Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2016 i Outdoor Photographer

First Place “Ferns In The Rain” By Susan Ramdin I went to Canaan Valley in West Virginia on a workshop with the Cuyahoga Valley Photographic Society in October 2014 to photograph the fall colors in various locations. On the day this was taken, it was nonstop rain, so it was a real challenge. The plus was that the rain really saturated the colors of the beautiful landscape. I had never seen so many ferns this orange!›This image was taken along the banks of the Blackwater River. Second Place “Sierra Sunrise” By Thomas Piekunka North of the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California, is an area called Moffett Ranch, which has a beautiful variety of grasses, chaparral and trees. The area is easy to access from Moffett Ranch Road off Highway…

If a master like Ansel Adams thought that visualization was such an important concept, we should probably pay attention. What did he mean by “visualization,” and how does visualization apply to digital photography today? Although Adams mostly talked about visualization in relation to technique, he also made it clear that visualization was part of the creative process. He wrote: “Visualization is a conscious process of projecting the final photographic image in the mind before taking the first steps in actually photographing the subject. Not only do we relate to the subject itself, but we become aware of its potential as an expressive image.” In other words, when you have an idea for a photograph, that idea can and should include a visualization of what the final photograph will look like…

In 2006, at the inception of my career in landscape photography, I set out with a specific photographic goal that, at the time, seemed nearly impossible. The year before, while lugging my camera gear and trying to follow in the footsteps of legendary photographers Galen Rowell and Ansel Adams, a thought crossed my mind. I had never seen a photograph of a lightning bolt in Yosemite National Park. Knowing that the polished granite monoliths acted as lightning rods during thunderstorms and remembering the intense lightning storms as a child in the Sierra Nevada, I set a goal to capture a lightning bolt in the national park. In July, I finally got my chance after watching the weather report and seeing that powerful thunderstorms were expected in the park. I left…

“There are two kinds of people in the world—those who have had a hard drive failure, and those who will.”—Peter Krogh G-Technology G-DOCK ev The innovative, hot-swappable G-DOCK ev can be configured as a RAID 1, or you can use each drive independently. The latter is advantageous for managing your offsite backups—copy your image library to one of the drives, eject and go. The Thunderbolt dock is compatible with G-DRIVE ev, G-DRIVE ev 220 and G-DRIVE ev SSD drives, each of which can be used when away from the dock via USB 3.0. List Price: $499 (2 TB). g-technology.com Transcend StoreJet 500 Portable SSD Available in capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB, the solid-state StoreJet 500 Portable SSD offers both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interfaces…

The edge of Loch Achtriochtan is a wonderful place to nestle beneath the towering mountains of Glen Coe. The light was changing rapidly with an imminent storm at the head of the Glen providing an amazing theatre of light that danced up and down the valley walls as clouds swirled overhead. Having spent many times photographing in this valley I knew these conditions could reward as long as I had chosen my camera position and was ready. I knew that the distant clouds when lit by the direct sun could be too bright and I also needed the shafts of light illuminating the mountain flanks to sparkle in the finished image. I fitted a LEE 0.3 soft ND grad which I knew would ‘calm’ the highlights in the clouds and…

NEW NIKON FLAGSHIPS The wait is over for flagship-model updates from Nikon, with the introduction of the FX-format D5 and the DX-format D500. These two DSLRs have a lot in common, including a new autofocus system, 180K RGB Metering, EXPEED 5 processors that enable 4K UHD video capture and compatibility with Nikon’s first radio-controlled Speedlight, the SB-5000, introduced alongside the new cameras. One of the most remarkable features of the D5 is its ISO range of 100 to 102,400, which can be expanded to an incredible 3,280,000. Nikon describes this setting as “near-night vision capability that’s well beyond the visibility of the human eye.” Nikon also states that the sweet spot range for sports and wildlife photographers, 3200 to 12800, will deliver “unprecedented image quality.” While the D500 doesn’t quite…

You can make sharp, properly exposed photos—so what? A technically flawless image lacking a compelling theme won’t do much for viewers. Ansel Adams once said, “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” If you can’t make photos that excite people, then your work will never get noticed. Making the leap past “fuzzy concept” photos won’t just happen overnight, and instead takes time and lots of practice. I’ve been making photos for 20 years, and I’m still constantly learning how to strengthen my artistic vision. Although I can’t offer any shortcuts, I can share five of my favorite techniques for making bold photographs to help you sharpen your personal creative vision and to inject energy, life and meaning into your images. 1 Don’t Be So Literal…

Canon EOS 5DS & EOS 5DS R The Canon EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R are fraternal twins, sharing the same body, 50.6-megapixel sensor, 61-point autofocus system and an ISO range of 100-6400. Externally, they’re identical, and internally, they’re virtually identical, with the difference being that the Canon EOS 5DS R cancels out the camera’s anti-aliasing filter—the optical element that reduces the chance of closely spaced parallel lines seeming to blur together (or moiré), but also reduces sharpness—to create an image that’s slightly sharper than the 5DS, but has greater risk of suffering from moiré. List Price: $3,399 (5DS); $3,599 (5DS R). usa.canon.com Mamiya 645DF+ Mamiya and Leaf joined forces, and the Mamiya 645DF+ is designed to work with the Leaf Credo 80, 60 or 40 backs, giving…

Among the great landscape photographers, Ansel Adams is perhaps the most widely recognized, but what you may not know about Adams is that he was, in the early 1940s, employed by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a “Photographic Muralist,” commissioned to capture images of the country’s national parks and indigenous peoples. The intent was to display the images in the Department’s Washington, D.C. headquarters. Adams delivered more than 200 prints, but as America’s entry into World War II became the national focus, his assignment was ended and the prints sat largely forgotten for nearly 70 years, until in 2010, when then-Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar commissioned mural prints to be made for display, finally bringing completion to the project. In his feature “Ansel’s Public Works,” William Sawalich…

LOCATION Dead Horse Point State Park looms 2,000 feet above the Colorado River and imposing Canyonlands National Park in Utah, sprawling over 5,300 acres in high-desert altitude. There are miles of developed hiking trails in the park, including a paved trail that provides easy access to some of the most scenic views. There’s also a 21-tent-site campground with picnic tables and a visitor center that’s open year-round. The park is located nine miles north of Moab on US 191; turn west on SR 313 and travel 23 miles. It takes about 40 minutes to drive from downtown Moab. Park in the main car park for Dead Horse Point. THE LEGEND OF DEAD HORSE POINT According to one legend, the point once was used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming…

In the summer of 1941, Ansel Adams was recruited for employment by the United States government. His assignment was simple: For no more than 180 days of the coming year, he would travel the country making photographs of national parks and notable American landscapes at a rate of $20 per day. The government would provide film, paper and darkroom chemicals. In return, Adams’ negatives would be used to create photographic murals for display in the halls of the Department of the Interior. It all started when Interior Secretary Harold Ickes—who had previously met Adams and purchased a decorative screen from the young photographer—began commissioning painted murals for the halls of the Interior building. Ickes wanted to augment the painted murals with images “made by the photographic process.” In June 1941,…

In case you missed it, in the last issue, we kicked off this four-part series on printmaking with modern tools. Part One focused on the value of printing in our digital era, and here, with Part Two, I’d like to jump into distilling the complicated practice of digital printing—or, at least, to jump into distilling the theory behind the practice. Digital printing workflow is all about consistency. The thing with analog printing, especially printing that requires dodging and burning, and masking, is that no two prints are exactly alike. Digital printing, when practiced well, eliminates the unpredictable nature of analog printing. Once an image has been developed and proofed in Lightroom, Photoshop or elsewhere, printing becomes a matter of hitting “Print”. Admittedly, it’s not as easy as that, but compared…

At 11:56 a.m., on April 25, 2015, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal, killing more than 9,000, injuring an estimated 23,000 and displacing more than 450,000 people. It was the worst natural disaster to strike the landlocked nation of 27 million since the 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake. Six months later, I traveled to Nepal to document its recovery efforts, focusing on the Kathmandu Valley and the Himalayas. As I’m based in Los Angeles, the Himalaya section of the assignment meant digging deep into the closet for my cold weather kit. I emerged decked head to foot in The North Face gear, including thin, touchscreen-sensitive gloves. Upon arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport, my bags and I were hustled through Customs by a Dharma Adventures representative—it’s always a great idea to have a…