Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

One of the greatest challenges facing photographers is dealing with the limitations of film or digital cameras in regard to Dynamic Range.  Over the years photographers have been and continue to be very creative in managing the limited range of light in which film or digital sensors can capture. In an effort to best reproduce [...]

One of the most essential pieces of knowledge to understand in order to attain sharp images, particularly for landscapes, is the principle of hyperfocal distance.
Phil Davis put it best in Photography, 1972
“When the lens is focused on the hyperfocal distance, the depth of field extends from half the hyperfocal distance to infinity.”
The general tip to [...]

The terms “magic hour” and “golden hour” are often used interchangeably, both describing the same lighting phenomenon. The “golden hour” is the hour after sunrise and before sunset when the light is less intense and fittingly golden. At this time sunlight shines through the earths atmosphere at a more acute angle resulting in wavelengths of [...]

Dynamic range, in relation to photography, most commonly describes the light sensitivity range of a photographic medium whether slide/print film or a digital sensor.
Unlike other definitions of Dynamic Range I think it’s important to discuss the relationship of the human eye and brain and what we determine as the standard of dynamic range. The eye [...]

 ”In photography and optics, vignetting is a reduction in image brightness in the image periphery compared to the image center.
Although vignetting is normally unintended and undesired, it is sometimes purposely introduced for creative effect, such as to draw attention to the center of the frame. A photographer may deliberately choose a lens which is known [...]

“Barrel Distortion, in which image magnification decreases with increasing distance from the optical axis. The apparent effect is that of an image which has been mapped around a sphere. Fisheye lenses, which take hemispherical views, produce this type of distortion as a result of a hemispherical scene being projected onto a flat surface.” – Wikipedia
Or…
“Barrel [...]

The telephoto effect, created aptly when using longer focal length lenses, creates an altered perspective where distances are compressed or shortened. The net effect makes objects, that may be quite some distance apart, look close together. The longer the focal length the more pronounced this effect.
An example of this can be seen in my photograph [...]

Contrails, also known as a vapor trail, is a term used to describe the streak of condensation left behind as a plane flies through the sky. The condensation created from the planes exhaust are actually artificial cirrus clouds. Often in a photo critique comments will be made recommending the removal of this visual pollutant using [...]