Outdoor Photography How To

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Ron Leach  |  Jan 20, 2021  | 

Spot Metering is an extremely powerful tool for all types of photography, especially when shooting backlit subjects, scenes with extremely light or dark backgrounds, or under other difficult lighting conditions. When used properly, your camera’s spot-metering mode almost always guarantees a proper exposure.

Ron Leach  |  Jul 21, 2022  | 

Ask any experienced landscape photographer to identify the most important tool in his bag, and the answer is likely to be, “My ND filter.” Or more accurately, “My set of ND filters.”

Ron Leach  |  Feb 24, 2025  | 

The sky is  usually a critical element of nature scenes, landscapes, and many other photos you capture in the field, and here's what post-processing expert Matt Kloskowski says about this matter: "Before we can even work on the sky, we need to understand how to mask it before applying various tools and enhancements."

Ron Leach  |  Oct 02, 2024  | 

Just about all Lightroom users know that the software includes a variety of timesaving presets for creating numerous effects and quickly dupicating specific edits you made in the past. In addition to the built-in presets there are others you can download at nominal cost, and even create some of your own.

Ron Leach  |  Apr 03, 2024  | 

Dealing with image-killing noise is a task commonly faced by landscape photographer who shoot at high ISO settings, either because of low-light conditions or when using slow shutter speeds to capture motion. In either case, there's a simple way to remove these ugly artifacts, and today's tutorial from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel explains how it works.

Ron Leach  |  Sep 30, 2024  | 

There are countess reasons you may want to modify certain colors in a photo whether it was captured indoors or out. Perhaps a landscape image looks really great, except for a dull or lifeless sky. Or maybe you want to change the background used for a macro photo to make it more complementary to the tones in the subject.

Ron Leach  |  Dec 11, 2024  | 

If you're struggling with the autofocus of your camera and not achieving razor-sharp images on a consistent basis you've come to the right place. The following tutorial from an experienced pro demonstrates a variety of common mistakes and foolproof solutions for perfect results.

Ron Leach  |  Jul 10, 2024  | 

Most experienced photographers rarely shoot without a lens hood for several important reasons, whether they're photographing indoors or out. These affordable accessories not only protect the front element of a lens from damage, but they also improve image quality in a number of ways.

Deborah Sandidge  |  Jan 16, 2023  | 

When I started in photography my pictures were factual; they fulfilled the “here’s what it looked like” requirement and checked off all the familiar guides: a clearly-defined subject; properly placed leading lines; the rule of thirds obeyed; backgrounds taken into careful consideration. But they were static images, and there was no real communication of what the images were about.

Shutterbug Staff  |  Nov 13, 2019  | 

It took landscape photographer Mark Denney a while to get comfortable editing his photos using dodging and burning techniques. He admits that when he was a beginner, dodging and burning was something he often heard about, but always assumed was too complicated for him to try.

Dan Havlik  |  Jul 01, 2020  | 

We've all felt this way as photographers. You start off knowing very little about photography but then with some instruction, some practice, and some simple trial and error, you start to see improvement. You may even see dramatic improvement with your photos. 

Ron Leach  |  Feb 18, 2025  | 

The first thing most landscape photographers do upon arriving on location is set down their bag and pull out a trusty wide-angle lens. After all, what better way to capture an expansive vista? The problem with always following this routine is that your images will fail to stand out from the crowd because just about everyone else does the same thing.

Shutterbug Staff  |  Sep 13, 2018  | 

Yesterday, we posted our new video featuring Shutterbug photographer Jordan Matter who explained three reasons why he thinks you need to get a telephoto zoom lens now. And then, lo and behold, popular photography vlogger Peter McKinnon just posted his own video on why he thinks every photographer needs a telephoto lens.

Ron Leach  |  Feb 01, 2023  | 

This video may be controversial because lenses with maximum apertures of f/2.8 or faster tend to get all the love. That’s because they typically fall into the “premium” or pro category and are so useful for shooting in low light. But slower lenses with f/4 maximum apertures have a few significant benefits too.

Deborah Sandidge  |  Mar 04, 2020  | 

On a clear, blue-sky day in Florida not long ago I was out testing neutral density (ND) filters when it occurred to me that the fact that I do that routinely was an indication of how important filters are to the kind of pictures I like to take.

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