Photography in Plain English

I have written two ebooks to help people get started with better photography. The first and most popular is “Photography in Plain English” which is a true beginners guide.

Some ebooks start out assuming you already know the basics, so real beginners are left in the dark from the start. Other books out there seem to be more focused on demostrating the genius of the author, and put things into such jargon and complicated detail; they are more about serving the ego of the author than about helping you learn photography.

Photography In Plain English starts at the very beginning…it explains aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, how to handle moving subjects, when to use a tripod, ISO etc. All in very simple terms you can understand, and illustrated by photos from my gallery. It also explains some of the basics of composition and using natural light for you landscape and wildlife photography.

You can CLICK HERE to find out more about Photography in Plain English, or just visit me at www.naturesimage.com.au

Sunset Photography: How to predict a great sunset

A while ago I posted an old article of mine, with tips for taking better sunset photographs. This is one of the most-read posts on my blog, but when I look up the search terms, people are not looking for how to take a good sunset photo; they want to know how to predict a good sunset.

Makes sense really, because sunset photos are very easy to take. In fact it is the reason I don’t sell many of my sunset photos – everyone has one or two of their own. However, most of their shots are just the product of lucky timing. They happened to be in the right place at the right time, and got a great shot almost by accident.

So the trick is not taking the photo. The trick is knowing how to predict a good sunset to have a better chance of being ready with your camera when the moment arrives. I don’t mind giving you my favourite tip. It won’t cost me any sales, because like I said…nobody buys the darn things anyway!

Glasshouse Mountains, Qld

Your best results will come if you watch the skies earlier in the afternoon. Look for high, thin clouds that stretch right across the sky. Your best chance is if there is a single layer of high cloud, NOT when there are further layers of thicker clouds underneath. In my region (South East Queensland, Australia) these clouds most often form in winter.

Great Ocean Road, Victoria

Look to the west where the sun will go down. Is there a lot of heavy cloud on the horizon? If so, it will reduce your chances A LOT. You see, for a great sunset, the sun has to light up the high cloud from underneath. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen a great sky, set myself up for a sunset photo, only to be disappointed when the sun could not get past a single big fat cloud on the horizon.

The cloud formation in this photo is spectacular, but notice the heavy cloud on the horizon. As the sun sinks, there would be little chance of the sun breaking through to produce a colourful sunset.

If you do your job, and mother nature does hers, you should find it pretty easy to predict a sunset just by watching your skies. However, there is one more useful tip I can give you. A good sunset is only as good as the foreground.

Maleny, Qld

 Like I said, everyone has seen and photographed at least one fantastic sunset sky. So to take a photo that will really impress, you need to do more than just find a good sky and point your camera at it. For a really good shot, you need to give it some kind of reference point that will set it apart from the millions of other photos out there. So look for something that stands up against the sky and produces a good silhouette. It doesn’t need to be anything dramatic…just something with a good shape that will show that you have put a little extra imagination into your work.

Maleny, Qld

 If you have been in search of your great sunset photo, I hope these tips help. As always, I invite you to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au and join my newsletter mailing list for monthly free tips on photography.

Lake Baroon, Maleny, Qld

2011 Calendars…it’s that time of year again!

I don’t usually use my blog for advertising products, but each year I like to let my regular readers know when my calendars are in stock…so please forgive this small bit of commercialism.

I am honestly very happy to share my latest calendar with the world – a little nervous and excited really. You see, in the past my calendars have been a trip down memory lane; a selection of photos from around Australia taken from my film archives.

This year, I have set myself a challenge to produce a calendar full of new images, taken exclusively around the sunshine coast and hinterland. Almost every image in the calendar was taken over the past year…some of these are the best local shots I have taken and have become a real asset to my gallery. I hope you will take a look (even if you don’t want to buy) just to check out the selection of images. You can find it here: www.naturesimage.com.au/page/21/default.asp

I have also released my Creative Calendar for another year. This calendar is sold blank so you can add your own photos…or draw, paint etc. A lot of people will do up a calendar of baby photos for the grandparents, or get the kids to draw pictures to give to mum. However, I hope most people will use it just to get some of those digital photos off their computer and actually DO SOMETHING WITH THEM!

Thanks for checking out my calendar post. I promise my next post will not be a sales pitch, I really only do this once a year. Feel free also to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au anytime.

Charge of the Light Horse – a piece of history today

As my regular readers would know, I aim to keep my photos as natural as possible. I expose my images to Photoshop only to the extent that it allows me to make the finished photo as accurate and natural as possible.

However, recently I had a special challenge and I decided to go about it a different way. But to explain the process I need to tell you the whole story.

I am vice president of my local camera club. We have a monthly competition which I like to participate in…after all, how can I expect the members to take part if I am not going to get myself involved. Recently our theme was “Photos taken at the Maleny Show” i.e. the agricultural show for our area of the Sunshine Coast.

Well, I arrived late in the evening, it was dark, misty and with light rain. Most of the show events had been cancelled, but the Maleny Light Horse brigade were putting on a show. The subject had potential, but the conditions were horrendous. So I did something I have never done before.

I set my ISO to 3200, knowing that it would produce a very high noise level in the photo. However the Light Horse commemorates a special place in our history, and this was one instance when I thought the high noise might produce the same type of grainy image that might have been shot on a battlefield early last century.

Original Light Horse Image

I was very happy with the shot. The high ISO allowed a pretty good shutter speed so the photo is fairly sharp, and the heavy fog captured something of the effect I was after. Unfortunately the fluorescent light produced some awful colours. So while the image contained most of the elements I had pictured in my mind, the result was not quite what I was after.

So then I did something else I have never done before. I photoshopped the picture more than I would ever allow for one of my nature photos.

Charge of the Light Horse

All I really did was reduce all of the colours except the red, which I actually increased just a little. The result is just what I wanted; a patriotic image that evokes a sense of history. I love this image, and I love it twice as much because in a split second, on a misty night, I had an idea that probably should never have worked; but somehow I pulled it off.

Hope you like the shot…and don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au

Mighty Macro – It’s a Spider, Man!

I continue to have fun with macro photography. I don’t think I have exactly mastered it yet, and I certainly haven’t invested in the best macro gear – but I am loving the opportunities to explore the world at a more minute level.

Most of all, macro gives me the chance to practice photography, even at times when there are no obvious photos to be had. I really specialise in landscapes, with frequent detours into wildlife photography. But the truth is, I spend more time in my gallery framing and selling photos than I ever get to spend outside taking them.

However, with macro I can just choose a moment when there are no customers around, step outside into the garden, and find a worthy subject right outside my door. I just have to look a little harder.

The amazing thing is, I am seeing things I never thought I would see apart from on a nature show on TV.

Spider-bee, spider-bee

One special moment was during the summer, I was trying to work out why these little white spiders were living inside the agapanthus flowers in the garden. The answer came when a bee flew past…this tiny white spider jumped out, caught the bee – in mid air! – immobilized it, then spent the next hour gradually sucking the life out of it.

A grim story perhaps, but an experience to remember.

Here's another one...

Hope you like the shots, unless of course spiders freak you out. After all, they are only a few millimeters across. Don’t forget to check out more of my work on my website www.naturesimage.com.au

Lake Baroon; Shooting the white heron

As an old-time film photographer, having grown up with fully manual cameras, it is taking me a while to come to grips with all the new features on a modern camera. In fact, most of the time I use my Pentax K-20D the same way I once used my old film SLR; set it to manual, check the aperture and shutter speed, then take the shot. A lot of the new features really don’t do much for me.

One feature that has come in handy once or twice is the burst mode (equivalent to an old motor-drive). I might never have thought of it myself, but one of my students at a workshop managed to capture not one, but several great shots of a bird as it took flight. It seemed like a good idea, as so often I manage to capture birds in flight with the wings in just the wrong position for a good photo.

So, after the student had gone home I decided to try it, and here are a couple of shots from the resulting sequence. Quite a pleasing result, and a technique I will definitely be trying in the future.

Taking flight

Departing the scene

These images were taken at Lake Baroon, Maleny (or Baroon Pocket Dam, depending on your point of view). Hope you like the shots…don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au

Noosa National Park; surf and sunset images

Recently I have been working on building my collection of photos of the Sunshine Coast beaches. This is tougher than it sounds; it is easy to come up with a ‘nice’ beach photo any day, but to get something special requires patience, good weather and light, and perfect timing. Now, I won’t say spending an afternoon at the beach waiting for the sun to go down is a horrible job, but it can be frustrating when there is nothing on the memory card at the end of the day.

Out for a surf

Recently I had a good afternoon at Noosa National Park. It’s a great location for photography, with little rocky outcrops at the end of sandy beaches, and the bays are shaped so you can take photos facing east, west and north, depending on where you stand.

Late in the afternoon

This was a grey sort of day, which is not usually ideal for a beach photo, but it produced a couple of cool-coloured silhouettes. Then at the end of the day, the sun came out and I finally got this lovely sunbeam image.

All in all, not a bad result for a couple of hours work. I was even approached by a beautiful young woman in a bikini to take her photo, which was another nice memory to take home…although I won’t show you that one.

Hope you like the photos. Don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au and if you like this blog, why not add yourself to my mailing list for my monthly newsletter as well.

Macro Photography – The start of a new adventure

Last November I was given for my birthday a set of macro filters to attach to the lens of my Pentax K20D. I didn’t want to spend the big dollars on a dedicated macro lens, as I expect I will probably only ever dabble in Macro Photography without ever taking it too seriously.

I hear lots of criticism of the cheaper alternatives…too soft, depth of field too narrow etc. But to me, that just seems like the nature of macro photography anyway.

For my purposes, I have been having fun. Remember, I am only dabbling…I am not entering competitions or seeking to have them published. The great joy I have found is if I don’t have an opportunity to go out in search of a great landscape, I can also just go out into the garden, look a little closer, and find a worthy subject right outside my door.

Anyway, thought I would post a couple of samples to show you what I have been up to. Hope you like them, and don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au

Lightning in Maleny – My photo of the year

My switch to digital photography in January has revived my love of photography more than I thought possible. I am still using the same skills and knowledge I have always used…but now I have the freedom to take on more challenging subjects without fear of what it might cost in film and developing. Add to that the fact that I can take a photo one day, and have it hanging on the wall in the gallery the next, so my gallery is now loaded with new images, some very different to anything I have done before.

So, for the people who have followed my progress (and apologies for not posting more often lately) I thought I would share what I consider to be my best image for 2009. It was taken in November, and is fast becoming my best-selling photo. I expect it will stay that way until I come up with something better.

First Storm of Summer, Maleny 2009

Hope you like the shot. Don’t forget to check out the website www.naturesimage.com.au and join my mailing list. That’s where I show off the best of my new photos every month. Have a great 2010 everybody. Best wishes, Andrew.

My Pentax K-20D, the story updated.

Months ago I posted a story outlining the troubles I had after purchasing my Pentax K-20D in January, and the ridiculously simple solution that took care of it all. That post has been the most-read thing I have ever written, so since there is so much interest I thought I should write a follow up.

The short version is this: the camera was having an electrical fault where it would not turn on properly, then it would not turn off either, so I was stuck in photographer’s no-mans-land. The only way to get past it was to take the battery out, put it back in and start again. Then the camera would work fine…until the next time it happened.

After replacing two camera bodies and eliminating the lens as the problem, we finally realised that the fault was in the memory card. We replaced the card and eureka! The camera works.

So, what has been the story since then? Well, the news is all good. I am loving the camera and have taken a year’s worth of amazing photos. I occasionally get a tiny glitch when I switch the camera on and it says “Memory Card Error” so I have to turn it off and back on. From what I have heard from many other photographers, that is something that happens from time to time with most DSLR cameras, so I am not considering that a big problem.

Duck on Montville Pond

Most of the posts I have written this year have featured photos taken on the Pentax K-20D. Here are a couple more to show how happy I am with the camera. I hope if you are reading this you are enjoying yours as well.

Surfer, Point Cartwright

 

Maleny Sunset

Don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au

Bee and Bottlebrush Image – The magic of ISO

People still love to bore me with questions about whether digital is better than film. Honestly, I will be glad when the ‘novelty’ of digital has worn off and people just accept that it the standard in photography as we know it today.

Unfortunately, running a gallery, people feel compelled to have the same dull question with me, 20 times a day. My answer lately is that digital is a new way of saving and storing an image, but the process of taking a photo really hasn’t changed at all. It still comes down to aperture, shutter speed, and knowing when to use a tripod.

If there is one great benefit which I have begun to appreciate lately, it is the ability to change the ISO from one photo to the next. Take this shot as my example:

In bright sunlight with the aperture wide open, the best shutter speed I could get for this subject was 1000th/sec. Even at such a fast speed, the wings on all my bee photos were blurred beyond recogntion. My ISO is usually on 200, so I reset it to 400, and took some shots at 2000th/sec. Still too slow.

Finally I set the ISO to 800, and was able to take this shot at 3000th/sec.

Bottlebrush and Bee

Imagine trying the same experiment ten years ago. It would take three rolls of film, with all the cost of developing included, to achieve the same result. You would not realise your mistake until the first roll was developed, and by then the opportunity to shoot the subject again could be lost.

So there it is; the one big change from film to digital which I have found (so far) that actually makes a real difference to my photography.

Hope you like the shot. Don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au