Outdoor Tips

You don't need a lot of fancy equipment to get good bird photos. Professional bird photographers do use some serious items (the 600mm f/4 supertelephoto lens favored by many costs more than my whole "bird" outfit, which includes both 35mm and digital AF SLR bodies), and you probably need similar gear and...

You don't have to wait for good weather to photograph an intriguing sky. In its many moods, the sky can be a wonderful, ever-changing photographic subject. You can take pictures of puffy white clouds, dramatically colorful sunrises or sunsets, an ominous storm front moving in, and possibly a rainbow after the storm clears. Shoot...

All Photos by Cappy Jackson

A prize-winning photographer who's best known for her equestrian images, Cappy Jackson got an early start. At age 14 she became an assistant to an established pro, Peter Winants, who was the staff photographer for a magazine called Maryland...

One of the most challenging—and gratifying—subjects to photograph is wildlife. The primary obstacle is getting close enough to wild animals to take dramatic photos of them. Your best bet is a telephoto lens—a few point-and-shoot film cameras offer built-in zooms as long as 200mm at the telephoto end, and...

For over 30 years Petersen's Photographic Magazine has been recognized as the leading instructional magazine for photo enthusiasts. Our goal has been to inspire readers with dramatic imagery, and to offer clear and simple instructional articles to help photographers improve their skills.

To further this mission, we have created the Photographic Faculty; a team of seven...

Ways to be bright when it gets dark.

Low-light photography can yield some amazingly striking and unusual images. But it also presents a problem. You need a fast enough shutter speed to prevent camera-shake-induced image blurring, and sometimes to "freeze" a moving subject. You often need to shoot at a small enough aperture to provide adequate depth of field. You want to use the...