Diagram by Jared C. Benedict (used under the CC-Attr-SA license)

Diagram by Jared C. Benedict (used under the CC-Attr-SA license)

I was planning to write about the three things that affect depth of field this week, but by pure coincidence (seriously!), I discovered this great blog post that Brian Auer wrote a few days ago:

Three Ways to Control Depth of Field

I’d highly recommend checking it out. Brian did a nice job of explaining the three things that affect depth of field (aperture, camera to subject distance, and focal length), including some sample images too.

There’s a few things I’d like to add though: [read more…]

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Digital Wildflower Photography (cover)Today I’m happy to announce that my new eBook, Digital Wildflower Photography, is now available.

The first thing you’re probably wondering is how it’s different from the free eBook I released last spring. Well, this new one is over twice as long at 55 pages, and has a ton of new content.

While the free eBook was really just a collection of a few tips for getting better wildflower photos, this new ebook is more of a complete guide that will teach you how to take stunning wildflower photos and how to post-process them in Adobe Photoshop (CS and Elements 8). [read more…]

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When I started this website, I listed a few great resources on the right sidebar, but I just realized that I’ve never written about them in a post before. So, I thought I’d take a moment to list them here and explain how each one can be helpful on your journey to photograph the wonderful natural world:

mooncal

#1 – Moon Phase Calendar

This website will show you the moon phases for the current calendar month. It’s helpful when you’re trying to plan a landscape shot and need the moon to be in a specific phase (mostly likely full). I usually just use it as a sort of “quick look” planning tool, and then move on to the next site for more details. [read more…]

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Photo by Steve Berardi

Photo by Steve Berardi

I received a lot of positive feedback the last time I discussed one of my “bad photos,” so it was easy for me to decide to continue these types of posts.

This time I want to talk about a photo I took last weekend while camping in the Mojave Desert. I intentionally picked this weekend because of the full moon–I was hoping to catch a few glorious moonrises and moonsets.

The first night I was there, I shot this photo a few minutes before sunset: [read more…]

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