Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2015 i Outdoor Photographer

For this special Black & White issue of OP, we’re highlighting several standout images from the recent Shades Of Gray Assignment at outdoorphotographer.com. Congratulations to Harry Lichtman David Bodine and Michael Ryan for their winning images. In addition to the OP website, you can keep up with the latest Assignments on our Facebook page, facebook.com/outdoorphotographer. 1) PHOTOGRAPHER: HARRY LICHTMAN EQUIPMENT: Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6L IS, Manfrotto tripod, Really Right Stuff ballhead This image was taken in March 2013 during a trip to Argentina’s Los Glaciares National Park at the southern tip of South America. While in Patagonia, I was hoping to capture an image that illustrated the epic winds the region is known for. A wind and sleet storm had blown in over the town…

As of late, there has been a large crackdown on transporting batteries in carry-on or checked baggage via domestic or international travel, as well as in shipped packages using FedEx, UPS or your favorite carrier. The DOT, the TSA and Homeland Security, as well as international organizations, govern all methods of transport of any battery, and in addition to these domestic and international laws, many companies take the aforementioned restrictions and raise them to an even higher level. If not properly protected or stored, batteries have the potential to generate a tremendous amount of heat and potentially can catch fire. Why do the rules differ for carry-on versus checked bags when you’re on a flight? How many different batteries (including lithium) are there? How do I know which batteries I…

You can do a lot in postprocessing with a digital image, and many digital cameras have built-in filters, but there’s still a good case to be made for using some on-lens filters for black-and-white photography. Some effects can’t be simulated in postprocessing. For example, a polarizer can reduce or eliminate reflections from nonmetallic surfaces (water, glass and the like), as well as reduce the effects of atmospheric haze to improve contrast. A neutral-density filter can let you shoot at water-blurring shutter speeds even in bright light, for another. Tips: If you intend to use the camera’s built-in metering or AF system, use a circular polarizer rather than a less costly linear one. The latter will interfere with metering and AF operation. A set of ND filters in various strengths can…

When I joined OP some 19 years ago, photography was on the verge of a massive transformation. The long-anticipated emergence of consumer digital cameras was in the air, and people were starting to talk about the potential of a new piece of software called Photoshop. At the time, I still shot film pretty much exclusively, mostly Fujichrome Velvia and Kodak TRI-X. This magazine was inspired by photographers who shot transparencies. Kodachrome was king, and the generation of nature shooters who chose 35mm SLRs as their tools of choice had broken from the large-format cameras and black-and-white printmaking of the mid-20th century. It was a generation best personified by the expression “f/8 and be there!” Don’t worry about having the camera setting exactly perfect, just get to the right place at…

Location Stanley Lake, and the spectacular jagged snowcapped peaks and pristine forests of the Sawtooth Mountain Range, are located within the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in central Idaho, only 30 minutes from the charming little town of Stanley. To get there from Stanley, go five miles north on ID 21, then 3.5 miles west on Forest Road 455. The lake is tucked in nicely just below the foot of Mount McGown. Stanley Lake Campground is situated on a hillside above the lake in a thick grove of lodgepole pines, with fantastic views of 9,860-foot McGown Peak and all of Stanley Lake. Check out the 4-wheel-drive roads or the Idaho Centennial Trail so you can explore even more mesmerizing views, as well as some eye-popping sunrises and sunsets. Weather Snow can…

Shooting black-and-white photography can be a confusing style to navigate. From fully automated cameras that can measure exposure from 51 source points, to phone apps that offer up a huge number of filters and functions, not to mention postproduction programs like Lightroom, Photoshop and Google’s Nik Collection, it’s easy to get lost in the mix and forget what got you excited about shooting in the first place. I’ve broken down my architecture for shooting black-and-white photography into what I hope is an easily digestible process. Inherently, what I propose is nothing new or earth-shattering, but it’s a stepped system I follow to capture each moment with my mind in black-and-white. 1) THINK-ing In Black-And-White When I talk about thinking in black-and-white, I’m speaking about the ability to have a conscious…

Landscape photography just wouldn’t be the same without wide-angle lenses. Superbly suited for the classic “near-far” style of composition (a staple for most landscape shooters), wide-angle lenses give you the ability to include generous amounts of foreground, background and sky simultaneously, creating photos with considerable depth and compositional power. While wide-angle lenses don’t work perfectly for all scenes and circumstances, going wide nonetheless greatly expands your creative options. Traditionally, anything wider than 35mm on a full-frame camera is considered a wide-angle lens; anything wider than 24mm is considered an ultra-wide-angle. For the purposes of this article, I’m excluding fisheye lenses, which are specialty lenses that haven’t been corrected for the extreme barrel distortion inherent to wide-angle optics (barrel distortion causes straight lines to be rendered as curved). Lenses that have…

IF YOU’RE AN ACTIVE OUTDOOR PHOTOGRAPHER, then you know that when you’re trekking, skiing or scrambling in the mountains, cycling or traveling out of your pack, extra pounds slow you down. For this reason, I own lightweight hiking boots, lightweight backpacks and a one-pound sleeping bag. And, yet, for years, I carried a two-pound DSLR camera everywhere I went. Add in my ultrawide 14mm lens and the 70-200mm ƒ/2.8, and I was lugging around 7 pounds. That’s hard on your arms and back. After accepting this trade-off for 20 years, I decided enough was enough. In late 2012, I did a weeklong bike tour with nothing but a compact Fujifilm X10 and felt joyfully liberated. While I still used my Nikons for some work, I couldn’t escape the lure of…

Ferrying my third load across rolling, unbroken sagebrush hills to a portable blind that’s a speck in an immense landscape, I’m thinking of how rare, how ephemeral these moments are—that so few places like this remain. I zip open the blind and drop my heavy photo backpack as sunset paints the surrounding sage in gold and magenta on a tranquil spring evening in northwestern Colorado’s Moffat County. A meadowlark sings from a sage top, and before I can get settled, there’s a rapid wing flap, then another, and more—greater sage-grouse arriving to roost on the lek. After a restless night of anticipation, more birds arrive at 4:45 a.m. until there are 60 males, so close to my blind that I can hear every syllable of the outlandish male sage-grouse display—wings…

Born in Finland, I now live in Taipei, Taiwan, and even though diving is very nice here, there are no longer sharks around, as they have been fished out for shark fin soup. Environmental protection of seas isn’t sufficient yet, but it’s good to see that the popularity of shark soup is going down due to active campaigning in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I hope that the slowing market will give change, to see sharks here in the future, but in the meantime, I have to travel elsewhere to photograph them. Last November, I took a one-week live-aboard trip to the Red Sea in Egypt. We started from Marsa Alam and headed first to the Brothers Islands, where this photo was taken. Oceanic whitetip sharks were one of the…

There’s an age-old question about zebras: Are they black with white stripes or white with black stripes? In the striking landscapes of Gary Wagner, there’s no doubt: His prints are deep and dark with select areas of midtones and highlights. He’s a photographer who loves the abstraction of black-and-white, the artistic interpretation it affords, and the mood and mystery of a finely made low-key print. “My pictures are completely subjective,” Wagner says, “and they aren’t necessarily what’s out there. I’m not trying to have a true visual representation of the scenes that I see, I’m trying to have my own interpretation. Generally, they’re darker with areas of lighter highlights. I find that, to me, they’re more mysterious, more thought-provoking, that I, as well as others, may want to look further…

One of the most persistent myths in photography is that prime lenses are always and considerably better than zooms. In fact, many of the newest wide-angle zooms are as good as, and sometimes even better than, their prime lens counterparts. A high-quality zoom lens will give you much more artistic flexibility than a prime lens. Also, zooms are especially useful when you’re trying to optimize the relative sizes of your foreground and background elements. If you’ve zoomed out too much and your background is too small, you simply can back away from your foreground, zoom in (which makes your background larger) and reframe as necessary to find the best compromise between background size and foreground proximity.…

The Best Of Fall Workshops | Fall 2015 | You’ll be guided by pro Bob Evans as he gives hands-on teaching of skills and techniques in every shoot, as well as daily critiques. Scenic Light also offers lodging and some meals that many others don’t. First is the Grand Teton, one of their most popular, with Swabacker’s Landing, Oxbow Bend and Mormon Row. Next is the Columbia Gorge offering dynamic colors and great waterfalls. Again this year, Scenic Light will include the Smoky Mountains for that great Eastern color. Finally, finish with Bryce and Zion to complete a great season of shooting. Two days in Bryce and three more in Zion Canyon. Bob Evans has been shooting these locations for 25 years and will show the best of all the…