Here is another view of the Salt Lake Temple taken with my infrared camera. I really like the look of this image. with all the dreamlike foliage. You don’t typically see things this way, and in my experience it’s difficult to achieve this look with traditional RGB imagery, you can get close but it’s just not completely there.

Tags: Infrared, Lightroom 3, Ni, Nikon, Salt Lake LDS Temple

Had some fun making images at the Salt Lake Temple. Finally broke out my infrared converted D70 again. I love the look of IR imaging. So here is one of the shots from the day. This was actually taken through a window of the visitor center. Channel switch in Photoshop and here you go.
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Tags: Infrared, Nikon D70, Photography, Salt Lake LDS Temple

I received a question recently. About shooting the red rocks in the desert. Capturing the depth and height of some of these amazing rocks and canyons can sometimes be a trick. The other part was about how cameras like to overexpose the red rocks.

First let’s talk exposure, because it’s a little easier to handle. Expose for the hilight. Meaning if you are overexposing the red rocks you need to either change your camera settings manually or push the little plus minus button and push it toward the minus. Then take another shot. If you are having trouble keeping hilight detail and shadow detail then try shooting an HDR to capture both.

Reds. While we’re on the subject of exposure, You can have an otherwise properly exposed image and one color can still be overexposed. If your camera has individual color histograms, turn it on and look if there is a spike on the right side of any of them then that color is blasted.

I ran into this situation a little while ago, I was just playing with a lens and there were some pink roses. They weren’t very bright pink. I filled the frame and just clicked with the camera on auto mode. The image looked terrible, reds were completely blown out and the color was wrong. Why? The camera’s meter had been fooled. It didn’t know what to make of the color, only one color in the frame. And it needed to allow the other color channels to have almost nothing in them. So I had to take over. I switched the camera to manual and dialed down the exposure. The camera was trying for two stops more than it needed. And also the white balance. I just selected the preset for the kind of lights in the room. Now I was able to make some images that looked good. The red rocks can also trick your camera, so watch the histogram and underexpose for those times when you need to. One last tip on exposure, Underexposing by a little will help you to get those super saturated colors. When shooting sunset’s or other super colorful subjects try underexposing by a half a stop or so.

OK so this post is getting to be really long, and I haven’t even got to the grand vista’s and towering heights. So if you are bored by now you can just stop reading. If not, read on.

Being able to capture the grandness of a great landscape can be pretty tricky. I’ll just post some tips here and if you like we can go into greater detail on each in a later post.

First. Shoot wide.
Wide angle lenses let you get more of the scene into a frame. You can also shoot panos and stitch if you don’t have a wide lens. When you shoot an image with a wider angle of view than is standard on people it instantly gets more interesting, Plus since our brains will put things together for us you seem to see more when you’re there than you actually do. So shooting wide brings some of that back in the final image.

Shoot deep
Stop down your lens and use a tripod for maximum depth of field. You want the rocks right here in focus and the tree two miles away to also be in focus.

Layer
Everything being sharp and clear throughout a long range does you no good if there isn’t interesting stuff from here to there. So look for the foreground middle ground and background. Try to place something interesting in each area. Maybe an interesting rock or patch of flowers or cactus in the bottom right corner. A river flowing through the middle or some colorful fall trees. Towering cliffs or mountains in the background. And hopefully there are some clouds int the sky. A great sky can really make a difference. One thing I find myself doing a lot is shooting quite close to the ground with a wide lens to get in on this deep layered look.

Panoramic images can be totally amazing. If you have a recent version of Photoshop you can have tons of fun with them. Or many cameras will stitch a pano together for you.

When should you shoot a pano? Anywhere, but especially when you have a hard time framing the amazing view you see before you in one shot.

Tips for shooting panos. First of all the software to put them together is getting better. This shot was handheld on the side of the road. So go ahead and shoot. But there are some pointers to make sure you get the very best shots.

1. Use a tripod.
Get setup and pan the camera left to right (or up and down) and watch the edges, are you getting what you want in the frames? Does it seem to slope up or down? You can make sure it is straight.

2. Shoot vertical.
Most of us when we start shooting panos hold the camera in it’s native horizontal or landscape orientation. If you turn the camera on it’s end you’ll get a few benefits. Firstly greater resolution, the camera has more pixels on the long edge so you will be able to print larger. The other thing this helps with is distortion control.

3. Manual focus and exposure.
Again the software is pretty good, but you are better. If you lock down your focus and exposure you know it will be the same in every shot. This will eliminate the patchy looking skies and focus problems you could possibly run into later.

4. Markers
It’s also a good idea to shoot your hand or foot before and after a sequence of pano images. This way you’ll know where the images are for stitching when you load up your thousand images after a great day of shooting.

5. Lens Choice
If you can shoot longer rather than wider. 50mm or longer is my first choice. It will look more natural when stitched together. Wide lenses work too, and you can get some neat effects with them in a pano, but you should try them out yourself to see what happens.

6. Have Fun
Don’t worry if you can’t get everything perfect every time. Give it a try anyway. Also you can shoot vertical panos of trees and buildings. Photoshop can also stitch a grid of images if you are going for super resolution.

You’ve seen the nice silky water images. This is the one time when as a photographer you always have too much light. At least it seems that way. So what do you need to do. First thing is the tripod. If you’re gonna make a long shot you need something stable to mount your camera on. So secure your camera. Then turn down your iso as low as it goes, yes lower number is lower in the iso world. Also you’ll likely need to stop down your lens. That means bigger number. If you’re using a point and shoot use landscape or night landscape mode. Now what is the shutter speed? I generally go for about 1/2 second on these. You’ll want to try a few different ones depending on how smooth you want your water to be. Still too much light for a slow shutter speed? You’ll need some neutral density filters. These filter just block out light without changing anything else. They can get pricey, but that’s what it takes if you want to shoot water mid day. Your other choice is to come back before sun-up or after it goes down. Problems with this approach are the lack of time you have to shoot. So, you have a long explanation of shooting smooth water.
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Do you have a photographic memory? I do, I keep it in my pocket. It’s a phone and still camera and video camera. It’s amazing how fun it is to look through your life in images. Any image capturing device will do the job. Whenever you see something or do something memorable, make a quick image. It’s also fun to be able to send them right away to someone who care.

Do you have a photographic memory? I do, I keep it in my pocket. It’s a phone and still camera and video camera. It’s amazing how fun it is to look through your life in images. Any image capturing device will do the job. Whenever you see something or do something memorable, make a quick image. It’s also fun to be able to send them right away to someone who care.

How many times have you heard someone say “That’s a nice camera! I wish I had a nice camera so my pictures would be good too.” or something like that. I went on a crusade one vacation shooting only with a $150 point and shoot. Ended up with some wonderful images. Does equipment make a difference? You bet it does, but as with many things most of us aren’t using the equipment we have to it’s full potential. Also in most cases the person who keeps buying better and better cameras to get better pictures is missing the point. You are the one making the images, I’ve never woken up in the morning after a good nights sleep and noticed my cameras and lenses coming in from an early morning shoot, I’ve always had to go take the pictures. My cameras never have.

So my first tip in the camera buying tips sections is learn what you have first. You’ll start getting better images immediately. Then when you run into a technical or valid reason to need or want more, you’ll be better able to look for the features you want.

Lens selection and focal length play an important role in how the final image looks and more importantly feels. Sometimes it’s necessary to select a lens based on how far the subject is to you. Other times you can get as close or as far away as you like, an image shot of effectively the same thing with a 300mm lens will have a different feeling when shot at 12mm. So don’t just twist your zooms, get closer and farther away and see what different compositions you can come up with.

If you want to buy the cheaper frames, and don’t want to do your own matte cutting, what are you to do. Today out tip is how to simulate the matted look right in Photoshop.

A few notes on the video. You can take this much farther, maybe we’ll look at some of those options in a future video. Try adding a texture to your blank white layer. Maybe a watercolor paper look or even velvet. Play with the sliders in the inner glow panel to get thicker or thinner looking matte layers.