Nature Photography How To

Researchers at the University of Tokyo used high-speed cameras to study the intricate manner in which ladybugs fold and unfold their wings as you can see in the amazing video below from the National Geographic YouTube channel.

We typically keep our videos and tutorials to half an hour or less, but we’re making an exception today, with a fascinating 50-minute documentary on landscape photography that includes beautiful imagery and great ideas for improving your work. 

The amazing video below by photographer Mark Smith is almost like a National Geographic tour of an entire ecosystem. In this case, it’s the Hood Canal, which is sandwiched between Seattle and the Olympic National Forest in Washington state and “attracts a wide variety of impressive animals,” as Smith puts it. And he will photograph many of them, including, most impressively, soaring and fighting eagles who will battle each other for fresh fish.

A couple weeks ago we brought you some breaking news about a Super Resolution feature in Adobe Camera Raw that effectively quadruples the size of an image. Our take was that this capability would be particularly useful for those using older cameras with a lower pixel count, thereby enabling some cropping while still ending up with a relatively large file.

Landscape shooters tend to be among the most stalwart of photographers, often carrying heavy tripods, and backpacks bulging with cameras, lenses, and other gear, on long treks into the backcountry. In the video below, a British pro reveals what he considers to be “the best accessories for landscape photography.”

The Rule of Thirds is a very helpful compositional guideline that is a great reference point for beginner photographers or seasoned professionals. As with any photography rule, they really are meant to be broken, so take this as more of a general guideline than a defined rule.

If you’ve been around the block more than once you’re no doubt familiar with many of the “rules” of composition. Budding outdoor photographers are told to use the Rule of Thirds, always include the foreground to create a sense of depth, and never position a subject in the middle of the frame or bisect a shot with the horizon.