Nature Photography How To

When it’s time to edit our photographs, most of us upload the files to Lightroom or Photoshop and jump right in. But according to one of our favorite image-editing instructors, there’s an important preliminary step that’s often ignored.

You’ve no doubt marveled at spectacular landscape photos with depth of field that seems impossible to achieve with anything other than a tilt-shift lens or a large format view camera. Surprise: The same effect can be accomplished in post processing with a technique known at focus stacking. And it far easier to do than you may think.

Everyone knows that “blue hour” is a great time for photography; whether you’re shooting cityscapes, travel images, or other types of outdoor photos. Typically lasting 20-30 minutes, blue hour is that magical time immediately after sunset or just before sunrise. The exact timing of blue hour varies by location, and changes depending upon the time of year.

Last week we discussed the basics of depth of field, a key concept enabling you to capture better images. Today we’ll explore the topic further, through the eyes of an experienced pro.

Some photographers dread editing images, while others enjoy sitting behind a computer enhancing their work. Whichever camp you fall into, this tutorial will speed up the process and help you achieve superior results.

The idea here was...well, there were a few ideas. First, I wanted to do photography that was bright, cheerful, colorful—and different. With times being a bit harsh and stressful for many, I was looking for something light-hearted and, frankly, far from reality. Dreamy and summer-like came to mind. 

An ultra-wide-angle lens would seem to be a fun tool to use for landscape photography, but it comes with some inherent problems that are hard to avoid, explains landscape pro Mark Denney in the below video. When Denney switched last year from a Sony full frame camera system to a Fujifilm crop sensor camera, he ended up buying a Fujifilm 8-16mm lens, which is the equivalent to a 12-24mm lens.