Tripods

Ron Niebrugge Equipment, How to 8 Comments

 Tripod

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:Read More

Luminosity Masks – HDR Revisited

Ron Niebrugge How to, Photos, Travel, Utah, Zion National Park 4 Comments

Zion Road

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. 🙂  Read More

Luminosity Masks

Ron Niebrugge Grand Tetons, How to, Photos, Travel, Wyoming 2 Comments

Horseback Riding in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

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.Read More

Saturation Masks

Ron Niebrugge California, How to, Photos, Travel 9 Comments

Beavertail Cactus

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.Read More

Composition and More – The Whole Story Behind a Photo

Ron Niebrugge Grand Tetons, How to, Photos, Travel, Wyoming 5 Comments

Kayaking in the Tetons

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.Read More

HDR Photography

Ron Niebrugge Alaska, Chugach, How to, Photos, Travel 8 Comments

Barber Cabin, Lower Russian Lake

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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