Your Talent or Your Camera: Which Makes a Landscape Photo Outstanding?

  When it comes to choosing your photography gear for landscapes, many photographers are presented with a huge question: does it really matter what kind of equipment I use, or can a true photographer create beautiful landscapes without much of an investment?     The answer is simple. But first, I’d like to talk about a few well-known facts and why...

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GND Filters vs. Exposure Blending : Which is Better?

  Hi Christopher - I’ve heard a lot of debate going on about whether or not it’s better to use graduated ND filters or to blend exposures in Photoshop. Which do you think is better? I’m most concerned about image quality…is exposure blending worse than using an GND filter? Will I lose any detail or sacrifice image quality if I use...

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Capturing Detail in the Sky

  My skies always turn out looking less interesting than the real thing How do you capture more detail in the sky?   This is such a common issue, especially with those who vacation and come home thoroughly disappointed with their sunset photos. You’re visiting a tropical destination, beautiful coastal community, or any other scenic location. You see a...

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Preventing Camera Condensation

  Hi Christopher. I live in NC and the humidity here is unbelievable all summer. When I take my camera outside, there’s immediately condensation on the view finder and lens. Just wonder — do you know of a way to prevent this or do I just have to leave it outside long enough to resolve itself. Guess I’m wondering if it’s damaging to the...

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Part One: Why Autobracket Your Images?

This is going to be a three part series on the somewhat complicated, but incredibly beautiful art of exposure blending your images. This article here helps to explain the theory behind it all, and my next two articles will give you step-by-step instructions on how to: 1. capture images for exposure blending properly, and 2. how to go about it in Photoshop. Exposure...

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Part Two: How to Autobracket Your Photos

  This is Part 2 of 3 to my exposure blending series. The article here explains how to capture your images for exposure blending, and my next article will give you step-by-step instructions on how to blend them in Photoshop. The most important part to digital exposure blending is to autobracket the correct way, giving you a solid base to edit your image in...

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Part Three: Combining Images in Photoshop

  This is the third and final part to my exposure blending series. If you’re not familiar with the technique and want to know how it can benefit you, make sure to read Part 1 and Part 2 here: Exposure Blending Part 1: Why Autobracket Your Images? Exposure Blending Part 2: How to Autobracket Your Photos   Now we’re getting to the fun part:...

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What Makes a Photo?

Before you read about the specific techniques of landscape photography here, I want to make sure that you know exactly how to create a photo. If you just bought an SLR camera but do not see much of a difference between your new photos and the ones taken with your compact camera, then you’ll find great benefit in the following articles as they’ll help you get...

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Knowing Your Shutter Speed

So by now we’ve really established how your camera creates photos – by exposing light onto your sensor – and that your shutter speed controls how long your image is exposed for. However, your shutter can do a lot more than just gauge the right exposure for you – it can drastically change the content of your image. The goal is to know how the shutter speed...

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Using Your Aperture

As I said in my last article, there are a few different settings on your camera that you can adjust manually. When you learn how to master these, you can start taking photos with your DSLR that set your work apart from your compact camera photos. Let’s unlock the full potential of your camera. Understanding How Your Aperture Works The first setting I’m going to...

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Bokeh for Landscapes

You may have heard other photographers speak of “bokeh” when discussing the depth of field in their images. If you haven’t, then this article will be especially beneficial to you. Many photographers use their aperture to isolate their main subject (if you’re not sure what it means to use your aperture, this article here will help explain things). The...

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Capturing Panoramic Images for Post Processing

If you want to make a seamless panoramic image, you have to start with some solid photos to work with. Since you’re combining several images to appear as one, any variation can completely throw off the stitching process and possibly render your pano unusable.   Five Steps to Perfect Panos 1. Use a tripod. This is always advisable, but mandatory if you plan on...

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