I got the idea of shooting a total moon eclipse with a long lens. I was thinking about the Canon EF 500mm, but all I could get was a massive Canon EF 800mm lens. The lens turned out to be too long for the eclipse photo I had in mind, but I got a great opportunity to shoot for a while with this long and heavy white beast.
Forget about Sony, Canon, Nikon, or any other mirrorless camera. Panasonic has the Lumix S1 and Lumix S1R, and those cameras are amazing. I have invested a lot in Canon, and I am really happy about the system. But if I had to do it all over again today, I definitely would choose the Lumix S1.
As a photographer you are probably confronted every now and then with unacceptably high noise levels. This may occur when using extremely high ISO levels, or perhaps when lifting shadows too much in post processing. You can try to reduce noise by one or two sliders in Photoshop, Lightroom, or similar software, or by stacking a couple of photos.
During my latest trip to the Faroe Islands I noticed how many tourists were flying drones. Drones are very popular, and rules for flying become more strict by the hour. I wonder why people like to fly a drone; is it just to fly, or to make films? I use it for landscape photography.
When photographing landscapes with a wide-angle lens, you probably want something in the foreground, to give the photo some extra depth. It can make your landscape photo more interesting to look at. Just make sure your foreground subject is interesting enough.
I keep on wondering about the discussions of photographic enthusiast about camera technology and brands. Some enthusiasts even react very angrily at brands they used to have, or at other people when they mention some sort of shortcomings of their new camera. I would think a camera is just a tool… isn’t it?
Have you taken beautiful landscape photos at Lofoten, the Faroe Islands, or Iceland? Or perhaps you only dream about trips to these breathtaking locations. Don't worry; perhaps the best landscape photo you will ever shoot is in your home town, just around the corner.
During a few weeks around the summer solstice, the situation in the highest regions of the atmosphere can be ideal to form a rare kind of clouds. Invisible by day, these clouds can be lit by the sun when its beneath the horizon, showing up as noctilucent clouds.
Do you ever go out photographing landscapes when the weather isn’t that great? I think most photographers prefer a sunset with intense colors and playful clouds. But perhaps you should try bad weather for a change.
When you go out taking pictures, you grab your camera or camera bag, you might set up a tripod, and start shooting. Often, that goes without any problems, but not always. Imagine what happens when your equipment takes an unexpected fall because something fails.
A rainbow is arguably the most beautiful optical light effect created by sunlight. It is formed by millions of raindrops that break the sunlight into different colors. Shooting a rainbow is fairly easy, but there are some nice things to know about.
With an optical viewfinder, you are literally looking through the lens, so you see exactly what will be in the frame. Now, we have reached the realm of the electronic viewfinder, the EVF. But there are some things you need to be aware of.
I once started with the top of the line Canon flash with a remote controller. Even though those flashes very good, they can have too little light output for off camera flash. That is why I started looking for a portable studio flash system and I ended up with the expensive Profoto system.
With the digital age stacking techniques make it possible to shoot a star trail in the middle of a city. But when I got my hands on a great medium format camera, I also ran into a problem: the star trail had strange patterns in the stacked image. Fortunately I found out why this is, and how to avoid it.
Hasselblad was one of the first that used super resolution techniques. Today it can be found in many cameras, producing resolutions that are up to four times higher than the pixel count of the sensor. You can also do this with your camera. This is how it works.
Have you ever needed to shoot jewelry on location, like wedding rings during a wedding? Then you may know about the difficulties of acquiring a good image.
When it is time to buy a camera, image stabilization can be something that is on the bucket list of must haves. Image stabilization makes it possible to shoot with longer shutter times than normal, preventing the use of a tripod. There are many different implementations of image stabilization, but it is not the Holy Grail. You could say image stabilization is overrated.
Have you ever made a picture of a landscape? Sure you have. Everyone has. Making the photo is the easy part, but showing the landscape how you experienced it, is something else. Often the photo does not show the landscape from you perception. Finding a subject is often one of the solutions.
We planned a few days at the Opal Cast in France, a wonderful seaside area with rocky coasts, large tide differences, and a lot of remains of the Second World War, that has shaped the landscape many years ago. The forecast promised fantastic weather for landscape photography, so we had high expectations for impressive sunrise and sunset shots, and perhaps even a few star trails.
You saw that wonderful long exposure image on the internet, with a smooth water surface and moving clouds in the sky, and you thought; I want to shoot images like that. So you invested in a dark neutral density filter that makes it possible to shoot with shutter times that are 1000x longer. Now you can start making those long exposure images.
Every camera is standard set to AWB, meaning "Auto White Balance". AWB uses 18% gray as a reference, to correct any color cast in the image. But the auto white balance is a dumb algorithm that cannot interpret a scenery. Perhaps it would be best to set the white balance yourself, instead of relying on the camera.
Ten years ago I decided to start using filters for my landscape photography again. In those days the best choice was Hitech or Lee, and I chose the latter. I was very content with those filters and I shot many beautiful landscapes with it. But ten years left some serious traces of use. It was time to replace the filters… I chose Kase filters.
You can get cool results when photographing water or cloudy skies with long exposures. For that you often need a filter that reduces the amount of light that enters the lens: a neutral density filter. But what if you don’t have such a filter? In that case there is another way to retrieve almost the same results.
When processing your precious photos in Lightroom, Photoshop, or any other photo processing software, you make sure the exposure is spot on, the colors are perfect, and the contrast is pleasing. For that reason you may have a calibrated monitor, and the optimum light situation in your room. But did you think about the background shade of your photo processing software?
Whenever I bought a new lens, I always added a UV filter to it. It was obvious to do so, and I never gave it any thought. But there was a moment that I stopped adding that sort of filter and I never looked back since. Does a UV filter still have any benefit, or is it a waste of money? Let’s find out.
Modern cameras can be set to very high ISO values. But the higher your ISO is, the more noise will be visible. There is a point when the noise levels become higher than acceptable. Do you know what high ISO value is still acceptable for you?
The year 2018 will be known as the year Canon and Nikon introduced their first mirrorless full-frame camera. It was their first step into a world that has been dominated by Sony for years. The cameras of Canon and Nikon have been mocked and laughed at, but how do they compare in real life? I got a chance to find out.
It was all over the news; the superbloodwolfmoon of January 21st 2019. It was special, it was very rare, and it was spectacular. Or so they said. But was it really that special and did it show on the photos that I took during the four hour eclipse of the Moon? Let me tell you my story.
I got a few questions about the Electronic View Finder on a mirrorless camera concerning flash photography. And yes, when you use the wrong settings it can be quite a challenge using a mirrorless camera in dark situations when flash is needed. The solution is fairly simple.
I have been shooting concerts for many years. These are mostly bands in small, dark, and obscure venues with not much light to work with. But eventually a lot of bands started to use lasers as a part of their show. That resulted once in a damaged sensor. I believe today there is a greater risk with mirrorless cameras and lasers.
It is a photographers nightmare to see precious and expensive camera equipment fall. I have seen it happen quite often and most of the times a tripod was involved. Fortunately it never involved my equipment. Perhaps it is due to luck, but I believe ten important guidelines helped a lot.
Do you hate using a tripod? Do you find it too cumbersome to use, heavy, and do you think it stands in the way of creative photography? You are not the only one. I meet a lot of photographers during my workshops and masterclasses that find the tripod a necessary evil. And most of the time, it is because they are using it the wrong way.
Often, we think a landscape has to be photographed with a wide angle lens and a large depth of field. Some think it is even better to use extreme wide angles and always in combination with a maximum depth of field. But have you ever thought of photographing a landscape with a minimum depth of field?
Photographing the night sky can be fun, especially when there is a meteor shower. Every year, I try to capture the famous Perseids during my summer holiday in August. But in December, there is the Geminids, which also can be quite spectacular. This year, I had bad luck and a lot of luck at the same time.
A lot of landscape photographers prefer a maximum depth of field when photographing wide landscapes. They love to use small apertures in combination ultra-wide angle lenses, making use of hyper focal distances or even focus stacking to achieve their goal. But not many have ever considered using a camera with a crop sensor for that goal.
