(Editor’s Note:Exploring Light is a monthly Shutterbug column featuring tips, tricks, and photo advice from professional photographers in Canon Explorers of Light education program. This month's column is by Bob Davis, with great tips for shooting sharp photos of wildlife and birds in flight.
We’ve all been there: You plan an excursion to a beautiful location, pack your gear, and hit the road in plenty of time to get there for perfect light. When you arrive, however, you confront flat, boring skies.
We’re all familiar with the notion that the best time to shoot landscapes is early during Blue Hour or late in the day at Golden Hour. But what if you get the photography itch in the middle of a summer’s day?
All photographers strive for a creative edge that makes shooting more fun and convenient while delivering images that stand out from the crowd. And there are several affordable accessories that will help you do all that—particularly when shooting travel and nature photos.
If you’re a regular Shutterbug reader you know we frequently post tutorials from image-editing expert Anthony Morganti. Most of these tend to be detailed and somewhat lengthy, but the video below kicks off a new series with brief episodes on a single topic.
If you like experimenting with your smartphone camera, you’re going to love this tutorial. In the video below from COOPH, they show you four photo tricks you can do with your smartphone at home.
Do you avoid using Lightroom’s powerful Tone Curves because you find them confusing or difficult to use? Well those days are over thanks to the simple tutorial below from Danish travel photographer Alex Bjorstorp.
The first thing most of us think of when we hear the words “Zone System” is the great Ansel Adams, who developed this powerful exposure technique with Fred Archer over 80 years ago. The second thing that often comes to mind is the word “complicated.”
Photoshop’s Select Subject tool uses artificial intelligence to make automatic selections for a variety of tasks. It enables you to remove people and objects from backgrounds, makes it easy to isolate key subjects, and does a great job—even in complex scenes.
Widely regarded as the father of Canadian photojournalism, Ted Grant is also the father of one of our favorite quotes: “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in b&w, you photograph their souls.”
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.”
Are you dissatisfied with your portrait photos because they tend to look like snapshots? Do you wish you had a studio and a bunch of costly lighting equipment (and knew how to use it)? Well, keep reading because this is your lucky day.
Photographers tend to be very serious about eliminating (or at least reducing) noise in their photographs. These ugly digital artifacts tend to show up as distracting specs of grain, or random variations in color and brightness in areas of an image than should appear clean.
If you’re relatively new to Lightroom and feel overwhelmed by the wide variety of tools, this comprehensive beginners guide is just what you need. After watching the straightforward tutorial below, you’ll no longer be a novice and your photos will look better than ever.
A common mistake made by beginning Lightroom users is going a bit overboard when processing images. Sometime this involves over-sharpening, while other times it’s a heavy-handed approach to enhancing color.