was honored when they approached me recently and asked me to contribute to their blog. In fact, I already had the first post written in my head, as it was a tip I thought I would post here. Instead, I shared my discovery of the usefulness of using live-view in the positioning of graduated neutral density filters. Well I don’t want to spoil the whole post, you can check out the whole story at the Singh-Ray blog.
As far as my own blog goes, I still may do some fine tuning of the header, photo size etc., so if things look a bit funky from time to time, you will understand.
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A kayaker on Resurrection Bay enjoying a beautiful afternoon this past Sunday, Seward, Alaska.
A couple of months ago I wrote about a sensor cleaning liquid and wand product made by Dust-Aid. I really like the wands, they made it easy to get the moist swaps into the champer and allowed me to reach the corners of the sensor. But the real benefit to me was the fact this liquid could be shipped via air to places like Alaska.
Well I just tried another product that works even better! In fact, I was able to clean my sensor with just one try in just a matter of minutes! [click to continue…]
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Pictured is a quick release clamp on the top of a BH-55 Ballhead.
Trying to attach your camera onto the threaded post you find on top of many tripods, is a slow, awkward process that will have you leaving your tripod in the car. By using a quick release clamp on your ballhead (pictured above), makes attaching your camera, or lens a quick and easy process. All you need is the corresponding metal camera plate mounted to the bottom of your camera, or any lenses that may have a tripod mount. [click to continue…]
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This was from last Saturday in the Chugach National Forest, about 12 miles from Seward, Alaska. I used two graduated neutral density filters – one on the mountain, the other for the reflection.
Sensor dust can really show in images like this where you have a uniform color as you do with the sky, and when you are stopped down, because the increased depth of field helps to show your dust spots. [click to continue…]
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When you are photographing wildlife, or pursuing fleeting light, it often seems that speed and efficiency are paramount. For this reason, I prefer to use a ball head for a tripod head. [click to continue…]
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I figure there is no better place to start my nature photography lessons then with what I believe is the single most important piece of equipment; a tripod. I have written about this before, and at the risk of sounding repetitive and redundant, I would like to repeat the numerous advantages: [click to continue…]
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The road through Zion National Park, Utah.
Our eyes have the amazing ability to see details in the shadows of a scene, and the details in the highlights at the same time. Our cameras can’t begin to capture what our eyes can see. Photographers have been trying to replicate what our eyes can see with a camera for years – these techniques are usually referred as High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. Fancy words for a simple concept – makes us sound smart. [click to continue…]
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Horseback riders this past fall in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.
If you followed the link in yesterday’s post on saturation masks, you will realize Tony also offers actions for something called luminosity masks as well. This is another subtle, but powerful tool that frankly I haven’t mastered and rarely utilize, but I plan to spend more time trying to master them over the next month as we begin to adjust our autumn photos.
So why discuss it if I don’t use them yet? Well, I have recently discovered another use for these masks that make them much more valuable, but I will save that for the next post. Again, this is a relativly advanced topic that won’t interest everyone. [click to continue…]
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I recently discovered a wonderful new Photoshop tool – the use of saturation masks. This is somewhat of an advanced tool – if you don’t use layers and masks in Photoshop (you should), this won’t make much sense, but I do believe many subscribers here may find it useful. [click to continue…]
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I have received a number of emails lately asking for more of the details behind each photo. It is a good suggestion, and I have promised to do just that on occasion. What I thought might be interesting would be to share my detailed thought process behind a single image. I decided to do that with this photo from our spring trip. I think some people might be surprised all that goes into just one photo. [click to continue…]
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Yesterday I wrote about finding aurora borealis, today how to actually photograph them. [click to continue…]
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I thought I would share some tips for photographing the aurora borealis, also known as northern lights. The hardest part of photographing the auroras is finding them – so today I thought I would write about finding them, tomorrow actually photographing them. [click to continue…]
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In my last post I wrote about using graduated neutral density filters to overcome scenes with extreme dynamic range. If there isn’t a nice straight division, filters aren’t much help. In these situations, I have started using a process referred to as high dynamic range photography, often called HDR photography. This is the process I used to capture this image of the Barber Forest Service Cabin at Lower Russian Lake, Alaska.
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This is how I saw Pedersen Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska. But with out a graduated neutral density filter or a similar tool, my camera would have not been able to capture the photo.
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Winter is a wonderful time for photography. I thought I would provide a few tips to make photography in the cold more successful.
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