Outdoor Photography How To

Attaining fast and precise focus is a primary goal of just about every photographer, regardless of the type of images they shoot. When soft photos result with regularity, the first thing that comes to mind is, "I must be doing something wrong."

Life would be so much easier if we had a single set of camera settings that worked for all types of nature photography. Unfortunately, that’s simply not possible because of ever-changing light, a wide variety of subject matter, and the need to compose various images differently.

One specification that's important to many photographers when shopping for a new camera is the number of focus points available. But do you really know how to choose the best focus point(s) at your disposal when shooting different types of images? If not, read on.

Choosing photography gear is one of the easiest and hardest things you'll do as a photographer. It's easy because picking a new camera or lens can be a fun and exciting (though often expensive) experience. But it's also hard because there are so many photo gear choices out there, all of which are likely put a big dent in your bank account.

Highlights and shadows can be the bane of landscape photographers who often confront scenes with a wide range of tones that exceed the density range of their camera. Today's quick tutorial from the folks at How to Use concentrates on the former, with a straightforward Lightroom method for eliminating blown-out areas within the frame.

We're going to kick off this post-processing tutorial with a quote from one of our favorite landscape photographers: "White balance is one of the most important settings to adjust when editing your images, because getting it right is crucial if you want photos to appear natural and realistic."

Some landscape scenes look far more compelling when rendered in b&w, whether you captured the shot using your camera's monochrome mode or do a conversion later during the editing process. In either case, some thoughtful processing is required for optimum results.