Outdoor Photography How To

Do your wildlife, nature, and landscape photos appear blurry or wavy even though you used the "proper" settings and achieved precise focus? The problem may not be a faulty camera or lens, but rather what instructor Matthew Gehly calls an image-killing "invisible threat" that's easy to avoid.

Nailing exposure can be be difficult once the the sun drops below the horizon, and one of the biggest challenges is controlling highlights for proper tonal balance throughout a low-light scene. This quick tutorial from the My Photo Journey YouTube channel describes the necessary in-camera adjustments in barely nine minutes.

Photoshop's Gradient tools serve a wide variety of purposes for bringing outdoor photos to life by gradually blending colors or opacity. There are various options available for better colors, smoothing transitions and applying creative effects. The rub is that it takes a bit of time to get the adjustments just right.

All of us who shoot in color have experienced the disappointment of capturing a unique scene that fails to meet expectations. The video below from the PHLOG Photography YouTube channel explains why some images can be significantly more compelling in b&w, with a basic workflow for making a dramatic transformation.

Regular Shutterbug readers are well-acquainted with extraordinary German Landscape pro Christian Mohrle, not just because of his inspirational images but also for the post-processing tutorials shared on the popular PHLOG photography You Tube channel that's loaded with helpful how-to tips.

Not long ago we featured a comprehensive guide to photographing the Milky Way, with camera settings advice, gear recommendations, post-processing tips, and more. We're following up on that today with this primer for inexperienced photographers who want to capture awe-inspiring images of starlit skies, even when the Milky Way isn't visible.

We were all taught early on to always shoot with the sun to our back, and that worked OK for beginners looking for the easiest way to capture a "Kodak moment." If you're still following this familiar "rule," it's long past time to be more creative, and one effective way to do that is by setting aside what you learned about composition and try shooting towards the sun.