Landscape photography is often slower paced than other genres, allowing for a more methodical approach to composition and camera settings. That includes focusing; manual focus is more popular for landscapes than most other genres. Indeed, there's a whole market of third-party manual focus lenses geared almost exclusively to landscape photographers....
What Are Optical and Digital Zoom in Photography?
If you are in the market for a camera, especially a compact or fixed lens point and shoot camera, you've probably come across the terms optical and digital zoom. But what do these phrases mean? Is one type of zoom better than another? Camera manufacturers use all kinds of jargon...
How I Took This Sand Dunes Photo
In this week’s video, I’m going to show the story behind a photo I took a few days ago in Great Sand Dunes National Park. Because it's our first case study video at Photography Life, I wanted to shoot an image that I already had in mind - hopefully lowering...
The Nikon Z Cameras for Landscape Photography
I’ve now been using the Nikon Z7 for more than six months, and I’ve also tested the very similar Z6 extensively for our review at Photography Life. The takeaway in both cases is that, despite a few flaws, Nikon produced an excellent and surprisingly refined first-generation mirrorless camera. But the...
What is Saturation? And How to Get Optimal Saturation
In this article, we will examine the various factors that affect saturation, including different approaches to obtain optimal saturation in post-processing (Photoshop) without making our image look unnatural. Lately, the internet and social media are filled with oversaturated images, thanks largely to heavy-handed filters and presets in post-processing software and...
Our Macro Photography Video on YouTube
Today, I’m excited to publish the first in a series of weekly YouTube videos from Photography Life! This is something Nasim and I have planned for a while, and circumstances finally conspired to make it a reality. We’ll film everything in 4K: tutorials and case studies, with the same high...
What Is Focal Length in Photography? A Beginner’s Guide
Many photographers misunderstand the concept of focal length. Contrary to what some people think, the focal length of a camera lens is not the lens's physical length, and it has little to do with its overall size. So, what is focal length? This article will explain the answer, including how...
9 Macro Photography Tips for Beginners
With spring arriving in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s time again for many of us to go outside in humid, buggy areas in search of creepy-crawlies. Macro photography is... peculiar, I admit that. But anyone who’s tried this genre also knows its allure. Navigate some technical hurdles and heed the mosquitos,...
Printing Photos On-the-Go
I am currently in Uzbekistan, doing some photo work for the ministry of tourism (more on the trip in my upcoming posts) and I wanted to quickly share my experience with a piece of gear that I will now be bringing with me to every trip going forward. When photographing...
Don’t Confuse Effort with Results
It’s one of the most familiar stories that I hear: “You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to take this photo. I captured it on the hardest hike of my life, but it was absolutely worth the effort.” And then the photo - though rarely a complete failure - just...