Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2020 i Outdoor Photographer

Big Moon Landscapes How to add a looming lunar accent to your scenic photography. Tip Of The Week Available on our website—or delivered directly to your inbox—our “Tip of the Week” provides shooting and processing techniques to sharpen your photography skills. Sign up today. Improve Your Landscape Photography William Neill’s “On Landscape” column explores nature photography from an artistic, contemplative perspective. Get insights from Neill for thoughtful approaches to creating compelling scenic images. Assignments Share your best shots in our weekly “Assignments” photo challenges. Submit your images that fit the week’s theme—you may be our next Assignment winner. Connect With Us Get the latest news and be inspired by great photos from the Outdoor Photographer community. Newsletter Subscribe today for updates on the latest features, how-to articles and photography news.…

Should I bring the tripod? This is the question I used to ask myself before every photo shoot. But with stabilized lenses, better high-ISO capabilities and sensor-based stabilization now common in modern digital cameras, the days of needing to carry a tripod on every shoot may be gone. Or are they? Depending on what subjects you shoot, the tripod really may be a thing of the past. Do you mostly shoot single frames of static subjects in decent light that allows you to achieve the shutter speed and aperture you want? Then you probably don’t need to be carrying that heavy tripod anymore. But for those of us landscape and wildlife photographers who want to shoot multiple exposures, use super-slow shutter speeds or achieve the best image quality in low-light…

Florida is a wonderful, unique and challenging place for nature photographers. The first thing you notice here: It’s flat. Really flat. The landscape is mostly wide-open spaces or jungle, so you’ve got to be versatile. We do have hills here and there, and we have upland pine forests, coastal oak hammocks and lots of water. Surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, Florida is blessed with hundreds of rivers, lakes, swamps and marshes and the wildlife that make their homes here. But while you’re looking for that epic watery vista to photograph, you should also look for more intimate woodland scenes. In those places, latch on to something, anything of interest, to anchor your composition. In the woods and swamps, try to find that little slice of…

Playing It By Ear “Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, just outside of Denver, Colorado, is a remarkable place to photograph grassland species like bison, prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets, raptors, coyotes, meadowlarks and a variety of songbirds,” photographer Emma Balunek observes. “I visited one morning after a fresh snow hoping to make wildlife images and found a group of bison roaming and sticking their heads through the foot of snow to reach the vegetation beneath. “As the bison began to take a rest, a black-billed magpie flew into the herd and started searching for insects on this bison’s face. The bird was quite chatty, squawking in the bison’s ear. The bison shook its head in an attempt to get the magpie off, but it always returned, searching through its fur…

Our annual THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE PHOTO CONTEST is now accepting submissions. Enter your best images of our country’s wild places for a chance to win at outdoorphotographer.com/photo-contests/the-american-landscape. Featured here are two finalists from last year’s competition. Though the subjects are quite different, the lesson is the same—in landscape photography, patience often pays off. Keyhole Arch By Ian Frazier “Pfeiffer Beach is one of those ‘must-visit’ locations for photographers traveling through California’s Big Sur. The dramatic coastline, colorful sand and impressive Keyhole Arch usually draw a large crowd, especially around sunset. “This particular evening was no different. As we stood behind our cameras, the sunset seemed to fizzle behind a distant cloud bank. I lingered as everyone packed up and left. Surprised, I watched as the dimming sky began to pick…

Rising from the high deserts of northern New Mexico and continuing north for 1,900 miles to their terminus just south of the Yukon/British Columbia border, North America’s Rocky Mountains score high on the list of our planet’s great mountain kingdoms. From Colorado’s 14,000-foot summits to the Canadian Rockies, along with all the countless sub-ranges in between, this entire mountain cordillera was created from the same general tectonic events that began approximately 100 million years ago as monumental compressional forces along the western edge of North America caused the upper portion of the earth’s crust to buckle and fold. While these mountain-building forces ended about 40 million years ago, the scenery we photograph today was formed much more recently as a result of the sculpting effect of glacial ice during the…

Florida is a nature photographer’s paradise, with expansive coastal views, diverse ecosystems and a variety of rare and unique wildlife Follow the 109-mile Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail—part of the Florida National Scenic Trail—around Lake Okeechobee, Florida’s largest freshwater lake, and discover idyllic vistas and an abundance of wildlife, including egrets, herons and, depending on the time of year, wintering birds. Paddle along Fisheating Creek, one of the lake’s major tributaries, for access to scenic locations off the beaten path. From this popular destination for sport fishing, nearby towns including the cities of Okeechobee, Moore Haven and Clewiston offer a variety of accommodations and points of interest for visitors. Franklin County is home to parts of the Apalachicola National Forest and the St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge, both ideal locations for…

For many photographers, tripods are the photo tool you love to hate,” wrote George Lepp in a recent Tech Tips column (see “Choosing A Tripod For Your Style Of Photography” on our website). It’s a theme we’ve heard over and over again, especially in recent years as photographers have sought to reduce the weight they carry in the field with smaller, lighter cameras, a minimalist mindset and a growing dependence on image stabilization technology. The first image stabilization systems for still photography were lens-based, limited in the types of movements for which they could compensate, and added a not-insignificant cost to the relatively limited selection of lenses that offered the benefit. Sensor-based stabilization made the feature available much more widely, as these systems work with any lens. Today’s technology is…

NIKON D780, TELE ZOOMS & “SUPERZOOM” COOLPIX Nikon recently introduced the D780 DSLR, successor to its popular D750. The 24.5-megapixel full-frame (FX-format) D780 promises to be an excellent choice for nature photographers, with features from upper-tier D850 and D5 DSLRs as well as technology found in Nikon’s Z series mirrorless cameras. The D780 is capable of shooting at speeds up to 7 fps with its mechanical shutter or up to 12 fps in Silent Shooting mode using Live View with the mirror up, ideal for wildlife photography. Also noteworthy when shooting in Live View, Nikon replaced the contrast-detect AF system used in earlier cameras with the 273-point sensor-based Hybrid AF system employed in the Z 6. In addition to faster and more precise AF when shooting in Live View, the…

Learning to photograph the landscape at night will open up a whole universe of photographic possibilities. Combine your new knowledge with solid preparation, the right gear and good field technique, and you’ll able to photograph the Milky Way, star trails, meteor showers, lunar eclipses, the aurora and the landscape by moonlight. Preparation begins with deciding what type of night image you want to make, then deciding when and where to go. Regardless of your nocturnal quarry, you’ll have better luck if you get as far away from city lights as possible. Basic Timing Considerations The best time to shoot the Milky Way and meteor showers is when the sky is fully dark. The sky reaches its darkest point at astronomical dusk, when the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon,…

Washington state is home to some of the most dramatic and accessible coastlines in the United States. Second Beach, near the town of LaPush, is a gem of the National Park System and boasts sea stacks, arches, tidal pools and expansive areas of sandy Olympic coast. During a spring visit to Olympic National Park, Second Beach was high on my list due to such a concentration of natural features. Spruce trees growing atop rocky sea stacks were one of the most compelling attributes that enticed me to this beach. The spring sun sets in the direction of Quateata Arch, so the lighting possibilities were a bonus. The forested walk to the beach is a gentle 0.7 miles, which can be an advantage as well as a detriment to successful photography.…