I’ve been doing some experimentation the last little while photographing birds in motion at 60fps with my Nikon 1 V2. I thought Photography Life readers may enjoy seeing a few sample images captured at this fast frame rate. All images in this article are consecutive hand-held captures of individual birds.
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What is Lens Compression and How to Use It In Your Photos
Have you ever heard someone say that a telephoto lens “compresses” the background or “flattens” an image? What exactly does this mean? The perceived distance between your subject and the rest of the scene is dependent on two things: where you stand relative to your subject to take the photo and the focal length of the lens you choose. In this short article, I want to discuss this type of perspective distortion, and how to use it to compose exciting…
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How to Photograph Engagement Sessions – Planning II
This is a second installment of how you can plan out an engagement session with your wedding clients. The first part of this article How to Photograph Engagement Sessions – Planning was posted a while ago and I thought it would be good to continue where we left off, so that I could jump into the process of photographing the session after that. Please give the above-mentioned article a quick read before reading the second installment below.
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Four Simple Tips for Better Composition
Have you ever wondered why you are instantly drawn to some photographs, but not to others? Or why some of your images lack that wow factor that you see in other’s. It may be related to how you compose your pictures. How a photograph is composed has a huge impact on how long we look at it. The longer our brain is allowed to wander through an image, the more likely we are to like it. Photographs that are not…
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Creating Tabletop Landscapes Using Flour and Light
Recently, as part of a photography class at my university, I had an assignment to shoot two rolls of film with the theme “Point of View.” This topic was open to interpretation, but I was encouraged to try something out of my comfort zone. I puzzled over the assignment for a few days – and I almost decided to shoot a roll of typical abstract photographs – but one other possibility began to interest me: With enough effort, could I…
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Panorama Photography Tips
When photographic architecture, landscapes and even people, photographers often desire to increase detail and resolution, capture a wider angle or create a unique look that is impossible to achieve with standard camera gear. That’s where panorama photography comes in – it can be a great technique to utilize in order to accomplish such goals. Although the concept and the technique itself are fairly straightforward, panoramic photography often confuses many photographers. We often get many inquiries about this topic from our…
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How to Eliminate Ghosting and Flare in Landscape Photography
When photographing landscapes and including a bright source of light like the Sun, we often end up getting quite a bit of ghosting and flare in images. Although seeing lens flare is quite normal in both images and video (in fact, videographers and movie makers often purposefully add ghosting and flare to their footage to make the scene look more natural), sometimes the effect can heavily harm images. Since every lens reacts differently to bright sources of light, with some…
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How to Take Really Long Exposures with a DSLR
In my photography classes I often get asked, “What is a long exposure?” Many beginning photographers want me to give them a definitive shutter speed with my explanation. However, long exposures are not only subject driven, they are largely based on the artistic vision you have for your photograph. Panning, light painting and night photography all make use of long exposures. However, these techniques are subjects of a future article. Today I would like to discuss “really” long exposures, exposures…
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Street Photography Techniques
Street photography is one of the most feared and uncertain types of photography, in which almost nothing is in your control and almost everything is based on luck, persistence and the ability to see and capture the moment. A lot of new photographers who like street photography for its classy/candid look and feel typically get nervous to actually do it, as it demands a lot of time & devotion, ability to interact with strangers and sometimes even ability to handle…
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In The Company Of Seals
When it comes to photographing wildlife, I’m nowhere near the lofty eminence of John Sherman or Tom Redd (both of whom I had the privilege of meeting in Colorado earlier this month), but I’ll make use of any opportunity I can. Photographing the grey seals on the Norfolk coast was an annual autumnal pilgrimage for me but the last couple of years I was remiss in not making the journey.
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Stick Around After Sunset!
I am currently in the beautiful San Juan Mountains of Colorado, getting ready to conduct my annual Colorado Fall Workshops. Although some of the areas have not turned in their full fall color glory yet, it is just a matter of days at this point to witness the stunning transformation of the scenery before winter rolls its cold in. A breathtaking visual spectacle; something I love indulging myself in, together with some of the most amazing people from all over…
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Shooting In The Rain
We don’t really get much choice here in the rain capital of the Universe (well, ok, it’s not quite Cherrapunji but it feels like it sometimes). But rather than avoiding the wet and water one can see it as … wait for it … yep, an opportunity to do some shooting.
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Using Scale in Landscape Photography
A landscape photographer’s goal, especially in the most dramatic and massive locations, is to demonstrate the size and scope of the landscape in a photo. However, it is quite difficult to translate the three-dimensional world into a flat rectangle — certain aspects of a scene, including the scale of the landscape, can get lost along the way. In this article, I’ll go over some common ways to put the size of a scene into perspective.
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Super Telephoto Wildlife Photography – The Good and the Bad
If you have read any of my previous articles, then you would know I have two Nikkor super telephoto lenses and I often use them in wildlife photography. I also often mention that reach is important in wildlife photography and getting highly detailed and crisp images. Two of the super telephoto lenses I have are the 600mm f/4 prime and the 800mm f/5.6 prime and they are amazing lenses that give me amazing reach for wildlife, but this reach can also be…
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Smartphone Photography Tips
The 21st century is also known as “the era of smartphones”. Smartphones evolved rapidly in this decade and became a huge success, and so did cell phone photography. Today’s smartphones are well-equipped and loaded with features and specifications, from fast processors to high resolutions displays. And these smartphones are also quite powerful when it comes to photography, featuring wonderful built-in cameras. Despite having tiny sensors, most smartphones are integrated with small and compact lenses capable of delivering crisp images that…
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Focal Length in Reverse Lens Macro Technique
Macro, Landscapes and Seascapes are my favorite genres in photography, but as I don’t travel much, I tend to shoot more macro in my backyard. Last time, I wrote an article on high magnification macro photography on a budget, where I pointed out the fact that I use the reverse lens technique in order to achieve high magnification macro shots. The technique really works great if you give it a try and the good news is that you do not…
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How to Incorporate People into Your Photographs
What do you do when people get in the way of your photographs, blocking the view and sometimes ruining your composition with their unwanted presence? Do you wait until they leave and make the area suitably vacant for your photography and ideal composition? Do you ask them to leave? Or do you use various photography techniques with filters and multiple exposures to remove all subjects from the scene? While all these methods can work, sometimes it is actually better to…
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Photographing a Blackbird Chasing a Hawk
If we’re lucky from time to time we get the opportunity to capture an interesting bit of nature playing out before our eyes. I had one such opportunity on Saturday afternoon when I was able to photograph a blackbird chasing a hawk in flight. I was sitting at my kitchen table having just returned from Grimsby harbour after trying to photograph some terns in flight with my Nikon 1 setup. It was a very dull, grey, overcast day so I…
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Photographing Hummingbirds in Flight Without Using Flash
Most people who enjoy taking images of birds will attest to the fact that it can be especially challenging to photograph hummingbirds. These little ‘pocket rockets’ dart around constantly and very seldom stay in one place long enough for us to find them in our viewfinders, let alone actually get an image. If you’re like me even being able to capture a decent image of a hummingbird on a feeder with its wings spread is an uncommon feat.
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Photographing Cormorants in Flight with Nikon 1
As part of the field work for my review of the Nikon 1 V3 I took some images of birds in flight under rather harsh winter conditions earlier this year. While I did have some success with the Nikon 1 CX 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens I wasn’t satisfied that I had given the lens a good test with this subject matter as my goal for the article was more to demonstrate the capability of the V3. I really wanted to…
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